Appointments and rumors
The Senate just appointed committees today. I don’t think there were any big surprises. Of local note, Sen. Kay Hagan is still an appropriations chair.
Click here to see what committees your friendly local Senator will be spending time on. (Update: This list has been updated by the Pro Tem's office a couple times since it was first sent out. This should be the final version.)
Update: Of local note - Sen. Stan Bingham, who represents both Davidson County and a piece of Guilford County, is one of a handful of Senate Republicans apppointed co-chairman of a committee. Bingham will help head the Senate Health Care committee.
A committee gets two or three co-chairmen when there’s more work than a single chair can handle. They are essentially the folks who set the committee’s agenda and run things on most days. (And they should not be confused with a vice chairman, which is a different and less important animal.)
Update:With all the updating of this list (there were four through the course of the afternoon) I got bum-fuzzled and missed some of the other GOP appointments. Sen. Fletcher Hartsell will head up the Senate J II committee. Sen. Richard Stevens will co-chair and appropriations sub-committee on education. Sen. Don East will co-chair a state and local government committee. A few Republicans have vice chairmanships, but those are a bit easier to come by.
Most House members I speak to say they expect committee assignments on that side of the building to be made either Thursday (2/8) or this coming Tuesday.
In the category of unconfirmed but reliable scuttlebutt: two Guilford County House members are apparently in the running for seats as House Appropriations Chairmen. This would be a big darned deal if it actually happens, sweeping away the last vestiges of the local delegation as a low octane group.