Under the Dome Updates: Lawmakers consider tougher penalties to address opioid epidemic

With Under the Dome Updates, The News & Observer brings you the latest legislative news from North Carolina as it develops.

Tuesday is a busy day at the General Assembly, with lawmakers holding press conferences on the opioid epidemic and gun violence, and committees meeting to consider important bills.

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5:20 p.m.: Medicaid expansion details are out

House and Senate Republicans’ Medicaid expansion deal is now in bill form. You can read it here.

The bill sailed through its first committee hearing shortly after being unveiled.

“We’ve fought over it. We’ve discussed it. We’ve cussed it,” Rep. Donny Lambeth told fellow lawmakers. “But it is the right thing to do today. And I appreciate this committee, taking it and running with it.”

Some policy changes in the bill would become law when it is passed, but expansion itself would be tied to the passage of the state budget.

3:30 p.m.: Different gun proposals from both parties

Differences between Democrats and Republicans persist on what steps the state should take to protect Second Amendment rights and keep communities safe from gun violence.

On Tuesday, Democrats from both the House and Senate announced the Gun Violence Prevention Act, a package of gun safety measures that, among other things, would ban bump stocks, allow law enforcement to destroy seized guns, and prevent anyone under 21 from purchasing semiautomatic weapons.

Democrats also introduced a bill that would enact a so-called red flag law in North Carolina, a measure that Durham Rep. Marcia Morey has been calling on the General Assembly to pass for several years now.

During a press conference, Democrats mentioned the October mass shooting in Hedingham that left five people dead.

Rob Steele, whose fiancée Mary Marshall was killed in the shooting, said he supported implementing a red flag law in the state to keep guns out of the hands of people who may pose a threat to themselves or others.

He recalled being allowed back into his house hours after the shooting, and said one of the first things he did was go upstairs and unload the gun in his safe, and hand it over to Dr. Lindsay Mumma, the founder of the chiropractic and rehabilitation center where Marshall worked.

“I said, please lock this up in your safe, until you and I are both confident I’m okay to have it back,” Steele said. “I red flagged myself, because I was smart enough to know that I was not going to be okay.”

Republicans, meanwhile, advanced their own firearm legislation on Tuesday.

House Bill 101, named The Firearms Liberty Act, contains several measures, including a repeal of the state’s permit law for buying handguns, and a bill allowing people attending religious services at places of worship that also serve as schools, or have attached schools, to carry concealed guns for their protection.

Both of those measures have already been approved by the House and Senate either as standalone bills or as parts of a package of gun rights and safety bills.

While Republicans want to do away with the permit system entirely, Democrats proposed on Tuesday expanding it to also apply to long guns.

Morey said Democrats haven’t given up on trying to get their legislation heard by committees and passed by the legislature. Morey said she’s spoken to House Speaker Tim Moore and other Republican lawmakers to understand their concerns, and make some adjustments to the proposed red flag law to “improve the bill” and “make it more palatable.”

“These other bills are total common sense,” Morey said. “We aren’t going to move backwards.”

12 p.m.: Mother who lost sons speaks about epidemic

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 189, the Republican bill that aims to help law enforcement clamp down on drug dealers contributing to the opioid epidemic.

SB 189 would increase fines for trafficking certain opioids like heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil, expand the scope of the state’s “death by distribution” law to hold people accountable for distributing drugs, and expand the state’s “Good Samaritan” law to encourage people to call 911 if someone around them has an overdose.

Critics of past bills increasing drug penalties have raised concerns that they could make people less likely to call 911 to report an overdose because of fear of consequences.

To encourage people to call 911, GOP lawmakers said they were adding fentanyl to the list of substances for which state law currently provides limited immunity, if someone is in possession of less than a gram of the drug and calls authorities to report an overdose.

“We want people to be encouraged to call 911 no matter what the drug is that the person is overdosing from,” said Sen. Danny Britt, a Robeson County Republican and primary sponsor of the bill.

Leslie Maynor Locklear, a longtime middle-school math teacher from Pembroke, spoke during Tuesday’s committee meeting and an earlier press conference about the devastating impact opioids had on her family.

Over the course of nine months last year, Locklear told lawmakers, she lost both of her sons: Matthew, who died from a fentanyl overdose, and Ryan, who had struggled with addiction in the past.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, your status, what family you come from, your income level, or where you live, or how much you are loved,” Locklear said. “Addiction can take over and control anyone’s life. Addiction is a disease, and it affects everyone in your family.”

Locklear said that while she doesn’t have the answers on how to stop the epidemic, she knows “that we must try and keep trying.”

11 a.m.: GOP senators discuss fentanyl deaths

Families who have lost children to fentanyl overdoses, and sheriffs and police chiefs from across the state, joined a group of GOP senators at a news conference Tuesday in support of legislation that would increase penalties for fentanyl and heroin trafficking.

Senate Bill 189, which was introduced last week, would increase fines and punishments for people who traffic in heroin, fentanyl and other deadly opioids, and people who violate the state’s law criminalizing “death by distribution.”

The bill will help law enforcement officers and prosecutors crack down on drug dealers, senators said.

Ernie Lee, the district attorney for Duplin, Jones, Onslow and Sampson counties, said he strongly supported the bill, and said it would send “a clear message” that the proliferation of opioids won’t be tolerated in the state.