NC lawmaker proposes bill aiming to make political discrimination in disaster relief a felony

A North Carolina Republican state lawmaker wants to make sure disaster assistance cannot be denied to people based on their political affiliation.

Rep. Kelly Hastings, a Gaston County Republican, said he started working on the legislation after reports emerged that a FEMA worker responding to Hurricane Helene in Florida had directed aid workers to pass over homes that had campaign signs for Donald Trump in their yards.

“That hit the mark. That’s what upset me,” Hastings said Tuesday during a House Judiciary committee meeting.

Hastings’ legislation, House Bill 251, would make it a felony for an aid worker to deny assistance based on someone’s political stance or political speech.

“This should never happen to someone simply for exercising the most protected speech in the United States of America, and that’s political speech,” Hastings said.

State emergency management law already requires any governments responding to disasters to not discriminate based on age, color, economic status, nationality, race, religion or sex. Those protections apply to all relief and assistance, including the distribution of supplies and processing of applications.

Violating those protections is not a felony under existing state law, as political discrimination would be.

North Carolina officials have estimated that Helene caused about $59.4 billion in damages as it passed through the western part of the state last fall. That includes $44.4 billion in direct damages to buildings or infrastructure.

The bill will be referred to the House Committee on Emergency Management and Disaster Recovery. If approved there, it would go to the House Rules Committee before being voted on by the full House and then being sent to the Senate.