Democrats in the state Senate might not have the votes to stop legislation, but their new leader wants to make sure their objections are heard loud and clear.
After a decade of being led by longtime Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, Senate Democrats decided to elect a new leader this year. Sen. Sydney Batch became Senate minority leader last month. She鈥檚 a family law attorney who represents western Wake County since she was first elected to the House in 2018, and she鈥檚 been on the Senate side since 2021.
Batch joined the 瓜神app Politics Podcast to talk about her approach to the leadership role, the potential for Democrats to impact legislation, and the upcoming budget process.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
How did your election to Senate minority leader come about? Was there a desire for change among your fellow Democrats in the caucus?
"Sen. Blue has been our leader for a long time, and has talked about retiring and moving forward, and I think oftentimes we don't always think about succession planning, and we have to be really ready for that.
"I had the advantage of being his deputy leader last cycle in the biennium. I've known Sen. Blue since I was a little girl, and he has always been a mentor. I felt like it was a time where it was a really good transition, where he's still in the building, can still mentor, and then subsequently have that smooth transition 鈥� so I was really happy that I was nominated by acclamation."
How do you think your leadership style differs from what we saw under Sen. Blue?
"I believe that we need to be more bullish with regards to some of our tactics. Just because we're in a superminority doesn't mean that we don't have the position to make our positions known.
鈥淚 told Sen. (Phil) Berger after the election, 鈥業 will work with you and be your biggest advocate for things that are going to improve North Carolina, and you won't find a bigger advocate.鈥� Then at the end of the day, we're going to fight on the battlefield for political things and come back together and actually be civil.
鈥淚 think the benefit of being a domestic attorney and a family law attorney is I deal with diametrically opposed people every single day in my law practice who are fighting over their kids and their money, and there's nothing more stressful than that, and yet we're still able to go ahead and mediate. So, you'll see us actually being much more vocal in that regard.鈥�
Given the superminority status, do you think there will be opportunities for Democrats to move the needle on certain bills this session? Are there points of optimism you see on the policy side?
鈥淵ou saw that with regards to the casino-Medicaid expansion bill last year. So we as Democrats in the House and the Senate were actually both in superminorities, and there was a deal that was cut that was 鈥楳edicaid won't pass unless we get casinos.鈥� We stood our line, and we stood in the void, and we played chicken, and we won.
鈥淭he other areas that you're going to see, which necessarily won't be on party lines, are issues with regards to medical marijuana. You're going to have issues regarding healthcare this year. That's going be contentious, and it's not going to be on party lines.鈥�
We're getting closer to budget season now, and the new revenue forecast out recently has Gov. Josh Stein warning of a fiscal cliff looming with a projected $800 million deficit starting in 2026. Do you think the projections seem more concerning this time around than some of the long-range projections we've seen in the past around the impact of tax cuts?
鈥淚f we continue to hit the markers that will decrease the taxes in North Carolina that are supposed to be stepped down or scaled back, then we are going to be at a fiscal cliff, and we're going to have to make really hard decisions, especially now that we don't know what the federal government's going to do. They've cut a ridiculous amount of money from public education.鈥�
Batch also spoke about pending legislation to reduce the cost of healthcare, a bill to restore nonpartisan judicial elections, and more. Listen to the full conversation on the 瓜神app Politics Podcast.
