The North Carolina legislature opened its 2025 session Wednesday afternoon, promising to make disaster recovery in the state’s western counties a top priority.
Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, was reelected as Senate leader for another term, a role he’s held since Republicans took the majority in 2011.
Rep. Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, was formally elected as the new speaker of the House. He replaces Tim Moore, who's now serving in Congress. Rep. Mitchell Setzer, R-Catawba, was elected speaker pro tem.
Hall said the damage from Helene is the biggest task for state lawmakers this year.
“The number one priority of this body starting today is doing all we can to rebuild western North Carolina,” he said in his opening floor speech. “It's going to be a long road to recovery, there’s more than $50 billion probably in damage, but this body is committed to doing everything possible to build back western North Carolina and build it back stronger than before.”
Hall told reporters after session that Helene recovery legislation could pass in the early weeks of the session, now that Congress has approved billions of federal dollars for disaster relief.
“Now that we have some of that funding, we're going to focus on how we get it out most efficiently, getting people back in their homes, rebuilding homes, and most importantly, avoiding a lot of the mistakes that we saw in eastern North Carolina, where folks are still not back in their homes eight years later.”
Both Hall and Berger said they’re hopeful that the recovery will happen more quickly than after hurricanes Matthew (2016) and Florence (2018). They’ve been critical of an agency in former Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration that is still rebuilding homes from those storms, and Gov. Josh Stein is creating a new agency to deal with Helene.
“I think there will be an effort to try to figure out exactly what that model looks like,” Berger told reporters Wednesday. “That seems to me to be the most pressing issue that we've got.”
Wednesday's session was largely ceremonial, with the election of leadership and adoption of formal rules.
Lawmakers will return to Raleigh on Jan. 29 to begin considering legislation. The GOP will be one vote short of a veto-proof majority after some losses in November’s election, but Hall said Wednesday he’s confident his party will find enough votes to override any vetoes from Stein.
“I really do think that we're going to have a working supermajority on any given issue,” Hall said. “There are a number of folks on the Democratic caucus who agree with us on certain things, and that's the business of this building, trying to reach some compromise and get the votes that you need.”
