News-Record.com

One of the hazards of working down at the legislative building too much is that my desk there doesn't have a spiffy high-speed connection, so uploading large chunks of audio is problematic.

Sorting through the electronic debris of the last couple weeks of session, I found on my hard-drive the Senate's lottery debate...yes, all 120 minutes of it. With a spiffy high-speed connection in hand here at the N+R's Raleigh newsroom, I figured I'd share.

If you plan on listening, there are a couple things you should know:

• There are four large MP3 files that are about 20 minutes each, give or take. The whole lottery debate in the Senate took about 120 minutes.
• The quality is a little grating in places. I was on the floor and paying attention to the debate, not monitoring the recording. Basically, I jacked my computer into an audio plug, turned on Audacity (a sound editing and recording program) and let her rip.
• There may be some overlap between segments, up to 30 seconds or so.

This is the debate on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. That is the session that the Senate convened after the leadership initially said they were done for the year.

Content wise, you're going to hear several things. If nothing else, this is a pretty good summary of the arguments for and against the lottery.

You're also going to hear a lot of procedural motions. The Republicans in opposition to the lottery used just about every parliamentary maneuver at their disposal to try to derail the vote, to no avail.

With those disclaimers, here you go:

• The first segment.
  
• The second segment.
  
• The third segment.
  
• The fourth segment.

Discuss below if you like.