The state House voted Wednesday to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fund private school vouchers, part of a spending bill that also includes a controversial immigration provision.
Wednesday's vote will send the spending bill to Gov. Roy Cooper, who's likely to veto it. He spoke out against the voucher funding before plans for this week's session were even announced.
If lawmakers override the veto when they return to Raleigh later this fall, the bill would clear a waiting list of wealthier families who didn't receive the Opportunity Scholarship vouchers this year when funding ran out. Republican lawmakers had previously removed income requirements for the program, and they say the additional money is needed to fill their promise to families seeking the vouchers.
The bill doesn't include raises for teachers that were part of an earlier House proposal. But it does include $95 million to fund enrollment growth at public schools. Democrats like Rep. Marvin Lucas of Spring Lake aren't happy with the focus on private schools.
"I'm ashamed to say that we're going to diminish our public schools for the sake of those who can afford to do what they're doing already — going to private schools," Lucas said.
Republicans also tacked on an unrelated measure that would require sheriffs to comply with federal immigration detainer orders.
Representatives of immigrant advocacy groups spoke out earlier Wednesday against that proposal at the House Rules Committee, saying they're concerned it could affect immigrants detained during a simple traffic stop.
"HB 10 is a radical departure from the current state of immigration enforcement in North Carolina," said Jasmina Nogo, an attorney with the left-leaning N.C. Justice Center. "It will force sheriff's departments across the state to enforce federal immigration laws, and it will fracture the trust that law enforcement agencies across the state have earned from immigrant families, immigrant survivors of crimes, and immigrant workers."
But House Rules Chairman Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, said concerns about the bill are overblown. "When sheriffs say, 'Well, I'm just not going to cooperate with ICE,' that doesn't solve any problem at all, either for the folks who were here illegally, or for immigration authorities or for the sheriff," he said. "Because the result of it is ICE then has to go out into those communities; and they have to go out and enforce immigration law without the controlled confines of a jail. That puts the folks who were there in that community at risk."
Also Wednesday, the House voted to override the governor's veto of a bill changing the state's building code. But it postponed an override of another recent veto.
