News-Record.com

In date order:

• Court documents say that former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings is due to be sentenced on Monday.

• The Associated Press reports:

  RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ The State Board of Elections will meet May 15 to hold an investigative hearing into the campaign finances of Rep. Thomas Wright, an elections official said Tuesday, marking a new phase of the probe into donations Wright has received.

  The public meeting, which could last up to three days, will come five months after a former Democratic consultant lodged a formal complaint against Wright, D-New Hanover, alleging he broke elections law by delaying disclosure of $41,000 in campaign donations.

  Gary Bartlett, the state elections director, declined to discuss what evidence had been uncovered but said the hearing was called for by board chairman Larry Leake. In March, Bartlett said board investigators believed there was a "possibility of criminal violations" of the campaign reporting law.

  Word has it that Rep. Mary McAlliste, D-Cumberland, will also come before the board during those hearings.

• Meanwhile, Dome reports that former Speaker Jim Black will be sentenced on May 18.

The Senate is legendary, renowned even, for its fungible sense of time. That 3 p.m. printed on top of the counter is more a guideline. It has traditionally been less of a rule than a suggestion, interpreted as, "Oh, we’ll start at 3-ish, after some lovely debate and a light lunch, when we all get around to it." Somehow, it’s in keeping with the relaxed pace of life here in the south, or something.

Well, no more, said Deputy Senate President Pro Tempore Charles Dannely:

"Before the adjournment, the president spoke to you about starting on time, and we stood at ease for 10 minutes because a number of you would have missed votes. With the approval of Sen. Basnight, we are going to start on time or nearly on time as possible. If you're not here, then that's too bad, because everybody's time is important, and if we start on time, we can get out and take care of the rest of our business."

I'm skeptical. Senate Standard Time has become cultural around here. Legislators are creatures of habbit.

Of course, the House used to have the same fungible sense of time under former Speaker Jim Black, and that chamber has been pretty on time this year. So change is possible.

Rep. Hugh Holliman's anti-smoking bill, scheduled for debate today, was re-calendared for tomorrow, Wednesday, May 2.

Sheriffs would have to report when they deny pistol purchase permits to a state registry under a bill the House gave tentative approval on a 88-26 vote Tuesday. House members will vote again Wednesday before sending the bill to the Senate.

Click here for background.

Under current law, sheriffs must issue a permit before a resident of their county can buy a gun. The proposal would require the state to establish a central registry of those denials.

Proponents say the registry is needed in case someone should move and their new sheriff doesn't have access to the information that prompted the original permit denial.

The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Maggie Jeffus, a Greensboro Democrat, and was prompted by the suicide of a Greensboro man who was able to legally buy a pistol after initially being denied.

For those who say the online brief regarding Coble criticizing World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, but wanted more, we did have a story inside our A section today. For the full the full version, click past the jump.

Update:Click here for a YouTube version of the speech.

When Federal Judge James Dever sentences former Speaker Jim Black later this month, he wants to know a few things. From an order filed in District Court Monday:

Pursuant to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedures 32(h), this court provides notice that at the sentencing hearing it wants to receive evidence concerning the amount of money that defendant Jim Black raised from chiropractors from 1999 to 2006 ... The court also wants to know the identities of the chiropractors identified in the Factual Basis ... The court also wants to receive evidence on whether and how the defendant spent or distributed the cash that he received from the chiropractors. The court also wants to receive evidence concerning the August 15, 2006 meeting between Dr. Keith and defendant."

The upper limit of Black's jail time, according to the order, is 120 months - that's 10 years to you and me.

Click here to read the full order.

Some of what judge asked about we know. For example, the identity of the chiropractors came out in state court.

As for how the money was spent, that's still a little fuzzy. It will be interesting to see whether it gets cleared up. (Black's lawyer didn't have a real specific answer after the former Speaker's last federal court hearing.

Click here for the official meeting notice on the State Board of Elections hearings regarding Reps. Thomas Wright and Mary McAllister.

Dates are May 17, 18 and 19 at the downtown Raleigh Clarion.

So I'm wandering around the General Assembly today when I run into Guilford County Manager David McNeil and Guilford County Commissioners Chairman Paul Gibson.

They were up here for the annual North Carolina Association of County Commissioners lobby day. Also in the building, they tell me, were fellow commissioners Kay Cashion and Kirk Perkins, although I didn't see them.

You ever have that feeling that we're not all that organized when the state throws money at new businesses? You are not alone.

From an audit issued by the State Auditor today:

"The Department of Commerce does not function as the lead agency for economic development activities in the State. The Department and the regional commissions/partnerships independently set their agendas to market the State on their regions."

Click here for the full audit, which includes responses from the Commerce Department.

So who is the lead dog. According to the audit:

"The Governor plays a key role in determining the economic plan for North Carolina. However, results from surveys of North Carolina's economic development players suggest that the Governor's visibility and leadership could be enhanced by more involvement with the local economic development community."

Or, indeed, being seen in public from time to time.

The Commerce Department's response?

"The Department of Commerce is the lead agency for economic development in North Carolina. However, the economic development system, as it has evolved, is a fragmented one.

As the audit correctly notes, the system consists of independent local economic development councils and chambers representing cities and counties, numerous niche-focused nonprofits, allied business like public utilities and banks, independent state agencies like the UNC and Community College Systems, and the seven regional partnerships."

As the House honors former Rep. Howard Hunter, a bunch of notices for Appropriations Sub-Committee meetings are going out. Time: 8:30 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

Looks like we may be firing this thing up (again) after last week's false start.

Update: Bill has failed on a 55-61 vote. More to come.

Update: Click here for our short breaking news story. More on the debate tomorrow.

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The House has (finally) taken up debate of Rep. Hugh Holliman's anti-smoking bill. Debate has just gotten under way.

Background here.

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Update (4:35 p.m.): Debate on the anti-smoking resolution had fired up, and then the resolution honoring former Sen. Robert Holloman came across the hall, the House took a break from the smoking debate.

Click here for early audio from the debate, mainly Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, a Wake County Republican, arguing against the bill.

My guess is the smoking debate will pick back up again in the 5 o'clock hour.

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Smoking debate picks back up at 4:49 p.m.

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A few notes on yesterday, today and tomorrow:

• The House vote on the smoking bill was 55-61. Click here to see how your rep voted.

• Click here for my prior post on the smoking bill.

• I could slice and dice a lot of audio of the debate, but this four minute clip of debate between Reps. Hugh Holliman and John Blust pretty much sums things up.

• After the vote, Holliman said that he had lost votes from folks who had said they would support the bill.

• Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, the House minority leader, attempted to deliver the clincher motion - which would have killed the bill for good. What was either a misunderstanding or some fancy rhetorical footwork by Speaker Joe Hackney (pick your theory) kept that from going down. Still, Holliman seemed to think it was unlikely that they'd try to resurrect this bill.

• The House budget subcommittees will begin running at 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning. Rep. Alma Adams, one of the appropriations committee chairs, said she was pretty confident the subs would be looking over their parts of the budget bill. Unless the honorables plan on working on the weekend, that means they'll be running the full budget next week.

• Someone I have a lot of respect for pointed out today that I may have been snarkier than intended in this post. Quoting:

  The governor has already released his work of fiction budget proposal, which the House has ignored. After the House gets done with its bill, the Senate will ignore their version and write their own. Then all three will get together and write the final bill.

  The governor, to my knowledge, has only written one work of fiction in his life, and it’s a children's book. (By contrast, my timecards are more or less completely fictional on a bi-weekly basis...yeah I work 40 hours a week...on Pluto.) Of course, what I meant to get across was the governor writes his budget and the honorables all nod and run off and construct their own.

  At the end of the budget process, the governor's budget along with the House and Senate versions are blended into the final version. And only the items in all three versions are eligible to be included.

Okay, that's it for tonight. Let's do this all again tomorrow.

Update: So these little appropriations subcommittees are humming along and each is allowed to push some money around before sending their section of the budget back to the full appropriations committee.

Typically the procedure of the day involves staff members reviewing what's in the original documents. At the end of that review in Natural and Economic Resources, Rep. Ruth Samuelson, a Republican of Mecklenburg, had a question for her subcommittee chair:

"I think you may have answered my question - but I'm not the only freshman - so now is when the bartering begins?

Why yes, yes it is.

Samuelson tried some of that bartering, asking the committee to take $1 million slated for the drag racing hall of fame (see below) and shift it to program what would clean up emissions from older diesel school busses.

The $1 million of state money, she said, would be matched by the federal government and would help North Carolina combat air pollution, which could jeopardize other federal highway funds.

"I ask you to ignore the fact I'm a freshman, ignore the fact that I'm a Republican and vote in favor of this amendment," she said.

Well, the committee ignored something.

Rep. Michael Wray, a Democrat from Gaston, asked the committee to vote it down.

“The drag racing hall of fame is important to my community,” he said.

The amendment failed.

And a day of reviewing part - just part - of the budget continued.

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The grand budget dance in the House has begun. This morning at 8:30 a.m. (more or less, depending on which committee you were at) six of the seven appropriation subcommittees began rifling through how the money in their particular program area would be spent.

At this point in the process, amounts for specific line items are going to change as appropriators shift money around from one item to another. And really, at this point, it's just important that an item stay in the budget so it can make it to the final round of negotiations.

Some highlights for the Guilford County/Rockingham/Randolph crowd:

• The Civil Rights Museum in downtown Greensboro was originally slated for a $1 million grant out of the "General Government" budget. That was cut to $500,000. Most of the money that was cut went to aid for public libraries.

• The Charlotte Hawkins Browm memorial in Sedalia is in line for a $50,00 grant.

• The joint nanotechnology school being put together by UNCG and NCAT is in line for $1.4 million in funding from the education budget.

• The Hosiery Technology Center, at Catawba and Randolph Community Colleges, would get a $100,000 grant to "enhance diversification in hosiery manufacturing operations where seamless production is compatible with hosiery manufacturing." Right.

• Funds to study the Equine Industry (that horses y'all) would be set at $330,000. Basically, this is a study that would pave the way for the state to invest more money in horses and horse technology.

• The Natural Science Center of Greensboro is in line for a $1 million grant as of 10 a.m.

• The state would provide $125,000 to help market the High Point furniture market under the proposed Commerce Department budget.

A bit further a field:

• The House budget, as of 10 a.m., still funded the School of Math and Science tuition grants that are championed by Sen. Kay Hagan and have become controversial as of late.

• $1 million was set aside for a drag racing hall of fame down east.

Remember Rep. Pricey Harrison's bill to ban incandescent bulbs?

The bill has been retooled and is now a study in two parts:

• The Environmental Review Commission would be directed to study the feasibility of phasing out incandescent bulbs.

• The Division of Waste Management would be charged with figuring out a way to recycle compact fluorescent bulbs, which contain small amounts of mercury.

From the good folks at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The federal judge scheduled to sentence former House Speaker Jim Black later this month should recuse himself, Black's attorney said Thursday, citing the judge's history in a legislative redistricting case.

Click here to read the full order.

More from the AP:

Ken Bell, Black's lawyer, said U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III, while still an attorney in private practice, sued Black and other state officials on behalf of state Republican leaders and a GOP voter earlier this decade. The lawsuit challenged the maps approved by the General Assembly for its own House and Senate districts.

Dever's clients won the redistricting case at the state Supreme Court, forcing Black and other lawmakers to redraw the districts. If Dever sentences Black on May 18, Bell wrote, "it will appear to the public that Judge Dever will indeed have had the last word on the redistricting battle engaged in during his private practice."

From a news release:

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom today announced that she will become President of the Milbank Memorial Fund. The Fund is a New-York based foundation that conducts non-partisan analysis, study and research on significant issues in health policy.

She's staying on through the legislative session and isn't scheduled to start her new job until October.

Click here for the full release.

Gosh almighty, I'm going to be on the television box tonight, courtesy of Legislative Week in Review. Charlotte's David Ingram, host Eszter Vajda and I talked a little budget, a little smoking and look forward to what's shaping to be a busy month here in Cap City. With any luck we didn't cuss or look too terribly silly during the taping.

Rockingham County reporter Gerald Witt gave me a heads up about this item on the Rockingham County Commissioners agenda:

"Consider adoption of Resolution - Impact of Jordan Lake Rules"

Click here for background. No, it doesn't sound like the commissioners are terribly enamored of the new rules. The resolution would ask environmental regulators to reconsider, Gerald says.

From scheduled to run in Monday's paper:

RALEIGH - House budget writers want to make it more expensive for state officials to travel to athletic events on state aircraft, a provision apparently aimed at UNC-Chapel Hill's use of two state airplanes.

The Commerce Department owns two planes based in Raleigh...

[snip]

UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser and other high-ranking officials also used the plane to travel to sports events 15 times in 2006, records obtained by the legislature's fiscal research division show.

For example, an entry on March 17 reads "Chancellor attending NCAA Basketball Championships."

Use of the state aircraft is "a time-management issue," a university spokesman said.

Click here to read the full story.

More after the jump.

Former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings is getting sentenced in Federal Court this morning. We'll post a bulletin on our front page once the sentence is announced. Click here to read the judge's pre-sentencing order, which doesn't have a lot of comforting things to say if you're the defendant.

Play nice amongst yourselves until I get back.

Update (noon): There's a recess until 1:15 p.m. in the Geddings sentencing hearing.

So far, Judge Dever has not issued any of the brimstone from on high that he rained down upon former Rep. Michael Decker throughout his stentencing, but that may be yet to come.

A couple of interesting points from this morning's proceedings:

Update:Click here for my story from today's paper, whick details the proposed funding for the nanotechnology school in east Greensboro.

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The House Budget is online:

• Click here for the bill itself.
• Click here for the money report, which is a little easier to read in terms of dollars and cents.

The bill keeps the temporary (sort of) 1/4 cent sales tax and upper-end income tax rate on the books for another two years.

It would create an earned income tax credit.

Update: Okay, a few additional notes:

• The House Finance Committee is running tomorrow, pretty much all day. The appropriations committee is expected to go on Wednesday morning. Speaker Joe Hackney anticipates the House may need a Friday session to do the final reading on the budget.

"What are you afraid of," said House Republican leader Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, "a little debate?"

You could forgive him or any of the House Republicans for being a little aggravated in Tuesday afternoon's Finance Committee meeting. It had just become blazingly apparent that the GOP's entire approach to writing budgets - cutting spending so one can cut taxes - had been ruled out of order, or at least made nigh-on-impossible to accomplish in the current order of things.

To explain all this, we'll have to talk a little bit about House rules, procedures and other things that typically make my bosses' eyes glaze over, so be forewarned if you click to the jump.

After passing the bill once last week, the House debated the Wilmington Race Riot acknowledgement bill again today. It's now on its way to the Senate.

Dome has a bonny good summary.

And you can click here to listen to Greensboro Republican Rep. John Blust's take.

And then click here to listen to Mickey Michaux, Jr. take exception with Blust's history and interpretation.

Gov. Mike Easley doesn't like the House budget.

But as Ms. Leslie says, find me someone who does, I mean, other than the folks who wrote it.

A few Guilford County projects took a hit in the House budget (and one got some help) this morning. The House Appropriations Committee is meeting to make changes to the spending plans before it gets sent to the House floor.

But first the standard disclaimer: ain't none of this finished and final until the conference budget gets done in June.

For those who wanted to visit the drag racing hall of fame, that line item was deleted. I'm thinking some appropriators thought that drag-racing might be redneck for "teapot."

The Greensboro Natural Science Center had been slated for $1 million in early versions of the budget. That got cut to $125,000. But the rest of that money stayed in Guilford County.

The $875,000 saved by cutting the Science Museum was transferred to the High Point Furniture Market to help it promote itself and compete with the new market in Las Vegas.

Funding for renovations at the Charlotte Hawkins Brown museum out in Sedalia was cut in half, but it still has $3.9 million in the budget.

And the committee continues to roll.

And you thought you paid too much for office supplies:

State Auditor Leslie Merritt released a performance audit of the Purchase and Contract Division (P&C) of the Department of Administration today. The audit found that P&C has not required permanent, corrective action for known pricing errors and product availability issues caused by its office supplies vendor, Office Depot. Effective February 1, 2006, P&C contracted with Office Depot as the sole statewide vendor for office supplies for State government agencies. As a result of this audit, Office Depot identified and credited State agencies for overcharges of $40,887.

Click here for the full audit.

The appropriations committee continues to review amendments to the budget. As of about 2 p.m. they had looked over 22 of the 76 request for changes filed.

The 22d of those amendments to run would have gutted funding for the International Civil Rights Center, taking more than half of the $500,000 currently in the budget and shifting it to a Native American museum in Robeson County.

This of course kicked the Guilford County delegation into gear.

"I hate to see the Native Americans being pitted against the African Americans, I think that's unfortunate," said Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat.

Late in the debate, the committee heard from Rep.
Cary Allred, who cited reports in the News & Record that work on the museum hadn't been tracked like it should have. (More here and here. Oh, and there are links to the museums latest less-than-flattering audit here.)

"Let me first of all say you can't believe everything you read Greensboro News & Record as you can't in many papers," Adams said.

Ouch. I have a really snarky comment about legislatures being bastions of veracity, but I'll withhold it for the moment.

Well the amendment failed after much discussion.

And since you can't believe what you read in the paper, click here to listen to the end of the debate, which includes the sound of the vote and comments from Rep. Maggie Jeffus.

So status as of 2:20 p.m.: Civil Rights Museum still has $500,000 and the Appropriations Committee is rolling on.

So it's 5:45 p.m. and the House Appropriations Committee is still moving along, although it sounds like the thing is about to land.

The most interesting thing from the past couple hours was an amendment to boost state worker salaries. Under earlier versions of the budget, they would have gotten a 2.5 percent pay increase plus a one-time $400 bonus.

Rep. Dan Blue, a Wake County Democrat and former speaker, targeted a bunch of vacant jobs throughout state government. Any position that has been (or will be) vacant for more than 6 months will be eliminated and the money sloshed over to the raises.

That will allow state employees to get a 4.25 percent raise, but eliminates the bonus.

For all those state employees out there, if you make $23,000 or more, you come out ahead under this plan. If you make anywhere south of $23,000 a year, the 2.5 percent plus bonus would have been slightly better for you.

(This doesn't affect teachers and judges, who would get 5 percent raises under the current draft of the budget.)

And in the time it took me to write this, the committee closed things out just before 6 p.m. Look for the full House debate tomorrow.

If you want the raw numbers of what when on with the budget yesterday, check in with the bill drafting blog:

In the House Appropriations Committee today, over 90 amendments were sent forward to the budget bill, House Bill 1473. Of those, 53 were adopted. Staff from Bill Drafting, Fiscal Research and the Appropriations Committee just met and compared notes to agree on the list of 53.

In case you're wondering, yes, that's a lot of work.

Debate on the House floor is expected this afternoon.

So the House has begun debating its budget. Actually, for the past half hour or so, the chairs of the various committees and subcommittees have been explaining things to their colleagues.

At some point, they'll get to amending the thing, or trying to depending on who wants to do what.

If you're listening in, you should keep an ear out for an amendment giving more Medicaid help to counties.

Republicans had planned to run an amendment that would cut some pork critical economic development projects and boost Medicaid relief to counties to $100 million, from the $60 million it has been sitting at for a few days.

Well, Democratic leaders announced at the beginning of the session that they had found the $40 million extra - I don't know, maybe they cleaned all the pennies out of the fountain in the courtyard - and that THEY would have an amendment to boost Medicaid spending.

So I guess minority leader Rep. Paul Stam's speech in opposition to the budget just got a little shorter.

Schedule-wise, it looks like they're going to cruise until 5 p.m., take a break for dinner, come back around 7 p.m. and finish out. Then they'll hold a Friday session at about 12:05 a.m. Friday morning to send the thing along to the Senate.

I'll update here as debate and amendments merit.

. . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzz wha? Huh?

Sorry, nodded off there.

The House is in recess from its budget debate and things are fairly tame so far.

Democrats have run a couple of amendments, one boosting Medicaid relief for counties and the other cutting off a needle exchange program. Those moves undercut a couple of planned Republican amendments that would have seen spirited debate and may have actually passed. (Translation: Dems adopted the GOP position before they lost a vote.)

Reps. John Blust, of Greensboro, and Cary Allred, of Alamance County, tried to run amendments that would have require suspension of the rules and, well, those were DOA pretty much.

No fireworks so far. Debate has been civil.

Maybe folks will get have some spicy food for dinner and fire up debate when they come back in at 7 p.m.

My colleague Mark Schreiner at the Wilmington paper has more.

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The State Board of Elections, as of 6 p.m. tonight, has posted subpoenas on six folks to testify in their investigation of Rep. Thomas Wright. Click (here for background.) Hearings are scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Among those called:

• Thomas Wright, the representative himself.
• Daryle (or Darryl) Parker, who looks to have been Wright's campaign treasurer at one point in time.
• Helyn Loftin, 117 Avant Drive, Wilmington.
• James Loftin, 117 Avant Drive, Wilmington.
• Wayne Loftin, 521 Arlie Road, Wilmington.
• Karen Davis-Parker, who is only identified on the subpoena as being of Wilmington.

Not knowing Wilmington politics real well, I do not know who most of these folks are. If you do, feel free to use the comment link below.

I would expect there to be more subpoenas made public between now and the hearings, given that it doesn't look like anyone who might be related to Mary McAllister, who is also a subject of inquiry, is on the list yet. (Subpoenas only become public after they've been served.)

Back in the House budget debate . . .

The honorables seemingly have hit a point of contention.

There is a provision in the budget as it stood this morning that would require the Sec. of Health and Human Services to report to the General Assembly before closing the Dorothea Dix and John Umstead mental hospitals. The deadline for making that report in the current General Assembly session has passed.

Now, a new hospital in Butner, which would replace the two older ones, is about ready to open.

(Update: Click here to listen to Reps. Blue and Crawford debate this point.)

Jim Crawford, a Granville Democrat, says that if the budget stays as is, it would force the state to keep the two old hospitals open even if the new hospital opens.

The problem with that is this: the money saved from closing the two old hospitals is supposed to pay for the new hospital when it opens in October or there abouts.

"It would be a travesty to have to wait until we have a new session in May to have to pay for three hospitals rather than one," Crawford said.

There were some objections from legislators who thought the Sec. of Health and Human Services ought to have to report when the law tells her to report.

"If the secretary and the Department knew what the law was and what the law is, then we ought not to be glossing over that fact," said Rep. Dan Blue, a Wake County Democrat.

But gloss we will, at least in the House budget.

Crawford's amendment passed 68-46.

Of course, there's at least two more months of budgeting to go, so this may yet be addressed.

The House passed its version of the budget 68-51 Thursday night. They'll confirm that vote during at 12:05 a.m. session Friday morning. No debate is expected.

You may remember the transfer of money from the Greensboro Science Center to the High Point Furniture Market. I asked both Reps. Maggie Jeffus and Alma Adams, Greensboro Democrats, about that.

They both suggested that Speaker Hackney had a roll in making that switch. At a post-vote press conference, I asked Hackney what was up with the move.

"Some of our members were putting that science museum project in the same category as the drag racing museum," Hackney said.

In case you're wondering, that's a bad thing to be compared to. The only thing worse would have been a reference to the teapot museum the state funded a couple years back.

Click here to listen to his full comments on the switch, which included some kinder words for the museum.

Now, a few final thoughts from those engaged in the House budget debate tonight:

• "This is one of the greenest budgets I've seen in a long time," said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat. She said she was pleased with the funding of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and farmland preservation.

• "What this budget does is make substantial investment in the education of our children," said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Cumberland County Democrat. He said that enrollment growth for the university system and public school system.

• "I think that when we talk about what we could of done or should have done, we always leave out the taxpayer," said Rep. Dale Folwell, a Forsyth County Republican. He said budget writers should have returned more money to taxpayers.

• "This budget is equitable, this budget is fair. And this budget is one that all of us can be proud to vote for," said House Speaker Pro Tempore William Wainwright.

• "There are important things we need to do, but when we take that dollar ... we owe them as their board of directors to give them a $1 value for every dollar we take. I don't think you could find a 1 percent of North Carolinians who think we do that."

Here are some more answers and audio from Speaker Hackney's press conference following the budget's passage.

• Earlier this week I wrote about the problems Republicans had running amendments to the budget.

  So what's up with that?

  "In every legislative or parliamentary body in the world that I'm aware of the majority controls the agenda," Hackney said.

  Click here to listen to his full answer.

• Another reporter asked about the $400-plus million of borrowing in the budget and whether all that non-bond debt would spin the state's credit out of control. (COPs or Certificates of Participation are more expensive to borrow because they don't require a vote of the people.)

  "The reason it doesn't is that the governor, treasurer and Council of State has full control over when you sell the bonds," Hackney said.

  He also said that the General Assembly would be considering regular bonds later on and hinted that the amount of non-voter-approved borrowing may go down when that bond package is put together.

  Click here to listen to his full answer.

• What's the message this budget sends?

  "Well, that we are prepared to address the problems in education and the growth in education, that we're prepared to continue rewarding teachers in a way that we can recruit teachers ... that we're working on our mental health system and we're going to add additional money as it can be spent," Hackney said.

  Click here to listen to his full answer.

This coming Thursday was to be the "crossover" deadline, the point at which all bills that don't raise or spend money would have had to pass one House or the other. It's an important marker in the legislative calendar, not withstanding the fact that there have been a few ways engineered to get around the deadline.

But it turns out that the members spent so much time drafting 4,000-plus bills they've neglected to pass them, or at least enough of them not to cause problems.

So the House and Senate have reset crossover to next week, May 24 to be exact. Still, you should expect a pretty frenetic couple of weeks as the boys and girls down on Jones Street aim to make sure all their good ideas don't fall victim to a procedural deadline.

Also coming this week: The State Board of Elections will hold hearings into the campaign fund raising practices of Reps. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover, and Mary McAllister, D-Cumberland. The festivities start Tuesday (at the downtown Raleigh Clarion if you're inclined to come and spectate) and I imagine might throw a bit of distraction into the legislative mix.

But before we move ahead, let me catch up on the week that was as told by the press releases in my e-mail box, RSS feeder and my colleagues:

• If you visited this blog last week, you probably noticed the House was drafting up a budget. Click here to find the thing as it was passed last week following all the various amendments on the House floor.

• Apparently, a lot of folks have $20 to spend on a raffle ticket.

• Laura Leslie is having visions about Delta Visions:

  In Wednesday's House Approps meeting, Forsyth Dem Earline Parmon attempted to earmark $250,000 of the $5,000,000 budgeted for the NC Community Development Initiative. Parmon wanted to set the money aside for Delta Visions, which she described as a group seeking to provide low and moderate income housing in a run-down neighborhood in Winston Salem.

  Go onnnnnn....

  The president of Delta Visions, Doris Herrell, has been Parmon's campaign treasurer for the past five years. In that capacity, Herrell has loaned Parmon's campaign more than $10,000 since 2002.

  Parmon seems to have paid it back, mostly in late 2005 and early 2006. You can find her campaign records here. Hint: Search under both Herrell and Harrell - her name shows up both ways.

  Go read her whole post.

• Good news / bad news: Treasurer Moore says your kids don't know how to manage credit cards.

  State Treasurer Richard Moore announced today that North Carolina students scored an average of 47.7 percent - less than half the questions answered correctly - on a statewide test of financial knowledge and skills. Moore released the students' scores and complete results from $kill $et, the statewide financial literacy survey to measure North Carolina students' knowledge of saving, credit, debt and other financial issues.

  Click here for the full release.

• Know your rehtoric: Land Transfer Tax = NC Home Tax.

• From the strangest political story of the week Dept:

  A former campaign worker for Rep. Patrick McHenry of Cherryville has been indicted on an election law violation, the Gaston County district attorney said Saturday.

  McHenry's office, alluding to the Duke lacrosse scandal, accused District Attorney Locke Bell of going after the young aide to politically undermine the Republican congressman.

• I was feeling bad about having to be elsewhere for one of the first real meetings of the new state ethics commission. Dome covered the closed door.

Do we need an official state bat? apparently we do:

Whereas, the Rafinesque's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii) is an indigenous bat to the State of North Carolina and lives in the State year-round...

Debate in the house tonight.

Picture and info here.

Gov. Mike Easley was on a conference call this morning geared at calling attention to the needs of the National Guard. Easley not only has worries about how North Carolina might handle certain situations, but he's the point man for the National Governor's Association on the issue.

The problem, as Easley sees it, in a nutshell: A lot of guard troops and equipment are heading overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan and that might not leave sufficient personnel back here to deal with tornados or pandemic disease or the like.

The problem is not just the level of guard troops in one state, but the availability among states. Typically, if there is a big event (massive tornado, wildfires gone crazy, etc...) a governor can call in help from other states.

And usually, governors are happy to send guard troops and equipment to help out, like North Carolina and others did in the case of Katrina.

"I'm reluctant to let any go right now, because if a hurricane comes I need them in North Carolina," Easley said.

There was a lot of extraneous noise on the line because many of the reporters didn't seem to be able to find their mute buttons.

But you can Click here to listen to Easely flesh out that idea a bit more: "Common sense tells you there is a limit to how much people can do,"

Although Easley and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy talked mostly about the need to fund the guard, they did get into the more systemic problem.

"The problem is they have been moved in to the operational strategy of the army," Easley said of the guard. He added later, "I don't think we can continue with the guard in this operational role much longer."

Easley also said that it's not quite panic time, but that he will need to call for outside help if we get a big tornado or big floods (think Hurricane Floyd) or something else beyond your run of the mill Cat. 3 Hurricane.

"The bigger problem we worry about is if you have a terrorist attack, if you have a pandemic, those are the things we are specifically concerned about," Easley said.

Click here to listen to Easely talk about that idea.

The ladies and gents over at the Civitas Institute have thrown themselves a little poll. And while I don't reject numbers from ideological organizations out of hand, their latest release is a lesson in why we're cautious of such things.

The bullet from their news release:

An overwhelming 70 percent of North Carolina voters disapprove of temporary taxes, according to the Civitas Institute's May DecisionMaker Poll. These responses reveal that, given the $1.1 billion state budget surplus, voters believe the temporary taxes are unnecessary.

Really? Since 70 percent of North carolinians can't agree on what constitutes barbecue, that's a pretty strong result.

And actually, the polling methodology - who they called and how - is pretty strong. But then look at the questions.

"Even though North Carolina will have a $1.1 billion budget surplus this year, the state House has continued $300 million in temporary taxes in order to increase spending over the $1.1 billion surplus. Do you approve or disapprove of this action?"

1. Approve ------------13%
2. Disapprove----------70%
3. Not Sure-------------17%

I'm not going to say that question is loaded, but would you mind pointing it away from me and flipping on the safety.

There appears to be one more subpoena issued for tomorrow's hearings into the campaign accounts of Reps. Thomas Wright and Mary McAllister.

Torlen Wade is listed as the Director of the Office of Rural Health and Community Care on his subpoena. That's a division in DHHS for those keeping score at home. As described on various websites, it has some responsibility for issuing health care-related grants.

He also served as a member of the Public Health Taskforce with Wright, in 2006.

Previously.

The folks who organized the HK on J rally earlier this year held a news conference to update progress on their agenda Monday evening.

More on that later.

Rep. Earl Jones was one of those who spoke. And as much as he was pushing for the HK on J agenda, he also had some thoughts on the recent Duke Lacrosse case to share.

"Nifong was a deputy district attorney in Durham for 25 or 30 years, a predominantly black city. And the courtrooms are full of black folks. Is this the first time. No one has called for an investigation of the appropriate authorities ... no one has called for someone to investigate or at least have a review of some of the cases that he handled for the past 15 or 20 years," Jones said.

Um, Rep. Jones? I think you just made that call.

Click here to listen to his full riff.

The hearings into Rep. Thomas Wright's campaign finances (background here) began around 10:30 a.m. this morning.

Nothing huge has come up yet really, but there are a few items worth noting:

• Torlen Wade, a health department official, declined to testify.

• Folks mentioned (but not yet on the stand) so far have included nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologists, the landfill industry and payday lenders.

• Board of Elections Chairman Larry Leake got everyone's attention when he asked Wright's former campaign treasurer "Do you know of any reason the campaign would have written checks to Victoria's Secret for instance?"

  There's absolutely no context for this question, so we can't say what it's about. But it did cause some raised eyebrows.

• Wright's former campaign chairman, Darryl Parker, and his ex-wife, Karen Davis-Parker, both seemed unsure about some of the checks written on the campaign account and don't seem to have been real active treasurers.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot to say so far.

Update: 11:45 a.m. Rep. Wright has just refused to testify, invoking his fifth amendment rights.

Update - noon: Kim Westbrook Strach, an SBOE investigator, is testifying now. Tid-bits so far:

• The Internal Revenue service had no record of the Community Health Foundation being a 501(c)3. Wright has been head of this foundation and much of the testimony so far has revolved around a real estate deal gone bad involving the foundation.

• Wright had more than one campaign account. Strach says Wright has up to four accounts, each of which co-mingle personal and campaign money.

• At least one co-mingled account took money from corporations, which is a no-no under state campaign finance law. Three corporations identified by name are AT+T, AstraZeneca and Anheuser-Busch.

We appear to be getting somewhere. More later.

Update: Click here for an update from the Associated Press.

Update: 1:50 p.m. The pieces of this hearing that were to deal with Rep. Mary McAllister have been put off until sometime after June 1.

Update: 2 p.m. Strach is back on the stand and once again testifying about Wright's various back accounts.

Update: 3:52 p.m. I haven't been able to upload updates for a while since the wireless signal I was using went kaput.

The hearing is over and the State Board of Elections voted to refer Wright's case to Wake County District Attorney. I'll have a summary of the things that don't look right in a moment.

Update: 4:09 p.m. There are a lot of numbers involved here, but there are a few fundamental things that the State Board has looked askance at:

• Wright apparently solicited corporate contributions, including the ones listed above, under the guise of the Community's Health Foundation. That money got put into accounts that contained campaign money.

• Wright had accounts that co-mingled personal and campaign income. While not illegal, SBOE Chairman Larry Leake called "very bad judgment."

• On behalf of the Communities Health Foundation, Wright helped arranged for the purchase of a building in downtown Wilmington owned by the Loftin family. The building was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 and the family should have made $150,000 or so from the sale.

  But in lieu of payment for their property, the family held a mortgage on the property for a while for the amount that the foundation and Wright owed them.

  That money was never paid and a bank that held a first mortgage on the property has since foreclosed. The family is out their money, with the exception of $15,000 in earnest money.

• To get that mortgage that was in first position, Wright obtained a letter from Torlen Wade, a health department official. Wright's was chairman of the House committee oversaw Wade's department.

  Wright obtained a letter from Wade that said a state grant was forthcoming to pay for $150,000 of the building. Both Wade and Wright knew at the time that there was no such grant in the works.

• According to testimony before the board: the Community's Health Foundation is not a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit. The tax id number that Wright gave to corporations for the nonprofit is a fake.

• According to Strach, Wright failed to report $220,549.98 in campaign contributions.

• According to Strach, there were a good number of personal expenses that were paid for by campaign money that were never reported to the board.

Wright offered no testimony or evidence during the hearing, so we're getting this story all from the SBOE perspective.

And Wright was far from loquacious when he left the hearing. He was asked if he would resign his legislative seat.

"Absolutely not," he said.

One more tidbit from the SBOE hearing on Thomas Wright:

Sitting in the audience were a hand full of nurse anesthetists, basically nurses who put you to sleep for operations.

That group has been fighting a running battle in the legislature with anesthesiologists over the past few years. The doctors want to create a new class of paraprofessionals that would do the same thing as the nurses do.

The nurses' names first arose during investigations into former House Speaker Jim Black.

But this issue in controversy was before Wright's committee and, according to testimony Tuesday, they threw a fundraiser for him in 2005.

The state board closed its hearing before hearing from the nurses who apparently had showed up to testified.

Michael Crowell is an attorney for the nurses and I asked him what was up.

"They would have testified if they were asked to," he said.

Apparently, the nurses would have testified about contributions they made to Wright that either were not reported or were reported late.

"My impression is that Rep. Wright's problems are of a nature that is a lot larger and different than the nurse anesthetists know about," Crowell said. "They are among the witness to an accident, they aren't the ones who were closest or saw the most."

What it comes down to, apparently, is the nurses could add specifics to the pattern that the state board established.

One more thing:

Mentioned in this post is a letter from Torlen Wade, a DHHS official, to Rep. Wright that says the state will fork over $150,000 for the purchase and renovation of a building in Raleigh.

According to testimony before the SBOE, there never was any such money nor was any such money requested from the state or appropriated in the budget.

Click here to read the letter.

From the State Treasurer Richard Moore's campaign

State Treasurer Richard Moore will announce his candidacy for governor, Tuesday, May 22, at a rally in his hometown of Oxford, NC. The rally, which is being held at Moore's alma mater, J. F. Webb High School, will start at 5 p.m.

The campaign website is a bit sparse right at the moment.

One of the