NC Legislature Returns Sept. 28 for Veto Override Votes on Judge Suspensions, Public Camping Bills

The Vote Republicans Are One Seat Short Of

North Carolina's House and Senate come back to Raleigh at noon on Monday, September 28, but they can't do just anything they want. Resolution 2026-6 limits them to a specific list: veto overrides, appointments, election-law and redistricting bills, a few other narrow categories^[1]. Near the top of that list are two bills Governor Josh Stein already vetoed once — one on courts, one on homelessness.

The math is what makes this session interesting. To override a veto, each chamber needs a three-fifths vote of the members who show up and vote. In the House, with all 120 members present, that's 72 votes^[8]. Republicans don't have 72 on their own. They're one seat short. So every override this week depends on which Democrats or unaffiliated members show up, and how they vote.

That single missing vote is the thread running through both bills. House Bill 377 would let the state's chief justice suspend a trial judge without pay during a misconduct investigation^[5][6]. House Bill 437 would ban unauthorized camping on public property and set up drug-free zones around homeless shelters^[7][10]. Stein vetoed both. Whether they become law now turns on attendance and a handful of crossover votes.

Two Bills, Two Very Different Vote Counts

HB 437 already has a path across party lines. It passed the House 73-40, with five Democrats and two unaffiliated members voting yes^[8]. That's well past the 72-vote threshold, assuming those crossover votes hold on Monday. House Speaker Destin Hall's office has said the chamber will move to override it^[8][11].

HB 377 is a tougher climb. It passed the House 62-45, mostly along party lines. Only one non-Republican, unaffiliated Rep. Carla Cunningham, voted for it. Every Democrat in the legislature voted no^[4]. That's 10 votes short of the 72 needed, so Republicans need either more crossovers or several Democratic absences to get there.

Both bills already cleared the Senate by comfortable enough margins — HB 377 by 26-11, HB 437 by 26-16 on a party-line vote^[4][8]. The Senate isn't the obstacle. The House is where this gets decided, and it comes down to who's in the room.

What the Judge-Suspension Fight Is Really About

HB 377 sounds narrow: give the chief justice a tool to sideline a judge under investigation before the case is resolved. But look at who holds that power and who it would apply to. North Carolina's chief justice, Paul Newby, is a Republican. Many of the state's elected trial judges are Democrats^[4]. Any change to how judges get disciplined lands squarely on that partisan fault line.

Here's how the mechanism actually works. Today, the Judicial Standards Commission investigates complaints against judges and recommends discipline to the state Supreme Court, which decides^[5][6]. HB 377 would let the chief justice suspend a judge without pay while that investigation is still open — but only after the commission first recommends it and finds the judge poses a risk of "immediate and irreparable harm"^[5][6]. Supporters describe it as something like administrative leave: a stopgap, not a final punishment, and gated by an independent body's finding first^[5][6].

Stein sees it differently. In his veto message, he said no other chief justice in the country holds this kind of suspension power over trial judges, and warned it would have "a chilling effect on judicial independence"^[2]. He drew an analogy: legislative leaders can't suspend elected legislators, and the governor can't suspend Council of State members, so the chief justice shouldn't be able to suspend elected trial judges either^[2][3]. He also noted the legislature has taken all four of the State Bar's seats on the Judicial Standards Commission for itself, which he argues shifts control over that first gatekeeping step^[3].

Democrats point to a specific case to make the risk concrete: Democratic Associate Justice Anita Earls was investigated by the commission after she spoke publicly about diversity among Supreme Court law clerks. The complaint was eventually dismissed without discipline, but critics say it shows commission probes can reach judges over things they said, not just misconduct^[9][6]. Supporters counter that the commission's screening step is exactly what prevents that kind of abuse under HB 377 — the chief justice can't act alone^[5][6].

Who Pays When the Shelters Are Full

HB 437 is a different kind of fight, but it runs on the same tension between "accountability" framing and "who bears the cost" framing. The bill bans camping and sleeping on public property and creates 100-foot drug-free zones around homeless shelters and service providers^[7][10]. It also requires cities to set up designated campsites with restrooms, water and security staff whenever shelter beds run out — and lets residents sue a local government that doesn't comply^[10][7]. The bill includes no state money to pay for any of that^[10][7].

Supporters, including Hall's office, argue this isn't really a ban at all — it's a framework that guarantees people a legal place to go once shelters fill up, while keeping parks and sidewalks from becoming permanent encampments^[10][13]. They also argue the drug-free zones protect vulnerable people seeking help from dealers operating near shelter doors^[12]. Some local officials, including in Asheville and Buncombe County, raised concerns during the Senate debate about being handed new costs and lawsuit exposure with no funding attached^[10][7][22].

Stein's veto message argued the bill "does not address the causes of homelessness" and pointed to his own push to fund drug-trafficking enforcement, behavioral health, and affordable housing instead^[10]. Faith leaders and the N.C. Coalition to End Homelessness urged lawmakers to sustain the veto, arguing that bans just move people around without housing them and push them into the criminal justice system at greater public cost^[18][19].

There's a national organization behind bills like this one. The Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank founded by tech investor Joe Lonsdale, has pushed similar camping-ban laws in more than a dozen states^[18]. Its argument is that "Housing First" policies haven't reduced street homelessness, and that pairing enforcement with treatment and sanctioned sites works better^[18]. Reporting from Mother Jones and Shelterforce notes a wrinkle worth knowing: Lonsdale's venture firm, 8VC, holds stakes in Palantir and other surveillance and security companies that could benefit from enforcement-heavy homelessness policy — a financial detail advocates cite when they question the institute's motives^[18].

The legal backdrop matters here too. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court's Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling removed a constitutional barrier that had blocked cities from punishing public camping even when no shelter beds were open^[23][18]. Since then, states have been choosing sides between enforcement models and housing-first models, and North Carolina would join states like Florida with a statewide ban if HB 437 survives Monday^[23].

The Same Bill, Two Headlines

How this story got covered split almost entirely along which side of the aisle was doing the writing — and almost none of the coverage came from outside North Carolina. Conservative outlets like Carolina Journal and The Center Square framed both vetoes around the override math and Republican leaders' vows to reverse them, using supporters' language of "accountability" and "public safety" for HB 377^[5][11]. NC Newsline, a left-leaning nonprofit newsroom, put "unauthorized camping" in scare quotes in its HB 437 headline and called the HB 377 changes "controversial"^[3][7]. An opinion piece in Queen City Nerve went further, calling Chief Justice Newby "hyper-partisan," while a center-right newsletter, Longleaf Politics, called HB 437 "a strange bill" for Stein to have vetoed at all^[15][16].

Nobody found evidence either bill actually came up for a vote or override attempt before this write-up went to press. What's clear is the structural bind underneath both fights: Republicans are exactly one vote short of what they need on their own, HB 437 already has the crossover votes to clear that bar, and HB 377 doesn't — yet^[8][4]. Monday's session will decide which of those two numbers actually moves.