Moratorium on the moratorium
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:
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - House Democratic leaders delayed a vote on a two-year ban on executions from Wednesday until later this month, apparently because there weren't enough votes to pass it, lawmakers said.
After bill supporters and opponents plotted strategies for hours, House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, decided to stop plans to hold a vote.
With the General Assembly facing a key deadline Thursday for other legislation to pass, Black said it was better not to clog up the House floor with a lengthy debate.
"Some people are going to be really upset if they don't get their bills passed," Black told reporters during a break in a floor session Wednesday night.
Black said legislators were struggling on how to vote on the moratorium: "People are really laboring over what to do about it."
Momentum had appeared to swing toward moratorium proponents Tuesday after a House committee narrowly supported the two-year pause to allow for an examination of capital punishment's fairness.
But as Republicans largely remained united against the moratorium, the supporters couldn't accumulate a majority.
"There's been a clarification of the numbers," said the bill's primary sponsor, House Majority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange.
Moratorium proponents have been working for years to persuade lawmakers that a delay is necessary to fix problems with the system. In 2003, the state Senate became the first legislative body in the South to approve such a moratorium. The House had never taken up the measure.
Black supports the moratorium. Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, is a death penalty proponent and repeatedly has said he sees no need for a moratorium.
Bill proponents have been working to persuade conservative Democrats to go along. House Minority Leader Joe Kiser, R-Lincoln, a former sheriff, said "a vast majority of our caucus oppose it."