And the gavel goes to...
So House Speaker Joe Hackney handed out gavels and committee chairmanships Monday night. Click here for the whole list.
If you’re from the Greensboro and environs, here’s how your friendly local Democratic legislator faired:
- Reps. Maggie Jeffus and Alma Adams are two of the eight co-chairs on the House Appropriations Committee. Sen. Kay Hagan kept her seat on the Senate Appropriations committee. So if you’re keeping score at home, three of the 18 “big chairs” of the House and Senate Appropriations and Finance committees are from Greensboro.
Now I’m not saying they’ll be pork to be fried this year. But if there is, Greensboro should start heating up the skillet. (Okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but the area should do relatively well in budget terms.)
- Rep. Earl Jones kept his chairmanship of the Local Government II committee and was named chairman of the House Science Committee. Expect him to use that seat to push for state funding of stem cell research.
- Rep. Pricey Harrison will chair the newly formed Energy and Energy Efficiency Committee. Expect this panel to be looking at things like Harrison’s renewable energy portfolio standard bill, which would require state government to buy a percentage of its energy from renewable sources like solar and biomass.
- Rep. Hugh Holliman will be a co-chair of the House Insurance Committee.
- Rep. Nelson Cole falls a notch in the House power structure. He no longer is a co-chair of the powerful Rules Committee, but did land a spot as a co-chairman of the House Appropriations Transportation subcommittee.
The House Ethics Committee appears to be the only House panel with a Republican co-chair. That means Reps. Laura Wiley and John Blust won’t be wielding any gavels this session, although both will sit on a handful of committees each.