Summary — HB 481: General Statutes Commission Technical Corrections 2025, Part 2
Status: Introduced (2025 session) — Committee activity March–April 2025 (House); ongoing legislative process.
Purpose and intent
HB 481 is a General Statutes Commission technical corrections bill. Its purpose is to make non‑substantive, editorial, and drafting corrections across the North Carolina General Statutes and session laws in order to (1) modernize terminology, (2) standardize capitalization and phrasing, (3) remove duplicative or inconsistent language, and (4) correct grammatical and cross‑reference errors identified by the General Statutes Commission and the Revisor of Statutes. The bill is intended to improve clarity and uniformity of statutory text rather than to change policy.
Key provisions and changes
Section 1 authorizes the Revisor of Statutes to implement textual changes consistent with drafting conventions. Principal directed edits include:
- Replace “e‑mail”, “electronic mail”, or “electronic mailing” with “email” (and plural forms) in specified statutes (e.g., G.S. 1‑75.4, 1‑507.34, 1‑539.2A, portions of civil procedure rules).
- In G.S. 143‑293, change “registered, certified, or electronic mail” to “registered mail, certified mail, or email.”
- Make “Internet” lowercase (“internet”) in certain statutes (subject to specified exceptions).
- Capitalize the phrase “Internet Protocol” where used as a proper name (G.S. 105‑164.3, 130A‑480, 143B‑1400).
- Replace variants of “internet web site/website/web site” with the uniform term “website.”
- Replace “rule making” or “rule‑making” with the single word “rulemaking.”
- Permit the Revisor to delete duplicative language resulting from changes and to adjust articles (“an”/“a”) for grammatical conformity.
Section 2 rewrites G.S. 14‑288.9 (assault on emergency personnel) to clean up wording and formatting — clarifying the geographic/situational triggers (declared emergency or immediate vicinity of a riot) and standardizing the definition of “emergency personnel” and the felony classifications for offenses.
Section 3 revises G.S. 15A‑145.5 (expunction of certain misdemeanors and felonies) to correct subsection structure, clarify definitions and waiting periods, and standardize required petition contents (e.g., affidavits, authorizations for criminal history checks). The edits reorganize and clarify statutory text rather than altering the substantive eligibility criteria as written.
Who or what is affected
- Primary effects are on statutory text and legal drafting; the changes apply statewide across many statutes.
- Affected parties in practice include courts, prosecutors, defense counsel, state agencies, local governments, and members of the public who rely on statutory language.
- No direct programmatic or budgetary impacts are expected; changes are editorial in nature.
Fiscal and policy impact
- The bill is technical and procedural; it is not expected to create new costs or revenue impacts. No fiscal note indicating material fiscal effects accompanies the core technical corrections.
- Because most edits are stylistic, the bill is not intended to change substantive law. However, rewording in statutes (for example in the assault and expunction provisions) could require courts and practitioners to interpret the revised text; the intent is clarity, not policy change.
Procedural / timeline notes
- Filed and introduced in the 2025 legislative session. Committee activity occurred in late March–early April 2025 (committee substitute filed 4/1/2025).
- The Revisor of Statutes is authorized to implement the specified textual changes across the statutes listed and others as necessary to conform with the bill’s direction.
- As a technical corrections measure, HB 481 is one in a series (Part 2) of General Statutes Commission updates for 2025.
If you want, I can:
- Produce a side‑by‑side showing the current vs. proposed text for G.S. 14‑288.9 or G.S. 15A‑145.5, or
- Highlight every statute the bill explicitly mentions and explain the practical effect of each change.
