News-Record.com

It's 8:02 p.m. as I write this and the honorables are still going at it, after starting their sessions at 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. this afternoon. They're moving a lot of bills but for those of your holding your breath on the execution moratorium, you've gotten a reprieve.

House Speaker Jim Black has pulled it back from consideration, after members decided it didn't need to meet Thursday's crossover deadline.

Here's what our friends at the Associated Press wrote about it:

An effort to raise the state's minimum wage seemed to have more lives than any respectable cat might want Wednesday. But despite second chances galore, Rep. Alma Adams' bill couldn't clear a final legislative roadblock.

(Update: Here's the story from today's Greensboro edition of the paper. If you got the Rockingham version of the paper, this story wasn't there. If you got the High Point edition, you got an interim version of the story while the wage bill was still in the throws of living and dying.)

The bill would have raised the state minimum wage to $6.15 an hour, a $1 higher than the current rate. (North Carolina's minimum wage is pegged to the federal minimum, $5.15 an hour.)

The bill survived an unfavorable vote by the House Commerce Committee and some cleaver parliamentary maneuvers on the House floor, either of which would have avoided a recorded vote by the House's members.

"They didn't want a vote, they didn't want it to be on the record," Adams said after the House's marathon session ended after midnight. "The people who voted against this ought to be ashamed."

The House stayed in session until after midnight Wednesday evening to complete bills in advance of the crossover deadline. The Senate didn't show quite as much fortitude, cutting out an hour or two earlier. Still, members of both chambers were a bit bleary-eyed this morning.

Both chambers managed to adjourn before noon today (Thursday) and a majority of the honorables lit out for home soon afterward.

For those who haven't been watching (or reading) the play-by-play:

The governor's crime commission is passing along money from the U.S. Justice Department to a bunch of state and local agencies.

"This year, the Commission put more money into domestic violence programs than ever before. More than half of the funds will be used for programs to assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse," Gov. Mike Easley is quoted as saying in the news release that came along with the announcement.

More from that release:

This year's federal allocation will be disbursed among more than 300 local and state agencies. More than $5.3 million will go to the state's juvenile justice system. Another $4.3 million will go to drug control programs, and $2.4 million toward law enforcement communications and technology.

Other grants will provide pro bono legal services for domestic violence victims; support to the Statewide Automated Victim Assistance and Notification system, which notifies crime victims of the court or prison status of their offenders; and to the Victim's Compensation Services Division to help victims apply for compensation funds.

The Governor's Crime Commission, a division of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, administers the federal grants to provide seed money to establish new programs. Once the new programs are in place, local resources are expected to maintain them.

Congress appropriates funds to the U.S. Department of Justice for distribution to the states in four categories: Drug Control and System Improvement, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Victim of Crime Act, and Violence Against Women Act programs.

So what's in it for you? Depends on where you live.

Click here for a PDF file that contains a county-by-county breakdown of the funding.

Good morning. Neither the House nor the Senate have very full agendas tonight. As for me, I'm spending the day working on something that won't show up in print for a while.

My six or seven loyal readers here at the blog will know most of what's in this story, which ran over the weekend, but in case you need to catch up on last week there it is.

So what's on your mind this Monday morning? Is there anything you've heard about and want more on? Is there anything you've not seen in the paper that you think we ought to be paying more attention to?

I'm about to clear out of the office, but before I jet here are a couple of things that are of interest:

And just because a lot of state tax money went into it, the High Point furniture market folks are pretty darned excited about their new transportation terminal. Look, they even sent a picture of where the thing will be... ...once they build it.

Of those three, the release on the immigrant tuition is the most significant. There was a huge row when that bill was proposed, with resistance mainly coming from folks who said that those who enter the country illegally should not be rewarded for doing so. The other side of the argument said that children were being unjustly punished for the sins of their parents. Don't be surprised to see the issue come up again.

I got busy with this story yesterday (Tuesday) on the tax package passed by the House Finance Committee. (The full House will take up the measure today - Wednesday.)

The important bit about that bill is it provides for a continuing resolution, which keeps the government running while the legislature haggles.

No one can predict the future, but lots of folks were skeptical of the line that the CR was just there in case things didn't get done. Lobbyists, legislative staffers and even some of the honorables took the introduction of a CR as a sign that it could be long hot summer here at the legislature.

But as a result of covering that story (and not having a lot of extra room in today's paper) an other story I was working on got displaced.

It seems the Republicans are unhappy their legislative agenda isn't getting heard. Particularly, last week's crossover deadline for bills that don't spend or generate money passed without some key GOP-backed items getting so much as a committee hearing.

The GOP honorables even brought newly re-confirmed state GOP chairman Ferrell Blount to the Legislative Building to reinforce that message.

But don't think nothing is getting done by the GOP representatives and senators.

I'm catching up on my e-mail this afternoon. From the governor's office, here are a few appointments of Triad folks to statewide boards.

Members of the House appropriations committee will be busy today looking at the first public drafts of that body's budget. (Yeah, yeah, the transportation subcommittee met yesterday. If you drive I-95, they're looking at tolls for that road again.)

This is the part where the honorables try to figure out how to spend the money that they agreed to raise earlier this week. The House gave final approval to a tax package Thursday, which now goes to the Senate.

In case you didn't see it in the paper, House Speaker Jim Black has promised to resurrect the proposal to hike the minimum wage. If you remember, that died during the crossover rush. But nothing the leaders in the House really like is ever dead, and apparently the "Living Wage Act" will, um, live...if not this summer then in next year's short session. Update: Find that story here.

Oh, and I spent some time at a party Thursday. All I can add is that the shrimp looked marvelous, although it's hard to eat and take notes at the same time so I can't say for sure.

I'll check back in later this afternoon.

The House Appropriations subcommittees rolled out their pieces of the budgets today Friday, except for the Transportation Committee which did its thing Thursday.

There will be more in the paper over the weekend (Saturday probably), but Guilford County seems to have made out okay.

Like in the Senate budget, House budget writers gave the market $1.2 million to help with transportation needs. Mainly, this is to facilitate folks getting to and from the showrooms in downtown High Point back to where ever they're staying.

The Senate budget included another $1 million for marketing that was pretty specifically set aside for the market as well. The idea was that High Point needed help selling itself to potential visitors, particularly with the threat of Las Vegas on the rise.

The House version of that language still provides $1 million but now the language reads: "Provide funds to promote North Carolina industries, including the furniture industry."

Yeah, furniture is still mentioned. But that language gives the Dept. of Commerce pretty broad discretion on how to spend that money. Local reps said they were too unhappy with the language. They also note that the budget is a long way from passage.

That's true enough.

We're in about the third quarter of the political football game known as the state budget.

From today's paper: this story talks about items specific to Guilford County.

As you'll read, the most important difference between the House and Senate budget from High Point's perspective is some tinkering with funding for the furniture market. The Senate set aside $1 million for marketing the semi-annual market. The House changed that money to be for marketing all state industries, including the furniture industry.

For a broader perspective, our print edition turned to our friends at the Associated Press. Here's there story on Friday's budget release (after the jump):

Wednesday the good folks down at the legislature could be excused for being a bit star struck.

First they get Frank Capra Jr. telling the Senate Finance Committee why incentives for fill makers are a good thing.

The same day, Miss USA 2005, Charlotte Native Chelsea Cooley, is scheduled to meet with both houses, according to our friends at AP.

...but no one reports it, was it really spent?

The nonpartisan group Democracy North Carolina has studied the disclosure reports that folks who lobby the legislature are supposed to make. They found that a lot of those reports are missing.

From the Democracy North Carolina press release:

"The NC Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association and the Christian Action League often oppose one another when they lobby lawmakers in Raleigh. But the two groups have one thing in common: The Secretary of State's office has no record that either group submitted any of the required reports listing payments to their lobbyists for 2003 and 2004.

The two organizations are not alone, according to an in-depth analysis by Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Carrboro. Focusing only on the expense reports due twice a year from clients or 'principals,' rather than from their lobbyists, the analysis found that 341 of the nearly 2,700 reports required for 2003-2004 are missing. At least one report is missing for 201 of the 717 groups and businesses with a registered lobbyist in that period."

Other facts from the report:

No, not this story, although the folks who back the High Point furniture market WERE surprised at what House budget writers did with marketing money that had been set aside for the trade show.

The surprise was this move by House Democrats to run a second tax bill through their chamber late Monday night. If you remember, the House passed a tax bill last week, raising sales and income taxes.

But in order to make their budget plans work, Democrats need revenue from an increase tax on cigarettes, as well as other hikes in other taxes and fees.

However, don't be fooled: it's the cigarette tax that proving controversial.

The problem is this: the Dems only hold a 63-57 majority in the chamber, which means if three members are unhappy with a proposal, controversial pieces of legislation can't pass without Republican help. And no Republicans lately have been disposed to build any bridges with regards to budget or tax issues.

Complicating matters, there are some Democrats, like Rep. Earl Jones, who don't want to see any tobacco tax hike.

Others would like to raise the tax to 75-cents.

Of course, there was some question last night whether the thing would even make it to the floor. Support in the House Finance Committee seemed shaky last night.

As I type this morning (9:07 a.m.), the committee is meeting again on the bill, this time with six additional Democratic members appointed by Speaker Jim Black yesterday. So it seems the tobacco tax increase is destined for the House floor this afternoon.

What's the big deal? Again, the House version of the state budget doesn't work without a tobacco tax increase. And neither the full appropriations committee nor full House want to start debating a spending bill without the revenue to back it up.

I'll update this post if and when the committee makes a decision.

Instant update: Before I even had a chance to mash the send key, Democrats forced a committee vote on the bill. The tax package passed and will be sent to the floor.

House Speaker Jim Black has sketched out the schedule for the House to pass a budget this week.

Right at 2 p.m. Wednesday is where things get sticky. If the committee isn't finished, the House will recess and everyone will head back to Appropriations.

Bills that raised taxes and fees have to be "read" three times on the floor. There's some debate as to whether that first reading has taken place. The consensus seems to be "probably."

That would leave two more readings. Traditionally, it's those second and third readings were a bill is debated. All three readings have to happen on separate days.

If the House gets around to it, the members could debate and vote on second reading Wednesday. If not, that will push second reading back to Thursday.

Black told members that if passage is pushed back to that later schedule, they may find themselves in the chambers at 12:01 a.m. Friday morning to do the third and final reading.

Of course, once the House passes their version of the budget is when the real fun begins. House and Senate negotiators will have a lot of work to do in order to bridget the differences between the two chamber's versions of the budget.

The state could have saved a lot of time and money (not to mention a few trees) had they issued the House budget electronically Tuesday night.

Instead, we were left to skulk about the building until late (11:30 p.m.) to get copies of the bill the House Appropriations Committee will start going through at 8 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Between the two books that make up the document, it is about 500 pages long and much of it is written in language only a lawyer would dare call "English."

Most of what's in the document, we've seen before, either in the various finance bills that have run over the past two weeks or in the appropriations subcommittees last week. Here are some highlights.

After the committee hearing the budget must go to the full House. Speaker Jim Black says he wants to complete work on the measure by the end of the week. Budget writers would then begin the process of negotiations between the House and Senate over a final version of the bill.

If you didn't get the dead-tree version of the paper, check out:

Hey Kids! Play along with state budget writers at home with the North Carolina state budget home game.

A very, very, very large PDF is posted here, or surf to it on the front page of the www.ncleg.net website. (You can also find there copies of SB 622, which is the tax and fee bill from earlier this week.)

So far, they've just posted the appropriations bill itself, and not the accompanying materials that make it sort of understandable.

Also, at 10:20 a.m. the House Appropriations Committee is just starting in on a series of amendments, so what actually shows up in the bill the House eventually votes on will be somewhat different.

Update: Just to be real clear, both the finance package from earlier this week and the Appropriations bill being considered today are number SB 622. One is just a later version of the other. The earlier version didn't have any spending in it.

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em...you can do that in the state capital building...which makes for, quite literally, smoke filled back rooms.(Just don't light up on the floor of either chamber, where the smoking is verboten.)

The honoroables in the House are taking a break until 8:30 p.m so they can rest up and attend a function featuring Lou Dobbs. Maybe he'll give them some money advice they can put to use tonight.

Speaker Jim Black says he plans to take a vote on the budget bill "before midnight."

For Greensboro, the big budget news of the day revolves around the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.
Workers have recently found problems with the building being renovated for the center, driving up the cost of completion.

Until this morning, the museum wasn't mentioned anywhere in any of the three major drafts of the budget. But during the House Appropriations Committee this morning, Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, proposed an amendment that was accepted.

It moves $100,000 from the N.C. Museum of Art to a new line item that creates a grant for the civil rights museum.

The amount of money is small relative to the needs of the project, but that's not important.

What's important, from a strategic point of view, is that the money is there.

That's because after the House passes its budget this week, the members of the House and Senate will hammer out a compromise budget between the two bodies.

Without a line item for the museum in one version of the budget or the other, it would have taken some serious arm twisting by museum backer to get a grant done at all. Now, it has passable shot at getting funded.

...I walk out of the legislative building for two hours and things just get out of hand.

Well, that was fun. Sort of. Maybe not.

As promised, the state House met into the wee hours of the evening. My stories:

For readers who got the Rockingham and High Point versions of the paper, the dead tree edition rolled off the presses before things got heated up down at the General Assembly. So between the time we had to send stories for your edition of the paper and the end of the House session, the way raises for state employees would be formulated under the House budget changed.

Gov. Mike Easley has appointed Dr. Michael Norins of Greensboro to the N.C. Medical Board. According to a news release from the governor's office:

"Norins is a primary care internist for LeBauer HealthCare in Greensboro. He is an adjunct associate professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a preceptor in the nurse practioner program at the UNC-Greensboro School of Nursing. Norins is a member of the N.C. Medical Society, Greater Greensboro Society of Medicine and the Health Care Sharing Initiative Board of Directors."

Click here to read the whole release.

Not much by was of legislative goodness from Raleigh today. The honorables are off at the golf tournament (or doing whatever it is they do when not hanging around the concrete palace on Jones Street) and I'm off doing some reporting for the dead tree version of the paper.

If you really need a semi-local legislative fix, let's head to D.C. where North Carolina's congressmen are pushing the Bush administration for some sort of plan to get U.S. Troops out of Iraq.

Click here to read that story.

See you back here on Monday.

My colleague Bruce Buchanan writes this weekend about a proposed law that would limit junk food in school vending machines.

The bill has passed the House and we'll keep an eye on it if and as it makes a run through the Senate.

I was a little confused by this release from Gov. Mike Easley's office. The lead graph:

Gov. Mike Easley announced today that North Carolina has been named the South's State of the Year by Southern Business & Development magazine. North Carolina and Alabama are ranked in the No. 1 spot for the region's largest business deals in the magazine's 13th annual Top 100 (eds note: bold my own) issue, available on newsstands beginning today.

Um, is my flag missing some stars?

Turns out, this list is from Southern Business and Development magazine's "Top 10s" issue - not the Top 100 issue. (What's a factor of 10 among friends?)

Relieved that the U.S.A. hadn't picked up 50 extra states without sending me so much as a memo, I perused the magazine's online site. Let's just say, these folks make people who are relentlessly upbeat look like slackers. And boy do they like incentives. Here's what they wrote about North Carolina's Dell deal:

In unprecedented fashion, North Carolina won one of the South's most signature deals of 2004, the 1,500-employee Dell project. The recruitment of Dell was unprecedented considering the incentive package the state of North Carolina, Forsyth County and the city of Winston-Salem put together. In total, Dell garnered about $300 million in incentives from the three governments.

Historically, government officials in North Carolina have been the most vocal anti-incentive group of all in the South. Time after time North Carolina would take the "high road" after losing out on another big project, vigorously maintaining that they don't have to "buy" projects in order to compete. Well, with Dell, North Carolina joined other Southern states that have landed huge deals by offering up substantial incentives for a single project. It just goes to show that even the most stubborn of Southern states can realize that if you are going to lure the big buffalo, you're going to have to write a big check. We applaud North Carolina officials for checking their skepticism at the door when it came to landing Dell.

I'm thinking these guys have a point of view. If only I could tell what it was.

Capital Blog reader Diane writes in to ask:

"What is the scoop on the money that Rep. Pricey Harrison asked for to help fund an ACC Hall of Fame Museum in Greensboro?

I have exchanged some e-mails with her, but don't know much about it. Did it get out of committee?

A few "influential people" in town support giving money to the ACC, but I haven't read much about it in the paper."

In case some of you other loyal readers - we must be up to at least 22 or so now! - are wondering:

Greensboro leaders unveiled plans for and ACC Hall of Fame back in January. It would be located next to the Greensboro Coliseum and cement the town's ties to the ACC college athletic conference, which has its headquarters in Greensboro.

Our story from January (written by Matt Williams) says that it would cost about $3.2 million just to pick up the land for the project. Total cost might be in the $23 million ballpark.

Where to get the money?

The members of the conference committee that's supposed to hammer out a final budget between the House and Senate have been announced over the past few days.

I had always thought these committees, in concept, were supposed to be a small group of members gathered to have discrete negotiations over how to put together a document everyone (or at least a majority) could hold their noses and vote for.

Turns out that "small" idea was a misconception. Folks, taken together, there are more General Assembly members on this conference committee than there are seats in the entire Senate.

You can find the whole list here, but let me save you some time:

Gov. Mike Easley has appointed John L. Neufeld of Greensboro to the state's Energy Policy Council.

From the governor's news release on the topic:

"Neufeld is a professor at UNC-Greensboro. He is a consultant for various private and governmental organizations including Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Neufeld is author of Learning Business Statistics with Microsoft Excel and has written more than 20 articles in scholarly journals. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and his master’s and doctorate degrees in economics from the University of Michigan."

Read the whole release here.

Your humble correspondent is in a foul mood this morning afternoon, so you'll forgive me if this post is a bit snippy. Story ideas for the paper have been crashing left and right all week, and today isn't looking up.

To boot, it appears more and more likely the General Assembly is going to miss the June 30 deadline for having a new budget in place. Off the record, folks are pretty definitive that the differences between the House and Senate budget are too numerous to bridge by then. (It's not that I don't love geeking out on the budget, but there are other fun things to write about in state government.)

On the record, the statements are getting pretty vague. Here's what Sen. Linda Garrou had to say on the Senate floor a few minutes ago: "It is my hope that we'll finish the budget sooner rather than later."

And she's one of the ones in charge of the budget process.

Meanwhile, the Senate has begun moving the continuing resolution sent over by the House through it's machinery. As explained by Sen. David Hoyle: "We need to pass a continuing resolution so we can keep the lights running and the prisoners locked up."

The continuing resolution keeps some key taxes in place, allows the state's bills to continue to get paid and gives the General Assembly more time to deliberate. The question now becomes how much more time.

My guess is we'll be sweating with the oldies down at the legislature well into July.

Meanwhile, Gov. Mike Easley called a last minute news conference that, for my readers, wasn't worth the mileage I'm going to have to write up because I went to it. If you're interested in North Carolina school districts (none of them in Guilford, Rockingham, Randolph, Davidson or Alamance) getting funding for life sciences-themed high schools click here for the news release. (If we have any Winston-Salem folks tuning in, this might interest you.)

Gripe, gripe, gripe. I know. I could actually be working for a living. So I'm off for an iced tea and an attitude adjustment. See you back here in a bit.

Howdy folks. I was off the radar on Friday, but that doesn't mean we didn't have state government news. Oh no. From the Sunday paper:

There was a steady drizzle falling on my way to the legislative building this morning. At the same time, the sprinklers at the old capitol building were running full out.

I'm sure there was a good reason for that; I'm just not totally sure what it is.

I've been thinking that a lot over the past few days. Committees meetings and other schedules here in Capital City have been getting juggled so that the folks trying to come up with a budget compromise between the House and Senate can work.

And of course, folks are all a twitter up here with the vague possibility that the impasse could get bad enough to shut down the state government.

How would that happen? Easy.

The current budget year ends at the stroke of midnight June 30/July 1. Any prospect for finishing the new budget on time is pretty much down the tubes at this point. That leaves the two houses to pass a continuing resolution, which would keep things funded at the same rate as the current fiscal year.

The problem: the House and Senate negotiators have different visions of what should be in the CR. The big sticking point seems to be whether to make the so-called "temporary" 1/2 cent sales tax permanent - as the Senate wishes - or whether just to extend it another two years - as the House wishes. The House hopes that half cent will go away one day.

If that quarrel blows up a there's no agreement, then the governor technically has no real authority to run the government and no money to do it with.

Of course, the really important stuff - like the Highway Patrol - wouldn't really shut down and the General Assembly members are likely to get their stuff together in time to avert any such foolishness.

Which would just leave them to negotiate the real budget. The big question remains how long that process will drag on.

Update: Via our friends at AP: "State government is not going to shut down," said House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg. "We will work out differences."

Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, is a woman who knows what she wants. And one of the things she has wanted for a long time (going on four sessions now by my count) is to give the student member of the UNC Board of Governors a vote.

A bill to do just that regularly passes the House but gets bogged down once it cross over to the Senate.

Today (Tuesday), Adams made a clever try at breaking the Senate logjam. While it cam up short, Adams did get to telegraph her displeasure to one of the Senate's top leaders.

You can find prior coverage of this topic here and here and here.

For those who don't want to click: the BOG has 30 members who can vote. The student member, usually the president of the UNC system's student body, sits on the board, can serve on committees but can't vote.

Despite an 82-33 vote for it in the House, the bill is parked in the Senate's Rules Committee, chaired by Sen. Tony Rand.

Simply put: Rand won't move the thing.

But Rand is trying to get the House to approve a bill related to when and where certain types of medical facilities can be opened.

Adams asked the House Health Committee to attach the student provision to Rand's bill, forcing him either to accept the student vote or at least open up a discussion on the issue.

For you technocrats who are about to send me blistering e-mails about whether the amendment was "germane" or not, let me simply say the issue wasn't fully discussed and ended up being moot. (If you understood this paragraph, seek professional help.)

The committee, at any rate, shot the amendment down.

After the meeting, Adams acknowledged she was giving a little bit of grief to one of the big dogs of the General Assembly.

"The rules chair has a lot of power, no doubt," Adams said. "But they ought to exert that power with sense of fairness."

As he left the committee today, Rand was unapologetic for blocking the bill.

"There are those who feel strongly that the Board of Governors is one of the highest areas of public service in the state that requires judgment, it requires life experience, it also requires a significant amount of time to understand what the Board of Governors is doing," Rand said. "One year in and out is not adequate to gain experience. The board is too large anyway."

Fair enough. Rand makes arguments that those opposed to have student vote have made for quite some time. But then I asked him, why not let it come up for debate and a vote. After all, the Senate version of the bill has more than 30 co-sponsors, more than enough to pass the bill should it ever get to the floor. (The Senate only has 50 members.)

"I don't know whether it does or not," Rand said. It does, I assured him.

"The Senate will look at it and discuss it and at this point I don't anticipate taking any action," Rand replied.

As for Adams, she said that if another opportunity to attach the student vote measure comes along this session, she will take it.

So, one day before the state's ability to spend and, in some cases, raise money expired there is a continuing resolution on the table. The honorables have agreed to keep things running until July 20. I guess we CAN keep the lights on the prisoners locked up.

The agreement is stunning in that there is nothing new or creative about it. Nothing. This is the same agreement that folks were talking about days ago. So why all the drama? You can bet it has something to do with politics.

Sales taxes remain at 7 percent throughout most of the state and the agreement doesn't tinker with the income tax, leaving that until the main budget deal gets worked out.

Just so you won't be totally bored, here's your fun fact of the day: North Carolina now has the lowest per-pack cigarette tax in the nation. At 5-cents per pack, we're 2-cents lower than South Carolina. Of course, the honorables plan on using a cigarette tax hike to help fund their budget, whenever they get around to writing a final version.