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NC Chamber Releases Annual How They Voted Legislative Scorecard

The NC Chamber is pleased to release the 2021 edition of our How They Voted report. This annual voting record identifies the key legislation we supported or opposed during the 2021 session of the NC General Assembly and grades the performance of state legislators when given the chance to stand up for job creators on these priorities.

Access the Report

In many ways, the 2021 session of the General Assembly continued the trend of bipartisanship established in 2020, during the most challenging days of the pandemic. There were certainly disagreements and divides on impactful policy, as there always are and always will be in any well-functioning legislative body. This session, however, when it came to the biggest priorities – like securing the first state budget passed in North Carolina since 2017 – members of the General Assembly from the House and Senate and from both sides of the political aisle stepped up to provide North Carolinians with a bipartisan path forward through lingering uncertainty.

Despite this persistent uncertainty – which lingers not just in North Carolina, but globally – it has been a productive session for the NC Chamber and for job creators across our communities.

Together, we’ve protected key assessment tools to guide the progress of our future workforce and given businesses the certainty to operate more effectively in an increasingly digital environment. We’ve secured landmark energy legislation that will grow our economy and ensured that pro-jobs priorities like franchise tax reform advanced in the state budget. And through the steady efforts of the NC Chamber’s Destination 2030 Coalition, we’ve laid the groundwork for bipartisan action to modernize North Carolina’s transportation infrastructure in upcoming sessions.

By the numbers, the 2021 edition of How They Voted included:

  • 112 Jobs Champions
  • 15 Pro-Business Bills scored, 12 of which became law
  • 1 Anti-Business Bill scored which did not become law (no bills opposed by the Chamber this session passed into law – in fact, most of these were not scored in How They Voted due to lacking any recorded votes, though you will find summaries for them in the report)

These 112 Jobs Champions include all North Carolina legislators who scored 80 percent or better on pro-business priorities during this year’s legislative session, except for those few who did not participate in at least 50 percent of their chamber’s recorded votes. It should be noted that recognition as a Jobs Champion does not equate to an endorsement of future candidacy by the NC Chamber, the NC Chamber PAC, or any other Chamber-affiliated entity.

We applaud each of these legislators for stepping up when it mattered most this session to support job creators like you and nurture growth and success for communities and families across our state. As we work with these elected leaders to continue elevating our competitive business climate in the year ahead, we are thankful to our valued members and our many partners in pro-growth advocacy for putting your trust in the NC Chamber as the voice for North Carolina’s broad-based business community.