195 new bills were filed in the North Carolina Senate yesterday, the deadline for filing new bills in that chamber this session. I haven’t reviewed all the new bills – or all the bills filed before yesterday, for that matter. But a few items of interest include:
- SB 520, which would expand the state’s indecent exposure law, possibly in response to the recent incident in Charlotte that I noted here
- SB 579, which would allow the Commissioner of Agriculture to regulate concealed carry at the State Fair
- SB 589, which would amend the habitual felon laws in a way that appears to be intended to clarify that previous convictions from New Jersey, which uses the term “crime” rather than “felony” as discussed here, would count
- SB 613, the short title of which is “Prohibit Discriminatory Profiling”
- SB 619, “Grey’s Law,” which would make various changes related to impaired driving and which I surmise is named after the DOT employee struck and killed just a few days ago
- SB 641, which would expand eligibility for concealed handgun permits and limit sheriffs’ authority to investigate applicants and to impose application requirements not set forth in the statute
- SB 684, which would require a judge considering a defendant’s proposed waiver of a jury trial to ask for and consider the State’s position, and determine whether the waiver is being “tendered in good faith and is not a tactic to procure an otherwise impermissible procedural advantage”
Of course, I should not omit mention of SB 559, which would make the Linville Caverns Spider the official state spider.