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General Assembly back in session next week

Signals from Jones Street indicate the General Assembly will be back at it early next week to overturn a veto and cancel 2018 judicial primaries.

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By
Travis Fain
RALEIGH, N.C.Update: It's official. The speaker's office says to expect a recorded vote Tuesday morning on a Senate Bill 656 override. Session begins at 10 a.m. The Monday night session won't have any recorded votes, according to the speaker's office.

Signals from Jones Street indicate the General Assembly will be back at it early next week and not just to hold previously planned skeletal sessions without any real legislative action.

House Republicans are whipping votes in an effort to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of Senate Bill 656, which would cancel next year's judicial primary elections. The Senate is expected to take the issue up at 7 p.m. Monday. The House is discussing a Tuesday morning vote.

Nothing is official, and nothing has been formally announced, but a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said Friday that she expects the vetoed bill to be reconsidered during the Monday gathering. A spokesman for Speaker of the House Tim Moore said everything on their end remains "TBD," to be determined.

Members of the Republican caucus have been contacted, though, in an effort to count votes for an override attempt that Moore initially said would wait until January.

Senate Bill 656 passed both chambers with more than the three-fifths support needed to overturn a veto, but the number of votes needed to override always depends on how many legislators attend a given session. Also, two of the yes votes on the bill came from Democrats who could always switch positions to back the governor from their party.

The Senate is also slated to come into session Monday morning, but that was scheduled as a procedural meeting only. The House will go into session at 8 p.m. Monday in what may also be a procedural gathering. Tuesday's gathering is tentatively planned for 10 a.m.

In addition to canceling next year's judicial primaries, a clausethat drew Cooper's veto, the measure would cut the plurality threshold to win an election from 40 percent of the vote to 30 percent, making it easier to win crowded contests without a runoff.

The bill also would lower the number of petition signatures needed for unaffiliated and third-party candidates to make the statewide ballot from 2 percent of turnout in the last governor's election to 1.5 percent. In municipal races, it would go from 4 percent of the area's qualified voters to 1.5 percent.

Legislative offices would not be affected by the new signature rules, and neither would county offices.

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