NC bill banning discrimination from emergency relief passes in House

North Carolina state lawmakers have passed legislation prohibiting those rendering emergency aid from discriminating against those they assist based on political affiliation or political speech. 

H.B. 251 also adds “a provision that no applicant for any State emergency assistance in the form of grants shall be required to provide any personal demographic information unless the information is necessary to award the grant or is otherwise required by law.”

“This came about after an incident that occurred following Helene, and word was getting out that FEMA was actually discriminating against people based on their political speech,” Republican State Rep. Kelly Hastings, R-Gaston, said on the House floor Thursday, according to The Carolina Journal. “And so that’s when we decided we might want to send a clear message about discriminating against someone based on their political speech, being that political speech is under our constitutional jurisprudence – maybe the highest protected speech that we have.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came under fire last year when an agency supervisor allegedly instructed workers to avoid reaching out to homeowners with Trump signs in their yards after Hurricane Milton, which struck the U.S. about two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated areas across six states. Helene was the most deadly hurricane since Katrina.

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The bill passed the House on April 1 by a vote of 106-10 — the 10 no votes all coming from Democrats, as The Northern State reported.

The former FEMA supervisor who issued the instructions, Marn’i Washington, appeared on “Fox News @ Night” on Nov. 14 and said she was “simply executing” orders from her superiors to avoid political encounters that could be hostile. 

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“Why is this coming down on me? I am the person that jotted down the notes from my superiors and my notation in [Microsoft] Teams chat was exposed from their search capacity team,” Washington, who was fired, said at the time.

FEMA’s administrator on employee misconduct, Deanne Criswell, confirmed to Fox News Digital over the weekend that the supervisor was fired and that her actions were “reprehensible.” Another FEMA spokesperson told Fox that Washington’s actions were an “isolated incident.”

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But Washington insisted that’s not true, telling Fox News host Trace Gallagher that the orders came from someone above her.

The former FEMA employee alleged that the Florida team had already been avoiding Trump voters’ homes prior to her work there. 

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“This was the culture. They were already avoiding these homes based on community trends from hostile political encounters. It has nothing to do with the campaign sign. It just so happened to be part of the community trend,” she explained at the time.

The Biden administration said in a Jan. 22 press release that FEMA approved more than $860 million, including 507 million in assistance for individuals and communities affected and over $351.5 million for debris removal and activities to save lives, after Helene. It also deployed more than 8,500 personnel to the area.

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In February, FEMA said 153,000 families were receiving FEMA assistance in North Carolina.

Despite the agency’s efforts last year, however, many North Carolinians still living in trailers throughout the winter after losing their home in the storm expressed frustration with the government’s response to the disaster that left 107 dead in the Tar Heel State alone. 

The North Carolina bill, which amends the North Carolina Emergency Management Act, will now move on to the Senate.