2025 Legislative "Crossover" Report
May 8th was the crossover deadline in the North Carolina General Assembly. By that date, nearly 1800 bills had been introduced in the House or Senate. Although there are exceptions, bills must have passed out of one of the two legislative chambers and “crossed over” to the other chamber to remain alive for consideration. The largest exception to the crossover deadline are bills involving taxes or the budget, and there are always work-arounds to include additional issues by replacing or adding to an eligible bill or putting a matter into the budget.
We tracked hundreds of the bills that were introduced and worked in one way or another on dozens. This brief review is limited to some of the more important labor and employment bills. This report does not cover important non-labor and employment bills, such as the ones taking away the authority from the Governor to appoint the Board of Elections or prohibiting the state Attorney General from challenging Presidential executive orders. If you are interested in any non-labor bills, contact us.
North Carolina is a purple state. In the twelve statewide races in 2024, Democrats won 6 (Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, two council of state seats, and Supreme Court) and Republicans won 6 (President, five council of state seats). One would think that the legislature would also be close to 50/50. But because of severe gerrymandering - the manipulation of electoral boundaries to favor one party - the Republicans hold a 30-20 edge in the Senate and a 71-49 edge in the House. The result is that many of the bills that we and the working people of the state support never even reach the floor or are discussed in committee and some bills we oppose are extremely difficult to stop.
This report mentions first some of the important bills that were not even given consideration, then some of the good bills that made the deadline, and, finally, two troublesome bills that passed the deadline.
Read our Legislative "Crossover" Report on the 2025-2026 Legislative Session (PDF):