RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Republican-dominated North Carolina legislature passed a supplemental spending bill Wednesday that eliminates a large waitlist for private school vouchers and also directs sheriffs to assist federal immigration agents seeking jail inmates. While Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper almost assuredly will veto the measure, it's still poised to become law later this year if GOP lawmakers remain united.
The House voted 67-43 following debate to accept the legislation worked out by Republican legislative leaders. The Senate approved the measure separately Monday during a scheduled General Assembly session this week. The House also wrapped up Wednesday a successful veto override of a separate Senate bill involving the state's building code. The bill is now law.
The spending proposal contains provisions considered by Senate and House Republicans but didn't reach Cooper's desk when the year's chief work session ended in late June because GOP leaders couldn't reach agreements on budget adjustments or other bills.
The compromise measure transfers $463.5 million more this school year and next to the Opportunity Scholarship program. The program saw a massive surge in applications for the fall because legislators in 2023 did away with income limits on families to qualify.
The measure also locates more money for Medicaid this fiscal year and to address enrollment growth in public schools and community colleges.
Without enough scholarship money planned, about 55,000 children were otherwise waitlisted, meaning the program this fall could only provide awards to repeat scholarship recipients and some new applicants with family income below certain levels. The bill would fund approved scholarships for even the highest income earners that are less than what low-income families receive per child.
Fully funding the universal voucher program was a leading priority for Republican legislators earlier this year. Dozens of parents on the waitlist rallied in July to place pressure upon legislators after they left Raleigh without a deal. The final bill says families can be retroactively reimbursed for their fall private schooling costs.
“As North Carolina continues to expand education options for families, we are ensuring that every child has the chance to thrive,” Mecklenburg County Republican Rep. Tricia Cotham, a leading voucher expansion advocate, said in a news release after the vote.
Cooper, other Democrats and allied groups opposed to the scholarships argue the expanded program will devastate public schools on which most low-income families rely, while the richest families will get payments to help their children attend private and religious schools.
“It doesn’t make sense to take resources away from students who need them the most,” Giancarlo Nolasco, a junior at a Chatham County high school, said at a Legislative Building rally before the House vote. “Instead of helping a few, we should be investing in solutions that help everyone.”
The bill also retains language that tells county sheriffs to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers that identify jail inmates believed to be in the country unlawfully and who have been charged with the most serious crimes. Those inmates would be held up to 48 hours under a judicial official’s order so ICE agents could pick them up.
Three Democrats joined all House Republicans in voting Wednesday for the bill, which now heads to Cooper. Cooper’s opposition to vouchers and his veto of two previous versions of the ICE bill in 2019 and 2022 would signal he would veto this omnibus measure containing both items. But unlike those previous years, Republicans now have narrow veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
In a statement posted to social media after the vote, Cooper didn't mention a veto but still urged people to tell legislators to vote against “this harmful expansion of school vouchers." Any override vote would come in the fall.
Republican advocates of the immigration provisions say they're necessary because a handful of sheriffs in predominantly Democratic counties are disregarding ICE detainers, threatening public safety. They have in the past cited situations where immigration agents should have been contacted about inmates in North Carolina and elsewhere who were later released and went on to commit more crimes.
“When sheriffs say, ‘Well I’m just not going to cooperate with ICE,’ that doesn’t solve any problem at all," said Rep. Destin Hall, a Caldwell County Republican who has shepherded the immigration measure for years. Forcing federal agents instead to track down detainer subjects outside jails, Hall added, "puts the folks who (are) there in that community at risk."
Opponents of the legislation argued it would unconstitutionally target North Carolina’s Hispanic population, harming families and and reducing trust in local law enforcement.
The bill "will be used to attack the undocumented community, deepening fear and division in our communities,” Mario Alfaro with El Pueblo, which advocates for Latinos in North Carolina, told lawmakers before a committee vote.
North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, speaks to reporters on the House floor at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. With a House vote earlier Wednesday, the General Assembly gave final approval to a measure that would do away with a large waitlist for private school vouchers and direct sheriffs to assist federal immigration agents seeking to take jail inmates into custody. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)
Janice Robinson with Red Wine and Blue in North Carolina, an advocacy group for suburban women, speaks at a rally on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, outside the Legislative Building in Raleigh, North Carolina. Robinson and others opposed a measure given final General Assembly approval later Wednesday that would do away with a large waitlist for private school vouchers and direct sheriffs to assist federal immigration agents seeking to take jail inmates into custody. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)
The presidential campaign is moving forward after another apparent attempt on Donald Trump 's life. Trump was safe after the incident in Florida and praised the Secret Service for protecting him but didn't shy away from blaming his opponents. The Republican nominee claimed without evidence that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ' comment that he is a threat to democracy had inspired the attempt on Sunday.
The man suspected in the incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours, according to court documents filed Monday. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.
Trump is expected to travel to Michigan while Harris will speak at a Black journalists forum in Pennsylvania.
Here is the Latest:
Voto Latino registered more people in the days immediately after President Joe Biden announced he would not be the Democratic presidential candidate than the organization registered for the entire month of July in previous presidential elections.
Chief Program and Research Officer Ameer Patel said the organization registered more than 50,000 people from July 21 until the end of the month. By comparison, the nonprofit advocacy group registered 2,252 people in July 2016 and 25,156 in July 2020.
Two of the states with the most activity were Texas and Florida, Patel said.
Issues the organization is watching include voter purges, said founder Maria Teresa Kumar, who added that dropping people from voting rolls in smaller communities could have large impacts. “This was not on our radar,” she said.
More than 6 in 10 Latino voters supported Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, and 35% supported former President Donald Trump.
However, a July poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only about 4 in 10 Latinos said they were somewhat or very optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party, and about one-quarter said the same about the Republican Party.
Vice President Kamala Harris says she was “briefed immediately after” Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and that she is grateful “he’s OK.”
In an interview recorded on Monday with a Spanish-language radio host Chiquibaby, Harris echoed her past sentiments about the attack, condemning “violence of any kind.”
“We have to have civil dialogue, and be able to talk through our differences,” Harris said. “And violence has no place.”
The interview was airing Tuesday on a show that is syndicated on 100-plus Spanish-language radio stations.
The vice president also talked about her mother, the late Shyamala Gopalan, who was born in India, being an immigrant to the U.S. She blamed Trump for helping to derail a bipartisan border security plan in Congress and detailed her previously announced plans to use tax incentives to encourage first-time home purchases and combat grocery “price gouging” to help tame inflation.
Hours after an apparent attempt on Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, Elon Musk took to his social platform X to post a thinking emoji and a comment that “no one is even trying to assassinate” the Democratic president and vice president.
Amid anti-Muslim riots in the U.K., which were ginned up by a false rumor, Musk declared that “civil war is inevitable” in the country.
And when an anonymous X user distorted data to claim a surge in sketchy voter registrations in three U.S. states, Musk amplified the false post and called it “extremely concerning.”
All three posts sparked quick backlash from public officials who called Musk’s words irresponsible and misleading. As his words amass millions of views and thousands of shares, they also illustrate the ability of one of the world’s most influential people to spread fear, hate and misinformation during fraught political moments around the world.
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The election director in Cobb County, an Atlanta suburb where votes will be fiercely contested in this year’s presidential race, recently organized a five-hour training session. The focus wasn’t solely on the nuts and bolts of running this year’s election. Instead, it brought together election staff and law enforcement to strategize on how to keep workers safe and the process of voting and ballot-counting secure.
Having a local sheriff’s deputy at early voting locations and panic buttons that connect poll managers to a local 911 dispatcher are among the added security steps the office is taking this year.
Tate Fall, Cobb County’s election director, said she was motivated to act after hearing one of her poll workers describe being confronted during the state’s presidential primary in March by an agitated voter who the worker noticed was carrying a gun. The situation ended peacefully, but the poll worker was shaken.
▶ Read more about what officials are doing across the country
Florida law enforcement will launch a state-level criminal probe of the apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.
DeSantis told reporters that the “suspect is believed to (backslash)have committed state law violations.” DeSantis’ announcement comes a day after Ryan Routh was charged with federal firearms crimes.
Routh did not fire any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and sped away after an agent who spotted him shot in his direction, officials said. He was arrested in a neighboring county.
Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are kicking off a week of action to encourage young voters in battleground states to sign up to vote in the Nov. 5 election.
Walz has events on Tuesday in Macon, Georgia, and Atlanta, followed by a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, while his wife, Gwen, appears in Las Vegas.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and actor Jane Fonda are among a group of high-profile Harris supporters who are set to participate in the registration drive.
More than 130 voter registration events will be held on college campuses — at basketball tournaments, football games and more — in the handful of states where Harris and Walz and the Republican presidential ticket of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, are focusing their campaigns, the Harris-Walz campaign said.
The campaign will also have a presence at historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, including setting up kiosks to assist students with registration.
As he participated in an event on his X social media platform, Trump gave a shoutout to Elon Musk, saying the tech billionaire “endorsed me for president so strongly.”
Trump also called Musk his “friend,” commending his efforts on space travel in particular.
Musk deleted a post on X in which he said “no one is even trying to assassinate” Biden and Harris in the wake of the apparent assassination attempt on Trump.
Early Monday, after taking down the post about the apparent Trump assassination, Musk wrote on the platform: “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”
Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on the social media site he bought for $44 billion in 2022, has increasingly embraced conservative ideologies in recent years and endorsed Trump for president.
Trump says the apparent attempt on his life was a “much better result” than when he was shot in July because no others were wounded or killed.
“That was some crazy day, and yesterday you had another one with a different result, actually much better result,” Trump said.
The host noted that some of Trump’s sons were in the room for the interview.
He and his friends playing golf “heard shots, being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”
Trump said they got into carts “and we moved along pretty good.”
“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said, of not being able to finish the round of golf.
Trump said an agent had seen a gun barrel “and started shooting in the bushes ... and ran toward the target.”
Trump also noted that a civilian woman in the area drove her vehicle to the back of Routh’s vehicle and took pictures of the license plate, which she then gave to authorities, who were able to track the suspect down.
Trump is participating in his first speaking appearance since the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday.
The former president is taking part in an X Space about the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform controlled by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric.
From his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump commended the Secret Service for doing an “excellent job.”
Farokh, the event’s host, began by applauding Trump for not canceling his appearance.
Law enforcement officials work at the scene of the Trump International Golf Club in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Law enforcement officials work at the scene at the Trump International Golf Club in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Law enforcement officials work at the scene of the Trump International Golf Club in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Law enforcement officials work at the scene of the Trump International Golf Club in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass speaks during a news conference in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis walks from the podium after a news conference in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks and answers questions at a news conference Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis arrives for a news conference in the aftermath of the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Jestin Nevarez, of Lake Worth, Fla., adjusts flags flying from his car as he shows support for Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump outside of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, a day after an apparent assassination attempt, in Palm Beach, Fla., Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Ryan Wesley Routh takes part in a rally in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
In this image taken from police body camera video and released by the Martin County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement officers prepare to arrest Ryan Routh, the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
In this imaged released by the Martin County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement officers arrest Ryan Routh, the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
In this imaged released by the Martin County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement officers arrest Ryan Routh, the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
A Coast Guard boat patrols the Lake Worth Lagoon in front of the Mar-a-Lago estate of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, one day after an apparent assassination attempt, in Palm Beach, Fla., Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Joe Biden, left, holds up the arm of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, while on stage at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at the Las Vegas Police Protective Association during a campaign stop, Saturday, Sept.14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Election 2024 Latest: Trump and Harris resume campaigning after apparent assassination attempt
Election 2024 Latest: Trump and Harris resume campaigning after apparent assassination attempt
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at Harry Reid International Airport to board a plane after a campaign trip, Saturday, Sept.14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
