News-Record.com

So you’re a presumptive candidate for governor. You’ve just been pilloried in the national media for conflicts of interest related to your office.

You want to regain control of the story. So you:

a)Come out immediately, guns a-blazin’ to answer the charges.

b)Run and hide.

c)Hack off your local media, especially broadcasters.

For the answer, I refer you to an e-mail from State Treasurer Richard Moore’s office:

State Treasurer Richard Moore will hold an on-the-record pen and pad briefing for capital area reporters on the state pension fund’s investments on Friday, March 2nd at 11 a.m. The briefing will be held in the Dawson Conference Room on the first floor of the Albemarle Building (325 N. Salisbury Street). There will be time allotted for questions.

My colleagues in the broadcast media are understandably upset about this, despite being offered opportunities for “sound bites” afterward.

Although there is a tradition of doing this sort of thing is practiced in Washington, D.C., calling a press conference and then restricting the tools of the trade allowed is pretty much unheard of around these parts. And since we’re all doing audio and video now, it affects print reporters as much as broadcasters.

I (and many others) have asked for clarification and will post here when I get it.

Update:Laura over at WUNC has also engaged on this story. For the record, it does appear from a LEGAL perspective, Moore can set whatever rules he wants. Whether they make any sense, I'll leave that to you in the peanut gallery. The comments link is open.

Update2: Moore's press person writes back:

Thanks so much for your email. The Friday briefing is an opportunity for members of the Capital Press Corps to learn about the pension fund’s investments, basic investment strategy and industry standards. It was designed to give reporters a solid foundation in investments in order to inform their reporting going forward. That being said, the discussion will be on the record; questions will be taken; and handouts will be available.

I am asking that all reporters rely on “pad and pen” due to the location size and the number of potential attendees and in hopes of fostering an atmosphere of discussion. Treasurer Moore will be available after the briefing to provide video and audio for those reporters that would like it.

I’m pretty sure this is not going to deter very many folks from showing up with their full set of gear.

Update2: Laura writes back to Moore's folks:

With all due respect, excluding a third of the press corps from being able to gather on-the-record information does not foster an atmosphere of discussion - and it's ethically inappropriate for a public servant in a public building, talking about how he's managing public dollars.

It's also implausible to think there's no room in the Albemarle building large enough to accommodate cameras and microphones. That's
never been a problem in the past, when you *wanted* broadcast coverage.

I'll be bringing my recording equipment. So will a lot of other radio and tv reporters. If you choose to throw us out, or bar us, we'll be recording that. And it'll be that story - not Moore's investment success - which will become the headline.

Full disclosure, Laura and I are going to talk to a journalism class this afternoon. This post might be on our minds.

Begun, once again, the ‘cue wars have:

Prior bills to make the Lexington Barbecue Festival the official state food festival have run up against worries that such a designation would sanction Lexington style over Eastern style.

So, you want collards with that?

The Senate heard today from Steve Blackmon, a.k.a. Stephon Ferguson He reenacted parts of several speeches by Martin Luther King in the chamber, including this one from the Aug. 28, 1963 march on Washington. (Link is audio from the Senate Chamber this morning.)

House Bill 24 got a hearing in the House Health Committee today. The bill would ban smoking in state government buildings and allow local governments to ban smoking in their buildings now (starting in 2008).

Right now, local governments are governed by a kind of crazy patchwork of smoking rules that require that many local government facilities set aside about 20 percent of their space for smoking. More than a few local governments ignore this little proviso and ban smoking outright.

H24 passed on a voice vote and is headed to the floor.

It is pretty much the warm up legislation. Hugh Holliman’sHouse Bill 259 is the big dog. It would ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants.

I asked Holliman why the House was running both, since all the things covered in H24 would be covered in his. Basically, the government building smoking ban can definitely get done. They expect the workplace ban to be more of a battle when it comes along.

Following up on yesterday’s post re: Richard Moore:

• Laura updates her dealings with the Treasurer’s office.

• Charlotte’s David Ingram includes the “pen-and-pad” scuffle in his follow-up story today.

So, just to set the stage: A bunch of media types are going to show up at Moore’s 11 a.m. news conference today. From those I’ve talked to, they plan to largely ignore the instruction to leave cameras, recorders and what not behind. So we wind up with one of two things happening:

• The treasurer’s office gives up on all this, everyone gets invited in and we all have a lovely time hearing about the state’s investments.
• The treasurer’s office sticks to its guns, throws people out, and the story becomes one about how he won’t deal with the media.

Of course, maybe this is all some Machiavellian plan to get lots of media really interested in this shindig and show up on a Friday.

Here’s another tidbit on the revision of the House Rules.

The bill that contains the rules went through committee Thursday and will probably hit the floor Tuesday.

In that committee meeting, members got a chance to ask about various aspects of their rules. Rep. Paul Luebke asked about Rule 24.1A:

RULE 24.1A. Excuse From Deliberations and Voting on a Bill. –

(a) Any member shall, upon request, be excused in advance from the deliberations and voting on a particular bill at any time that the reason for the request arises in the proceedings on the bill.

(b)The member may make a brief oral statement of the reasons for making the request. The member may provide to the Principal Clerk, on a form provided by the Clerk, a concise written statement of the reason for the request, and the Clerk shall include this statement in the Journal.

(c)The member so excused shall not debate the bill or any amendment to the bill, vote on the bill, offer or vote on any amendment to the bill, or offer or vote on any motion concerning the bill, in committee or on the floor of the House at any reading, or any subsequent consideration of the bill.

His question revolved around members who excused themselves on the floor but had taken part in committee discussions and maybe even voted in committee. Many times, its harder to get something through a committee than the full House, so interceding there is actually more valuable to whatever interest than voting on the floor.

“There have been times when people are speaking on issues where they have a direct conflict of interest,” Luebke said after the meeting.

Luebke essentially asked during the meeting what could a member do if he or she felt another member was violating the rule.

“There’s a House Ethics Committee, a Joint Ethics Committee and a State Ethics Commission,” came the reply from legislative staffer and chief bill drafter Gerry Cohen.

The implication there is that a member who behaves as Luebke described could be charged with violating ethics guidelines. This is a recourse made possible by the ethics laws that were passed last year.

Place your bets on whether we get to see this new feature in action.

I’ll do a separate post on the substance of all this in a minute, but for those following the pen and pad stuff with Richard Moore, it came to a rather anticlimactic conclusion this morning.

I wandered into the conference room in question, and the television and radio guys were all set up. No hired goons were confiscating camera equipment at the door.

Moore cam in relatively on time, said their might have been some misunderstanding, and proceeded to give what was (to me anyway) a darned useful presentation.

If you’d like to hear him speak to the press issue, click here.

So why all the fuss? I can't really say. I’m just happy things turned out as they did, with EVERYONE getting their questions answered with whatever tools of the trade they wanted on hand.

For substance, another post is forthcoming after lunch.

So a couple weeks ago, Forbes took aim at State Treasurer Richard Moore, claiming he’s not doing a good job managing the state’s pension fund and oh-by-the-way takes campaign contributions from the folks he does business with.

For local background on this, let me recommend the Charlotte Observer’s Richard Moore page.

Then, this week, the Wall Street Journal says North Carolina has one of the best managed pension funds. From a Moore press release:

The fund, managed by State Treasurer Richard Moore, is one of only five in the nation with a positive funding ratio – the necessary resources to cover promised benefits. North Carolina’s pension fund has a funding ratio of 106.5 percent, compared to a national average of 81.8 percent. Since 2000, the national average has dropped from just over 100 percent to around 82 percent, while North Carolina has retained its strong funding status.

Will the real Richard Moore please stand up?

Well, in fact, Moore did do a presentation with us scruffy media types today and basically said that the Forbes story was a load-of-you-know-what and did his best to prove it. Notes, slides and audio from the news conference:

• Click here for the slides from Moore’s presentation. (PDF)
• I’m not going to try to upload audio of Moore’s whole presention, but click here to get his overview and a taste of the first few minutes.
• So . . . did Forbes get it wrong? Moore’s answer: “Absolutely. . . In my opinion, Forbes had an axe to grind.” Click here for audio of that answer. (2 minutes)
• So what about limiting campaign donations to the state treasurer’s office, as proposed by a House committee? “I would be open to it, but I would want it to be more inclusive. I see absolutely no reason for singling this office out.” Click here for audio of that answer. (2 minutes)
• Okay, your investments seem to doing well enough. But one could say you’ve expanded the number of fund managers, at the same time expanding the number of folks who give to your campaign. “My response to that is $4.2 billion.” Click here to hear that question asked and answered.
• So explain the fact that a lot of your donors are folks you do business with. Click here to hear that question asked and answered. “You campaign contributors are people you are in contact with in many instances . . . I think all politicians raise money from the environment that they’re in.”
• So, why doesn’t North Carolina’s annual report on its pensions system have more detail? “We simply have not had the resources to do it?” Click here to hear that question asked and answered.
• “We drive a very hard bargain on our fees.” Click here to hear more about that.

Update: Gov. Mike Easley has been reading to grade-school kids today and stopped to visit a class in Greensboro. Our education reporter, Morgan Josey, got a chance to ask him a few questions, including one about the Moore. She reported that Easley said he had heard about the stories but not read any of them.

“I don’t have enough information to see whether there’s any kid of a conflict,” Easley said.

Last month, we scruffy press types were reported that Gov. Mike Easley had written a children’s book. And he said that he wanted to get a copy into every school in North Carolina.

Easley’s press folks, responding to conservatives who suggested this was a complicated way to have taxpayers line his pockets, said that no taxpayer funding would be used to pay for the book. But they couldn’t say how it would get to every school in the state.

Well, Easley was visiting Greensboro today, reading his book to kids at a local elementary school. Education reporter Morgan Josey was on the scene and offered to lob a few questions at the governor for me. I asked her to ask about this. From her field report:

He said he plans to sell his book in retail stores and the proceeds will go to an education foundation to pay to put a copy in each classroom. He’s also hoping to get some private donors to contribute.

“The problem is the kids who really need to get this book, their parents aren’t going to buy it,” Easley said.

Site selection magazine says North Carolina - High Point and Greensboro in particular - have been effective in luring companies to locate or expand around here. Of course, a key tool for doing that is handing over tax rebates and other goodies to said companies.

And everyone once in a while, as in the case of Google, people begin to question whether the state is a little too eager to give out money.

Well, the General Assembly says it is on the case. From a press release issued by the Senate President Pro Tempore’s office:

Raleigh – House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight have created a special legislative committee that will review the state’s economic-development incentives.

The Joint Select Committee on Economic Development Incentives will review:

• How incentives are used in North Carolina and in other states, by both state and local governments, to attract new business;
• The cost of incentives and their effectiveness in promoting economic development;
• Ways to ensure that lawmakers have adequate information about potential projects when considering legislation and when tracking long-term use of incentives; and
• Whether “clawback” provisions in various incentive programs sufficiently protect North Carolina’s investments in economic development.

North Carolina’s aggressive economic-development tools have helped the state earn the top-ranked business climate in the country, according to Site Selection magazine. Basnight said he sought to create the joint committee as a way for lawmakers to gain more comprehensive knowledge of how state and local governments interact as they work to recruit new jobs and employers.

“Our state has a successful record in creating jobs and economic growth, but we should always be looking for ways to improve our efforts,” Basnight said.

“North Carolina’s economy has improved in recent years due to our efforts to attract new jobs and industries to our state while also helping our current businesses grow and expand,” said Speaker Hackney. “However, legislators must always look for efficiencies and examine the cost effectiveness of the way we attract new industries.”

The folks at Democracy North Carolina - you know, the guys who filed the original complaint that lead to the downfall of former House Speaker Jim black – have a new website up. From their news release:

• Legislative Republicans will hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, in what’s becoming a weekly affair for them. This week, according to a notice from Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, will “feature commentary from Senator Smith regarding his proposed marriage amendment.”

  Update: I'm told that the Smith is the warm up act for the weekly show, featuring Berger and Rep. Paul Stam, the minority leader in the House. They'll be on at 10:30 a.m., also in the legislative building's press conference room, talking education.

  You can hear those press conferences live, when the equipment is working, by way of this link. (Click on "Press Conference Room.")

• The AP says House Speaker Joe Hackney has hired a new spokesperson: “Bill Holmes, a newsman for The Associated Press in Raleigh since 2001, will begin as Hackney's director of communications on March 19.”

• Senate Leader Marc Basnight will have a new spokesman as well. Schorr Johnson, who has been flacing for the N.C. Dems and before that was spokesman for U.S. Rep. Mel Watt, comes on board later this month.

This story regarding John Edwards’ fundraising has been making its way over the wires for the past few days:

RALEIGH - Democratic presidential contender John Edwards hopes to make some quick campaign cash off a conservative columnist's slur.

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word `faggot,' so I -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards," Ann Coulter told GOP activists attending the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday in Washington.

(snip)

Edwards' campaign sent an e-mail to supporters calling the comment a "shameless display of bigotry."

It asked supporters to help raise $100,000 in "Coulter Cash" so that the former N.C. senator could show "every would-be Republican mouthpiece that their bigoted attacks will not intimidate" him.

Using a highly publicized attack on one’s candidate to raise money from grass roots supporters is an idea straight out the Howard Dean 2004 presidential campaigns playbook, which makes sense given who his senior internet strategist is.

I’ll be interested to see if other candidates use this kind of fundraising judo, which is custom made to raise a little money from a broad base of donors. Given some of Barack Obama’s recent run-ins with unfavorable coverage, I would think his campaign would seize on the strategy as well.

Posting here is going to be lighter than typical for the next couple weeks for a couple reasons. One of those has to do with something that will keep me away from Jones Street and the rest of state government for a while.

The other is one of those rascally technical issues that come with the territory here in cyberspace. From our newsroom online guru Michael Grossman:

“We will be moving our News & Record blogs to a new hosting environment on Wednesday afternoon. During the move, the blogs will not be accessible. The blogs should look the same after the move and you won’t need to change your bookmarks.”

When tech guys say “new hosting environment” they get as skittish as a lobbyist in the “new ethics environment,” so I expect a few bumps along the way. After the switch, nothing much will change for you on the user end and all your links (I hope) should stay the same.

From the Senate President Pro Tempore's office:

“You couldn’t ask for a more compassionate public servant or more faithful friend than Jeanne Lucas. Her expertise and leadership in public education was of tremendous value to all of us, and we could always count on her common sense – not to mention her sense of humor – to help guide the Senate in its efforts to improve the quality of life for all North Carolinians. The Senate’s prayers are with all her family and friends at this time.”

Background:

Senator Jeanne H. Lucas, who passed away Friday evening, was serving her seventh full term in the North Carolina Senate. Senator Lucas was the first African-American woman to serve in the Senate and held the leadership post of Senate Majority Whip from 2003 to 2006. Born on December 25, 1935, the Durham Democrat was appointed to the Senate in 1993 to replace Senator Ralph Hunt and won her first Senate election in 1994. A retired educator and school system administrator, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from N.C. Central University. She is survived by her husband, William, and two sisters, Bertha Breese and Bernie David-Yerumo.

Details on funeral arrangements are as follows: The wake will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, March 16, at Union Baptist Church at 904 N. Roxboro Road in Durham, and a memorial service will be held at noon Saturday, March 17, at the same location. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Jeanne Hopkins Lucas Scholarship Fund, Mount Gilead Baptist Church, P.O. Box 11877, Durham, NC 27701. Expressions of sympathy may be sent to the family to Bernie David-Yerumo, P.O. Box 3366, Durham, NC 27702.

More from Durham's Hearld Sun.

So, let’s handle some questions I’ve gotten via e-mail over the past week:

• Did the server transition thingy happen? Yes. What’s more, it appears to have worked like expected.
• What’s with the spam? Good question. Apparently when they transitioned us over to the new server and new version of Moveable Type, they nuked something that was keeping the spam at bay. We’re in the process of redeploying whatever those countermeasures were.
• Are you going to get your lazy butt back to work at some point? Yes, but not this week. I have a new project at home keeping me from loitering about Jones Street for the moment.

Of course, all that doesn’t mean I’m completely tuned out. A few notes before I go back to mixing formula:

I was wondering when I saw this bill (similar bill here) why exactly Guilford County was on the list. Jonathan Jones got my answer. Allen had more to say about the idea.
• My Friend and colleague Kerra Bolton, late of the Asheville Citizen Times, is going off to flac for the state Democratic Party.

• A visitor from Raleigh is coming to town later this week. Sen. Jujla Boseman is the keynote speaker for the Triad Business and Professional Guld Dinner this Thursday, March 15.The event will be held at the PTI Airport Marriott. For more information www.triadguild.com.

• Presidential candidate John Edwards will be rallying on Tuesday at Bennett College.

• The NCTA is holding a news conference tomorrow at 11 a.m. concerning “A Declaration By The MEMBERS Of The North Carolina Technology Association, The 21st Century Student.” (That was all done up in fancy script in the e-mail.) Whatever it turns out to be, I’m sure there will be no over-wrought hyperbole. (Reminder: Audio links for listening to things at the legislature live, including the news conference room, can be found here.

Okay, talk amongst yourselves. I’ll check back in later.

I'm still watching the news from afar, but have a few notes to offer:

• John Edwards came to campaign in Greensboro Tuesday, paying a visit to the civil rights museum. That's pretty fitting because Edwards has framed much of his anti-poverty message as a civil rights issue, particularly when speaking of the minimum wage and collective bargaining rights.

  Of course, not everyone digs Edwards.

• Lot's of people have been writing about the Thomas Wright issue, but Wilmington's Mark Schreiner, whose paper covers Wright's home district, is pretty much authoritative on the topic.

• Laura Leslie says the honorables are looking at moving our primary dates to make North Carolina, what's the word...oh, yeah, RELEVANT in at least some stage of a presidential contest. I dig the caucus idea, if for no other reason than it would something different for us scruff media types to write about.

• Gov. Easley wants fellow hunters to help shoot down the OLF.

• Elizabeth Dole's 2008 campaignis circulating poll numbers they say show she is still popular in N.C. Without knowing more about the poll questions and methodology, it's hard to say what it means. And polls this early are probably pretty darned meaningless anyway. But the analysis is interesting, showing what the GOP is preparing to go up against:

  Democrats have their own problems in North Carolina. As charted above, Hillary Clinton-the likely Democratic presidential nominee-has a net image of -10 and a majority (53%) of North Carolina voters view her unfavorably. In addition, the Democrat-controlled state government is viewed as corrupt by an overwhelming majority of voters (87%). Forty-eight percent (48%) of North Carolina voters say corruption in state government is a "major" problem, followed by 39% who say it's a "minor" problem. Just 6% say corruption in state government is not a problem.

  This unfavorable view of the likely top of the Democratic ticket, coupled with a Democrat-led state government viewed as corrupt, creates serious challenges for Democrat candidates in 2008.

  This strikes me as more "Ra-Ra" than sober analysis, and those numbers are way off from anything else I've seen from nonpartisan polls. Plus, I don't buy Sen. Clinton as the likely Democratic nominee. She's the one with the most money and name recognition at the moment, but that can change over the next nine months.

• Editorial writer Doug Clark has been writing about a bill that would allow judges to carry weapons in the court room. This isn't a new idea. Back in 2005, I wrote about the same measure sponsored by Sen. Tom Apodaca. The link to the newspaper story is from two servers ago, so it no longer works but what I wrote then included:

  Apodaca said he was approached by several judges in his district asking for the change to existing law.

  "There are a couple already doing it, but after Atlanta and what happened in Chicago, they want it to be legal," Apodaca said.

  In March, a suspect overpowered a sheriff's deputy in an Atlanta courtroom, using the deputy's gun to kill a judge and three others. That same month, a federal judge's husband and mother were killed by a disgruntled plaintiff in Chicago.

  Those slayings raised courthouse security concerns for courtrooms across the nation. Similar bills that would allow judges to carry firearms to court have been drafted and discussed in Illinois, New Mexico and Texas.

  North Carolina's proposal is in its initial stages, with a hearing pending before a Senate judiciary committee this week or next.

  "It wouldn't be a Wyatt Earp thing," said Guilford County Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Albright, who has a concealed weapons permit. Judges have to go through the same training everyone else does to obtain a permit, Albright said.

  "There will be those who say 'yes,' and those who say 'no.' But it would clarify the law for judges who are caught in a never-never land of being able to carry a concealed weapon but not being able to carry it when it counted the most," Albright said.

• Calendar notes: Americans for Prosperity will hold a news conference tomorrow to call on members of congress and state legislators from taking NCAA basketball tournament tickets. Those who can take a break from filling out their brackets are sure to attend...Meanwhile, the House Democrats are scheduled to roll out their legislative agenda for the session. This will be something to watch. The House Dems did this for the first time in 2006 to help navigate the Jim Black scandal.

  Now, you could make the argument that they're doing it this year to distract from Wright, but his problems really haven't achieved the notoriety that Black's had by that time. And after the 2006 session, several House Democrats said they felt like laying out their plans helped them focus and get several items done, scandal or no.

  Plus, if you look at what was on their agenda and what got done that year, there were some pretty strong correlations. So it's worth paying attention to what they'll have to say.

• Technical note: Firefox users and others with browsers that aren't Microsoft IE or Avant may notice some funky coding where punctuation marks like apostrophes are supposed to be on prior post. Chalk it up to something we fixed a while ago that got un-fixed in the server transition. Sorry.

Alright, back to diapers and bottles for me.

...to screw in a light bulb, or ban one anyway.

I'm writing a short story for tomorrow's paper about House Bill 838, which would "prohibit the sale of general service incandescent lamps in the state."

An "incandescent lamp" is a light bulb to you and me. Specifically, the filament-filled light bulb that we pretty much all grew up with.

The idea is that incandescent bulbs burn a lot of excess electricity and that compact fluorescents can do the same job for less power.

The bill is sponsored by Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat.

For you boring folks who want facts and figures:

• Australia has taken similar steps, and states like California and Connecticut are pondering similar moves.
  
• The concept is being pushed by Philips Electronics, among others. It would be fair to note that Phillips makes energy efficient bulbs.
  
• Click here for more than you wanted to know about how incandescent bulbs work.
  
• Click here to have GE explain how a compact fluorescent bulb works.

But what I really want to know is, what's the punch line to my headline?

How many legislators does it take to screw in a light bulb? My stabs, both more apropos under the circa 2005 campaign finance system:

• 120 House members: One to write legislation proposing that a light bulb be changed, 15 to argue the point in committee, 10 members of the opposition party to argue that the light bulb doesn't need to be changed and that they've been legislating in the dark for years anyway, 93 more to create the deadlock and one more to slip the changing of a light bulb into the budget where no one will notice it was done until someone actually comes by and changes the darned thing.
• None, they'll just get a lobbyist to do it for them.

Help out the sleep deprived and offer your punch lines below.

Back to serious business tomorrow.

The most stringent of a passel of anti-smoking measures, Rep. Hugh Holliman's House Bill 259, passed the House Judiciary Committee this morning.

Locally, Rep. John Blust voted against the measure. Rep. Pricey Harrison was not at the meeting.

The bill would ban smoking in all but a handful of public places and work places.

It next heads to the House floor. After that, the Senate gets to take its crack at it.

Now, last session, Holliman ran a bill that would have curbed smoking in restaurants. It went down in flames.

So why is he having better success now?

"The awareness of the health issues of second hand smoke has grown," he said.

I was wandering through the halls of the legislature today when I ran across this picture:

According to the label, it's by Britani Henry of "Guilford County School, Greensboro, N.C."

It is one of about a dozen pieces of student are I've seen as part of the "North Carolina, A Great Place to Live" youth art exhibit.

Nice work Britani.

I haven't had time to eyeball this thoroughly, but this latest audit report regarding the DMV doesn't look real good:

The Office of the State Auditor released a strategic review of the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles today. The purpose of this review was to identify any invalid social security numbers (SSNs) used to acquire North Carolina Drivers’ Licenses. This review found that out of the 8.1 million SSNs provided to DMV, just under 27,000 were invalid. This number does not include the 1.7 million driver’s licenses in the DMV database that do not contain SSNs.

Click here for the report itself.

My friend and colleague Taft Wireback has done some reporting along these lines in the past. (More here.)

Sen. Katie Dorsett's bill on cervical cancer education was given a final yes vote by the Senate today. It now goes to the House.

Public Policy Polling gets in the act. From one of their first entries:

Elizabeth Dole's polling is all over the map. A DSCC poll (Garin-Hart-Yang) released on February 28 showed Senator Dole with major weaknesses. Only 49% of North Carolinians described her performance as excellent or good. President Bush’s net approval was 34%. And only 35% said they were sure to reelect Dole in 2008.

Now comes a poll from Dole’s campaign conducted Jan van Lohuizen, President Bush’s personal pollster. It says Dole has a 63-25 job approval rating.

So where is she really?

Click here to get PPP's answer to that question.

These next two links have little to do with one another, other than they pick on Gov. Mike Easley:

• Scott Mooneyham says Teflon Mike's coating is beginning to flake off. In talking about the Jo Ann Sanford whoopsee-doodle, Mooneyham writes:

  These are the kinds of shenanigans that a governor must stop, or his public will only conclude that he is a part of them.

  And the Easley Teflon will quickly peel away.

• Meanwhile Jack Betts digs into the new official history of North Carolina's governors, stopping to spend a little time on Easley's entry:

  Alas, the entry on the state's current governor, did not read with the same kind of raw-material, bark-still-on candor. Gov. Michael Francis Easley's entry read more like a public relations pamphlet. (Indeed, the book's introduction notes, Easley's entry was written after consultation with his press office.) Among other things, it referred to "[T]he more than $400 million in annual funds generated by the new lottery" for schools - except the lottery hasn't generated that kind of money yet.

  It also noted he "successfully led North Carolina through its transition to become a major competitor in the new global economy..... Easley provided the tools need to attract successful new industry and to grow existing businesses. These tools will help secure a strong, healthy economy for north Carolina years into the future."

  Whew! Even Easley's admirers will find that spread on a little thick. Perhaps state officials should wait until governors have left office before they try to assess their gubernatorial terms.

  Yeah, you really shouldn't need hip-waders to read a history book.

So it's John Rhodes Day at the legislature?

Scott is not celebrating:

It's the activists' choice of champion and savior that leaves a bit to be desired.

Except for inciting Democratic leadership types, Rhodes put together a particularly undistinguished legislative career.

On its Web site, the group quotes Democratic Rep. Melanie Goodwin of Richmond County saying that Rhodes "contributed nothing to his body and I am appalled you would conduct such a junket."

She's right. And privately, many of his former Republican colleagues would agree.

Update:Okay, I get that some Republican activist wanted to honor John Rhodes for speaking his mind. That's their prerogative.

And I get that even though he's not in the General Assembly any more, Rep. Rhodes is still Rep. Rhodes, as this out take from the Associated Press shows:

A handful of former and current Republican legislators visited the rally, which included a candle-lighting ceremony - hampered by heavy winds - designed to symbolize efforts to remove shadows within state government.

Current Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, shepherded ethics and lobbying reform legislation through the House last year and pushed new chambers rules this year that supporters said will encourage openness in government.

Still defiant, Rhodes said few current legislators came over to the event because "the boot of the leadership is still on their neck."

As Mr. Rhodes himself might say, point of order Mr. Speaker. Specifically, let's give credit where it is due.

Black's downfall came as a result of investigations that stemmed from a complaint filed by Democracy North Carolina, a group most folks would put left of center.

Yes, John Rhodes carped a lot, but that carping didn't bring Black down.

Note: I'm re-ordering this post a bit so it makes sense to those who come late to it. Audio links are moving to the bottom. -binker

-=-=-=-=-=-=

Apparently, all the web sites that my bosses were telling me about this morning were 100 percent horse hockey. Several, including some biggies like CNN I'm told, were reporting that John Edwards would suspend his presidential campaign.

Edwards, presidential candidates and former North Carolina Senator, says he's staying on the campaign trail.

His wife, Elizabeth, does have an incurable form of cancer, but it’s treatable and she says she, too, will stay on the trail. If I understood them right today, the cancer is a form of the breast cancer she had that has now migrated to her bones, and possibly a lung.

Mrs. Edwards says she will never be cancer free, but she can live with this form of the disease for years.

More, including audio, coming.

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Update:Edwards was asked whether he would stop the campaign.

But Click here for his answer.

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Update: For the AP story, click here.

For the full 20 minutes or so of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards speaking to us scruffy media types, click here.

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Update: From Rep. Brad Miller's office:

"I've known Elizabeth longer and better than I've known John, and I know John would agree that he married above himself. They have a tough fight in front of them, and my prayers are with them."

Stories that I contributed to yesterday:

• The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but at least there will be rest stops along the way.

• So it turns out if you take gobs of public money, distribute it in process closed to the public to private companies, people get all critical.

  Click here to read the report detailed in the story.

  And click here to listen to me ask Commerce Sec. Jim Fain's about the report. Commerce Dept. General Counsel Don Hobart chimes in as well.

  Bonus: click here to listen to us rap a little more about why the state shields the process by which we give large sums of public money from public scrutiny.

Bills on the House and Senate sides have been introduced to ban corporal punishment in North Carolina schools.

It's an effort that has gone on for quite a while now.

When she passed away last year, I had an opportunity to look up some old stories on Rep. Margaret "Maggie" Keesee-Forrester. Banning corporal punishment was one of her signature issues back in the 1970s.

A Republican, Keesee-Forrester had been a teacher before becoming a legislator and her bill to outlaw corporal punishment prompted quite the outcry from old-school conservatives. Backlash from the bill, combined with ill-will against Republicans generated by the Watergate scandal, temporarily ended her political career.

Linkage about the current day bill:

• News 14.
• WSJ Editorial.
• Project NoSpank.
• The Courier Times of Roxboro.

Republican Sen. Fred Smith made his run for governor official today. From his news release:

"If we are going to create a government that trusts the people first and does not perpetuate bigger and more intrusive government - then we need a change in management in the Governor's office that will institute real reforms, Smith stated.

Standing on the steps of the Borden House, the cottage once a part of the Methodist Orphanage in Raleigh, Senator Smith told friends and media how "his Mom and Dad brought their family to this "special place" where they came to serve others many years ago. His father was a coach at the orphanage, and his mother a cottage "housemother" for 24 boys.

"Watching my parents, I learned firsthand what service to others could mean," Smith stated. "I began to hope that in someway, I could be like them and follow the example they had set for so many."

Smith campaign website is here.

He joins Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham (who brought your the stop illegal immigration and gas tax commercials) and former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr (late of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law) on the GOP side of the ledger.

These three have signed up for what may be one of the hardest gigs in North Carolina politics: wresting the governor's mansion from Democrats. Republicans have only held the state's top job for 12 of the past 100 years and a Dem has been in residence at moldy manor since 1993.

Gov. Mike Easley can't run for his job again in 2008, and it looks like the Democrats will pick from either Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue or State Treasurer Richard Moore. Neither of those two have officially announced they're running, which is sort of like a rhinoceros not announcing it’s sitting on your head...you kind of know it's there anyway.

Oh, and the Libertarians are apparently going to run Michael Munger.

House Speaker Joe Hackney has announced his staff lineup. Click here for the details. The bullet points:

• Laura DeVivo, who had been Hackney’s aid when he was majority leader, will share the title of senior policy adviser with Mike Wilkins, who was chief of staff for former Speaker Jim Black.
• House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman has hired Don Willis as his assistant. Before coming to the Majority Leader’s Office, Willis, a graduate of North Carolina Central University who also has a master’s degree from the UNC Greensboro, spent 32 years with the state’s Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services.
• Hackney still plans to hire a General Counsel but apparently does not plan on hiring a chief of staff.

Rep. Hugh Holliman's bill that would ban smoking in virtually all workplaces may be in trouble.

I have a story coming for Sunday (click here for that newspaper story) but the gist is this: With most if not all of 52 Republicans aligned against the measure, differences of opinion among the House's 68 Democrats may doom the bill.

A vote is at least tentatively scheduled for Tuesday's House session.

Click here to listen to Holliman argue for the bill at a Thursday presser. Rep. Larry Hall, who is also a sponsor of the bill speaks right after Holliman on this take.

Click here to listen to Republican Rep. John Blust argue against the bill following a Judiciary Committee meeting last week.

Locally, I've spoke with Reps. Nelson Cole (Rockingham County) and Earl Jones who definitively oppose the thing in its current form. Jones says he's worried about Lorillard workers (the cigarette maker is based in Greensboro) while Cole says the law over-reaches and interferes with the rights of small businesses.

Rep. Maggie Jeffus also says she is leaning against the bill because of the disagreements surrounding it. She said she would rather see the protagonist on either side, at least among Democrats, work out their differences before a vote.

By the by: Greensboro tobacco maker Lorillard has a PAC. Its paperwork shows contributions to Jones ($1,000 in 2006) Cole ($1,500 in 2006) Jeffus ($1,500 in 2006) High Point Republican Rep. Laura Wiley ($500 in 2006) The N.C. Democratic House Campaign Committee ($1,000 in 2006) Contributions have gone to Guilford County Senators Kay Hagan, Phil Berger and Stan Bingham as well, but we're talking about a vote in the House at this point.

Similar giving patterns can see on behalf of Altria (formerly Phillip Morris) and RJ Reynolds.

Standard disclaimer: Politicians repeatedly say that campaign contributions do not influence their choices on public policy decisions. They also say that the amount reflected in these campaign reports are chump change compared to the really big money in politics. Your mileage may vary, but I can't really believe business people give money to politicians for purely altruistic reasons. If they wanted to be known as do-gooders, they would build a hospital or something.

I've also heard second-hand (but reliably) that at least two other central Piedmont Dems are leaning against the bill.

That's six of 68 leaning or dead-set against before we even talk about eastern counties where there is still a great deal of tobacco growing. Two more Dem opponents and the bill is dead without help from some Republicans, most of who don't seem in a helping mood.

Update:Mr. Betts says there are some Republicans on board, but I bet it ain't a bucket load.

More on those for and against after the jump.

From an Edwards for President campaign e-mail:

Elizabeth and John wanted me to tell you about a TV appearance that will be broadcast on Sunday night. They'll sit down for an interview on 60 Minutes with Katie Couric. The program is scheduled to air Sunday at 7:00 PM ET.

Given the announcement regarding Mrs. Edwards' health last week, it will probably be interesting.

The bill, H150 to change North Carolina's kindergarten entry age is scheduled to be heard in the House Education committee Tuesday (3/27).

Click here for an explainer on the bill, including several comments.

House leaders say they will postpone consideration of a bill that would ban smoking from almost all workplaces that was tentatively scheduled for a vote Tuesday.

"We've got 35-to-40 people undecided," said Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Davidson County Democrat and the House majority leader. There are 120 members of the House.

"It's really not wise to bring a bill to the floor unless you know where everybody stands," said Holliman, the bill's principal author.

The bill would ban smoking in bars and restaurants as well as workplaces ranging from factory floors to office settings. Proponents say it will protect the health of workers. Opponents say it infringes on property owners rights.

Click here for a previous post on the topic.

Two stories from me in today's paper:

• The state Realtors group is pushing back against proposed transfer taxes.

• This story outlined Sen. Hagan's
  bill on data center tax breaks.

For those interested in the stories regarding state film incentives for slightly naughty movies, two bills were filed by Sen. Phil Berger of Rockingham this week:

• S1324 would outlaw incentives for films with obscene material entirely.

  The bill defines an obscene film as one that "contains material that is obscene, as defined in G.S. 14-190.1."

  G.S. 14-190.1 defines obscene as:

  For purposes of this Article any material is obscene if:

  • (1) The material depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically defined by subsection (c) of this section; and
  • (2) The average person applying contemporary community standards relating to the depiction or description of sexual matters would find that the material taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex; and
  • (3) The material lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; and
  • (4) The material as used is not protected or privileged under the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of North Carolina.

• S1325 would repeal the film tax credit entirely.

Are 1325's chances good? Probably not, people 'round here like having movie makers about.

What about 1324? I could see the bulk of the Republicans and a sizeable group of Dems going for it, if they could get past their partisan divides.

From a notice sent out to local Democrats:

Lt. Governor Beverly Perdue will be in Greensboro Thursday, March 29, for a women-only event.

The event will be held from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the home of Kathy Manning, 302 Kemp Road West, Greensboro.

For those following efforts to move up the Kindergarten entry age in North Carolina
(click here for background) the bill passed the House Education Committee today and is headed to a floor vote.

Click here to listen to other committee members question the bill's sponsor, Rep. Dale Folwell of Forsyth County.

As Folwell pointed out during the meeting, the House passed this bill last year and there's little reason it won't do so again.

Rep. Laura Wiley made her pitch for H 915, which would make American Sign Language count as a foreign language at high schools and colleges, to the House Education Committee today.

She did so with the help of sign language interpreters, who translated the presentation for others in the audience. (A fine example of why I should have a video camera up here.)

Click here to listen to Wiley explain the bill.

The committee voted in favor of the bill and should be heading to the floor this week or early next.

The House has passed House Bill 502 an act to "Repeal Chiropractic Special Provision."

The "special provision" in question, of course, is the one involved in former House Speaker Jim Black pleading guilty to federal and state corruption charges.

Before this provision became law, insurance companies could charge more in co-payments to patients who visited chiropractors than when they visited a medical doctor. This provision said that the co-pay for a chiropractic visit could not be more than for a visit to a primary care doc.

The bill passed 107-8.

Rep. Hugh Holliman, the Davidson Democrat who co-sponsored the bill with Republican leader Rep. Paul Stam, was asked whether anyone had filed a bill to go through the legislative process the normal way.

Holliman said that he wasn't aware of one but that if one didn't come along he might do that himself.

Holliman said the provision needed to be revoked and re-run "to protect the integrity of this body."

It got some pretty tense debate on the floor, including from Greensboro Democratic Rep. Earl Jones, who said it would hurt patients. Jones was one of Black's most steadfast defenders up until the point when he pleaded guilty.

Click here to listen to him question the sponsors of the bill.

And then Click here to listen to him argue against the bill a second time.

But Jones didn't walk the talk; he voted for the measure.

And for good measure, Click here to listen to Rep. John Blust, a Republican, weigh in. Suffice it to say, he disagrees with Jones.

For those wondering: Reps. Allred, Clary, Johnson, Tucker, Braxton, Cunningham, Sutton and Walker voted against the bill. Rep. Thomas Wright, who has had his own troubles lately, is listed as not voting.

Update: Bonus audio:

• Click here to listen to Rep. Hugh Holliman outline the bill.

• Click here to listen to Rep. Cary Allred and Rep. Paul Stam talk about the bill. Allred called it "demagoguery" while Stam put forward a short historical argument for its repeal.

  "This law got sold, it has to be repealed," Stam said.

Rep. Hugh Holliman's smoking bill has just been re-calendared for April 4.

The House debated H91- Registration and Voting at One Stop Sites today. The measure would let people register to vote and vote on the same day during North Carolina's early voting period.

The bill passed 68-45 but because of an objection to third reading it will have to be heard again tomorrow. Assuming it passes again, the Senate will get the chance to review and take up the bill.

Update: Click here for the newspaper story.

It was the focus of some Republican push-back earlier this week and Sen. Phil Berger sent out a news release with his thoughts.

The Republicans were pushing for a photo-identification requirement to be attached to the bill. Some, like majority leader Rep. Paul Stam of Wake County, said they would vote for the measure if it were amended to require a photo id during one-stop registration.

The request echoed proposals that have been floated by GOP lawmakers for at least the past decade, which would require all voters to show a photo identification in order to register to vote and/or vote.

For your listening pleasure, some audio clips of the debate related to that very point:

• Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican, argued for the photo identification amendment. Click here to listen to that and his exchange with Rep. Earl Jones, a Greensboro Democrat. After the hilarity at the end of that first clip ensues, click here to listen to Blust finish his thought.
• Rep. Alma Adams added her two cents against the photo identification amendment.
• And then things get weird. Republican Rep. Bill Current of Gaston started asking Rep. Debora Ross, a Wake Democrat, something about whether she had been to Normandy, France. So Speaker Joe Hackney rules the question out of order but Ross begins speaking French. Really, click the link, I dare you.
• Click here to listen to Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat, get cranky with Current.

On tomorrow's calendar: The Kindergarten Age bill.

For those looking out for Senate Bill 88, which would allow folks to swear on whatever holy book they choose when they testify in court, it hit a small delay.

The bill was scheduled to be heard by a Senate Judiciary Committee this morning.

Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, of Orange County, is its sponsor and said it needs some technical changes before it is presented to the committee.

"It just was not correctly drawn," she said.

This bill had its origins with a case (click here) in Greensboro.

Kinnaird said she expected to see the bill come before the committee again next week.

"It's a logical bill," she said. "The point of an oath is you want the person to tell the truth." They're more likely to do that, she said, if whatever it is they're swearing on means something to them.

Hello folks. There have been some folks who regularly comment here who have had their comments delayed or not posted here because of our anti-spam efforts. I've had to fish one or two of my own comments out of my software's junk comment folder.

Avoiding this is simple - I think. After you fill out your comment and whatever personal information you're leaving, there is a final question that lately has been asking for the name of our current president in all lower case letters. If you fill that out, your comment should sail right through.

If anyone has further problems or this doesn't fix their wagon, please contact me at mbinker@news-record.com.

I know this is a pain in the hind parts, but it keeps the 200-plus (no, I'm not exaggerating) spam messages this site can attract in a given day from showing up.

House Bill 359, Restore Flexibility to the School Calendar, passed the House Education committee today. The measure would let local school systems apply to the state for system-wide wavers of the rule that prohibits school from starting earlier than Aug. 25.

That rule was made law in 2004 but apparently never vetted by the education committee. So this year, the committee and its members have been vetting this one for a while now, with a whole lot of outside help and comment.

School systems want more flexibility because they say they need to sync their calendars with local community colleges and that teachers have lost some work days. (It looked like a couple hundred school administrators took time off from a conference to watch this thing pass committee.)

The tourism industry doesn't like the measure because they think it could lead to fewer vacation and less vacation spending, not to mention dry up a source of cheap High School-aged labor.

You can find parents on both sides of the issue.

The committee vote was 38-13. Of local (Guilford County) note, Democratic Rep. Maggie Jeffus, of Greensboro, and Republican Rep. Pat Hurley, of Randolph County, voted for the bill. Democratic Rep. Alma Adams, of Greensboro, and Republican Rep. Laura Wiley, of High Point, voted no.

• Click here to listen to Rep. Larry Bell, Democrat of Sampson County, offer his explanation of the bill.

• There were a handful of folks who spoke against the bill. But Rep. Curtis Blackwood, Republican of Union County, managed to combine his opposition with a preface that was racially tinged, seemingly xenophobic and possibly encouraged juvenile delinquency - or at least a lot of goofing off time. Click here listen for yourself.

• Click here to listen to Greensboro Democrat Alma Adams ask a few questions about the measure.

The Kindergarten age bill passed the House on a 106-2 vote with no debate. It is now headed to the Senate for review there.

The same-day voter registration and voting bill has passed its final vote in the House.

The measure still got a little push-back today, mainly from Republicans.

Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican, offered an amendment to the bill that would require state boards to collect data on the types of identification used during this procedure.

It got shot down, as did one by Rep. Cary Allred, a Republican from Alamance County.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

High Point Republican Rep. Laura Wiley's bill that allows schools to offer American Sign Language for credit as a foreign language passed the House today on a 108-0 vote. It now goes to the Senate.

When people give your campaign money, they report it.

You are supposed to report it as well.

My colleague in Wilmington says someone must have missed that memo.

Dueling letters to the editor today pro and con and pro on the proposed smoking ban.

Reminder: the workplace smoking ban bill is on the April 4 House calendar, although I imagine it could move again.