Rep. John Bell elected as N.C. House Republican majority leader
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 22, 2016 6:46 AM
Rep. John Bell
State Rep. John Bell of Goldsboro Monday was elected by acclamation to a two-year term as state House Republican majority leader.
Bell, who had been completing the unexpired term of former Rep. Mike Hager, was elected to a full term during the House Republican caucus in Raleigh.
Bell had previously served as House majority whip.
The majority leader leads the direction of the caucus and represents the entire Republican caucus across the state.
Bell's duties will include working with caucus members, to call caucuses to keep members informed of what is going on if anything were to come up or if the governor calls the legislature back into session.
Bell said he would also represent the Republican caucus whether it was speaking at an event or traveling across the state helping members.
There will be no swearing-in ceremony, said Bell who won his third term to the House in the Nov. 8 general election.
"When they elected me they said go ahead and get to work," Bell said. "It is quite an honor. We have a great leadership team in place."
Bell said he is putting a staff together including a communications director and policy person.
"Then I get to work and start laying out the agenda for the caucus," Bell said. "I have already started on what the caucus wants to do and where it wants to go -- get an idea of what priorities are important and what they want to accomplish as individual members in the long session.
"Then we compile those together, put working groups together. Those working groups make recommendations to the full caucus on what exactly our agenda will be."
That agenda will be what people would think it to be such as economic development, he said. It also includes education, transportation and infrastructure, Bell said.
"How do we continue improving what we have done as far as economic development?" Bell said. "We want to maintain (being) the second-best place in the country to do business.
"We'd like to be No. 1, so what do we do create the climate to where jobs and companies will move here and expand here?"
There have not been any discussions concerning the governor's office, Bell said.
Republican Gov. Pat McCrory currently trails Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Roy Cooper, by about 6,500 votes in the Nov. 8 general election.
"We will not have discussions on that until it is time to have discussions on that," he said.
Legislators are waiting to see what happens, he said.
Bell said he is aware of rumors that McCrory wants to expand the state Supreme Court.
It is a move opponents have called an attempt to stack the court in favor of Republicans and in doing so circumvent the vote of the people.
"We have not had a caucus discussion on that at all," Bell said. "Not saying that we won't, but at this point in time we have not had any of those discussions."
Bell said legislators could still be called into special session in early December to address Hurricane Matthew relief efforts.
"The problem is we are still getting damage assessments in from Matthew," he said. "Now we have the forest fires in the western part of the state.
"So we are trying to get the damage assessment there. We are still compiling this information. The governor has said that he would like to call us into special session, but we have not received any dates at this time. But if the governor does call us in, we will be ready to move."
Bell, along with the other winners in the Nov. 8 election, will be sworn into office on Jan. 11, opening day for the new session.
Bell currently serves as chairman of the Regulatory Reform Committee and of the Select Committee on Wildlife Resources.
Bell is a member of the Homeland Security Committee; Military and Veterans Affairs Committee; Agriculture Committee; Banking Committee; Commerce and Job Development Committee; Finance Committee; Judiciary III Committee; Public Utilities Committee; and Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House Committee.
He serves as a member of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Information Technology and the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on the North Carolina State Lottery.
He works in business development for North Carolina Community Federal Credit Union in Goldsboro, where he lives with his wife Kelli Gurley Bell and their daughter Averi Bell.