RALEIGH — Lumberton’s resident delegates to the state General Assembly have been give leadership roles on interim committees.
Sen. Danny Britt Jr., a Republican, has been appointed by Senate Leader Phil Berger to serve as co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee and the vice chairman of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety. Britt also has been appointed to the Joint Legislative Administrative Procedure Oversight Committee, Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations and the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee.
Rep. Charles Graham, a Democrat, has been reappointed co-chairman of the Transportation Oversight Committee by House Speaker Tim Moore. The speaker also picked Graham to fill Rep. Jeff McNeely’s unexpired term on the Justice and Public Safety committee.
Appointments to the interim committees are announced shortly after each long session ends. The 2019 long session adjourned in late November. Terms for the current committee appointments expire Jan. 15, 2021.
“I want to thank Sen. Berger for appointing me to these committees,” Britt said Tuesday. “After seeing the devastation from hurricanes first-hand in my district, I look forward to working with my colleagues to help find solutions to better address emergency management situations and hold ensure state agencies are working on behalf of the citizens of North Carolina.”
Graham also thanked Moore for the appointments, particularly to the Justice and Public Safety committee.
“As a senior member of the committee and a ranking Democrat on this committee, I’m pleased to be appointed to the committee that will receive updates from various public safety departments such as prisons, highway patrol, juvenile justice, our courts, and others,” Graham said. “These committee meetings are an important means to evaluate our justice and public safety systems statewide and to ensure the safety of our citizens. I will voice my concerns on a variety of issues going into these meetings.”
Discussion priorities will be the safety of corrections officers, training and pay, the status of statewide re-entry efforts and the treatment of juveniles in the state’s courts, he said. The treatment of juveniles gets new focus because state law setting the age at which a juvenile can be treated as an adult changed on Dec. 1.
“Since public safety in one of the largest appropriations, I’m sure we will have discussions and updates on the impact of operations without a formal budget,” Graham said.
The state’s two-year spending plan was vetoed on June 28 by Gov. Roy Cooper. The House overrode the veto on Sept. 11, but the Senate has not. The state has been operating at the spending levels set for the 2018-19 fiscal year since the 2019-20 fiscal year began July 1.
The Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee continuously examines issues related to emergency management in North Carolina in order to make ongoing recommendations to the General Assembly on ways to promote effective emergency preparedness, management, response, and recovery.
The Joint Legislative Administrative Procedure Oversight Committee reviews rules to which the Rules Review Commission has objected to determine if changes in law are needed to enable the agency to fulfill the intent of the General Assembly. The committee also reviews regulatory programs looking for overlap and looks for ways to streamline the regulatory and rules-making process.
The Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations conducts continuous evaluations and studies of the programs, policies, practices and procedures of the various departments, agencies, and institutions of state government.
The Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee is tasked with reviewing reports prepared by the N.C. Department of Transportation or any other state agency that are related to transportation, when those reports are required by any law. Among its other duties, the committee monitors the funds deposited in and expenditures from the North Carolina Highway Trust Fund, the Highway Fund, the General Fund, or any other fund when those expenditures are related in any way to transportation; examines the importance of railroads and railroad infrastructure improvements to economic development; studies issues important to the future of passenger and freight rail service in North Carolina; determines methods to expedite property disputes between railroads and private landowners; and studies all aspects of the operation, structure, management, and long-range plans of the North Carolina Railroad, a private corporation that owns and manages a 317-mile rail corridor stretching from Charlotte to the Port Terminal in Morehead City.
The Robesonian reached out to Rep. Brenden Jones, who District 46 includes part of Robeson County, for his assignments, but did not hear back from him.
