NC Politics in the News

Tim Moore has spent almost all his life in Kings Mountain, an old textile town more than 150 miles southwest of Raleigh with perhaps more in common with South Carolina than North Carolina.

 

North Carolina lawmakers will return to the state capital later in January with a lengthy agenda, including taking another crack at Medicaid reform, considering a $1 billion highway bond, and tackling what recent projections reveal to be a $190 million revenue shortfall.

 

After a tumultuous year in state and local politics – the most expensive U.S. Senate race in history, the mud slinging of a state Senate race in Cumberland County and North Carolina Democrats’ noisy but mostly failed effort to whittle down the Republican Party’s control of the state – 2015 promises to be quieter.

 

As the state heads into 2015, many of the officials leading the state will be the same, but a new speaker of the house is set to be elected. Republicans have said that person will be Tim Moore of Cleveland County. He says Medicaid, from re-organization to cost efficiencies, will be at top priority in 2015.

 

By Tuesday, North Carolina will have two senators, each from the same party and each members of the party in control of the Senate, as lawmakers return to Capitol Hill and those elected in November take the oath of office.

 

North Carolina’s newly heightened profile was on display in 2014, when a lengthy parade of presidential hopefuls visited the state during the U.S. Senate campaign.

 

Three primaries – including two in not-so-far-off 2016 – will set the tone for the new year in North Carolina politics.

 

The top judge on North Carolina’s highest court is taking his oath of office for a new eight-year term.

If you need hard proof that North Carolina is in the Sun Belt, take a look at numbers released this year by the solar energy industry’s trade association: North Carolina ranks No. 3 in the United States for solar power capacity installed in 2013.

 

New coal ash regulations issued by the Obama administration last month are not expected to greatly impact North Carolina, where the state law passed in the wake of February’s Dan River spill generally exceeds the federal requirements.

 

North Carolina lawmakers are allowed to raise money for political nonprofits that raise money to lobby or elect members to the legislature, according to a recent legislative ethics opinion.

 

A year after a Wilmington doctor filed a lawsuit, the state still owes his practice more than $100,000 in unpaid or underpaid Medicaid and Medicare services, he says.

 

About 110,000 North Carolinians bought new health insurance plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange during the first month of 2015 enrollment, according to numbers released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

 

It’s been five years since North Carolina banned smoking in restaurants and bars.

 

When lawmakers return to Raleigh later this month, they will likely be asked to create a Cabinet-level information technology department to better control state computer projects, said Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln.

 

Beginning New Year’s Day, drivers in North Carolina will pay a higher gas tax at the pump.