About This Project

Misled tracks NC General Assembly bills whose official titles don't match what's actually inside. Every bill here was passed by the legislature. Every claim is sourced to ncleg.gov, the state's own records.

It started with one bill: the “Power Bill Reduction Act.” The name sounded great. Who wouldn't want lower power bills? But when I read the actual text, I found the opposite: a bill that lets utilities charge customers for power plant construction before plants are even built. NC State University researchers estimate up to $23 billion in additional costs for ratepayers through 2050. The governor vetoed it. The legislature's supermajority overrode the veto anyway.

That made me wonder how many other bills are hiding behind names that sound good but do the opposite. So I pulled every bill with a roll call vote from the last two legislative sessions and compared the titles to what the bills actually do, using the legislature's own nonpartisan staff summaries as the source of truth.

What I found was more complicated than I expected. Some titles are flat-out deceptive. Others put a friendly spin on something controversial. Some are just leftovers: the bill's content got replaced in committee, but the old title stuck. And some bills had completely unrelated provisions tucked away inside.

Not every mismatch is intentional. But the name alone isn't enough. This site exists to help you see what's actually inside.

All bills with roll call votes in the 2023-2024 and 2025-2026 sessions are screened. Each bill's official title is compared to the nonpartisan staff summary written by the NCGA's own analysts.

This site focuses on bills whose titles are intentionally misleading: names that were chosen to make voters think a bill does something it doesn't. A bill called the “Power Bill Reduction Act” that raises your rates. A bill called “No Partisan Advantage in Elections” that concentrates partisan power. These are the bills that make the cut.

Not every title mismatch is deceptive. Sometimes a bill's content gets replaced in committee and the old title sticks. Sometimes the title is just vague or euphemistic. I screened for all of these, but this site prioritizes the ones where the name was clearly chosen to mislead.

Some bills carry a Stowaway label. These are bills where unrelated provisions were hidden inside legislation that was supposed to be about something else entirely.

Picture a hurricane relief bill that also quietly rewrites election law, or a routine budget bill that changes environmental regulations on the side. The main bill may be perfectly legitimate, but something controversial got tucked inside because it would have had a harder time passing on its own.

A bill can have an accurate title and still have stowaways. Both are ways that what's really happening gets buried.

North Carolina's governor can veto bills, but the legislature can override any veto with a 3/5 supermajority: 30 of 50 votes in the Senate, 72 of 120 in the House. The current legislature has those numbers in both chambers, which means a veto can be overridden without a single vote from the other party.

That's why misleadingly named bills become law even when the governor says no.

Andy Bowline, candidate for NC Senate District 31. This is part of a broader effort to make North Carolina's legislative process easier to follow for regular people.

The data covers all NC legislators, not just District 31. If you're a voter, journalist, or candidate anywhere in NC, this is for you.

andycantwin.com →

All legislative data comes from ncleg.gov. Bill summaries are written by nonpartisan NCGA staff, not this project. Vote records are official roll call transcripts. News sources are linked where available.

All data comes from public government records. If you want to use it for your own civic projects, go ahead.