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 fun thing about covering the legislature is there are no shortage of folks coming in from the provinces to remind the honorables of the good work that this, that or the other nonprofit group is doing.

As I was heading to a House ethics committee meeting (more on that in a second) I saw what one might take for the world's largest bath toy.

(Click to enlarge.)

It's actually a model of the CSS Neuse, a Civil War era gunboat used by the Confederates. It currently resides in Lenoir County and according to a handy brochure I picked up, "is the only commissioned Confederate ironclad on display in the world."

Click here for more information on the boat.

The group that owns the boat has been seeking state funding for help buying a building to put the boat in. The House version of the budget that recently passed would set aside $500,000 for the group, but there is a long way to go before that becomes reality.

I love serendipity.

The same day I get an e-mail pimping a website urging Rep. Brad Miller to run for U.S. Senate (more here from Dome) I get this e-mail:

Tomorrow Public Policy Polling will be releasing a new poll featuring a hypothetical US Senate match-up between Elizabeth Dole and Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Remember the days when candidates had to get off their keisters to create their own buzz?

Rep. John Blust has returned from the legislative wilderness.
The Greensboro Republican ended a five year stretch without bringing a bill he authored to the floor of the North Carolina House Wednesday afternoon.

"This is a simple justice provision," Blust said, explaining a measure that would allow taxpayers to recover their legal fees when they defend and win a case against the N.C. Department of Revenue.

(Click here to listen to the full debate.)

Blust had at least one bill pass during the 2001 legislative session. But in 2003, a 60-60 split in the House created an unusual co-speakership between Democrat Jim Black and Republican Richard Morgan.

Blust was an outspoken critic of that arrangement and early on that session it became clear his bills were not clearing committees. That pattern continued in the 2005 session.

(Click to enlarge. Blust is the man standing up with the mic in his hand.)

But with Black and Morgan both out of the leadership and out of the General Assembly, Blust's prospects have improved under new House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Democrat.

Interviewed before the House session, Blust said that Republicans in general were getting more bills through the House this year.

"The bills with less of an ideological bent, they're letting some move," Blust said. "And they haven't slammed the door yet on some of my reforms," he said, referencing some proposals for ethics and campaign law changes he has worked on.

On the House floor, Blust gave a straight-up recitation of his bill, but its significance did not go unnoticed by his colleagues.

"I was tickled you had a bill on the calendar, that survived committee," said Rep. Pryor Gibson, an Anson County Democrat.

"Well, you probably weren't on the committee," Blust said, snarking back.

Gibson asked some questions, raising some points about how the bill might work with other pending pieces of legislation.

In the end, Blust's bill won on a 119-0 vote, prompting a round of applause from the members of the House.

However, Rep. Paul Luebke of Durham objected to third reading, a procedural motion that keeps the bill from moving to the Senate until the House votes again the next day. That apparently was a good-natured jab at Blust, who has objected to many a third readings.

Luebke later removed his objection and it passed fully on a voice vote.

The House Ethics Committee met on three bills today, all of them relatively minor tweaks to the law that was passed last year.

I have a feeling this post might get updated a few times. But to start, this just came in my e-mail from Speaker Joe Hackney's office:

“I will ask the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethics to review the matters discussed Monday during Rep. Thomas Wright’s hearing before the State Board of Elections. This body has the jurisdiction to determine whether the evidence brought forward at the hearing warrants investigation at this time for violation of legislative ethics rules.”

House Republicans say they will move to recall from committee a bill that would put a constitutional amendment on marriage before the voters. Quotes from their news release and what all this means, after the jump:

From a Washington Post story, here's Gate City's own connection to the ongoing prosecutor firing scandal up in D.C.:

Another prosecutor, Anna Mills Wagoner of Greensboro, N.C., is included on three lists. Documents show that Monica M. Goodling, a Gonzales aide set to testify next week in Congress, removed her from consideration because of her work prosecuting gun crimes.

Click here for the full story. Wagoner's name is at the end.

Update: Click here for more on the local story and there will be more in Friday's paper.

From our friends at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A bill that defines a statewide policy against bullying in North Carolina schools passed a House committee Thursday after members rejected an attempt to soften language about potential victims - particularly gay and lesbian students.

The Education Committee debated Tuesday and Thursday over whether the bill should contain a list of types of students that teachers should keep an eye on, because sexual orientation and gender identity were among the characteristics.

"Anyone who's been a parent or even a supervisor knows that, in order to change undesirable behavior, you really have to have a clear understanding of what the expectations are," said Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, one of the measure's supporters.

The panel ultimately voted 30-16 against amending the bill and approved it on a voice vote Thursday.

Matt says this is a good thing.

From a tactical perspective, the Ed Committee was just a warm up. The House floor is far more perilous space for this bill.

From today's paper:

Two former U.S. attorneys who headed the Greensboro-based Middle District office are among those surprised that the area's current top federal prosecutor was at one point slated to be fired.

Anna Mills Wagoner was among 26 U.S. attorneys Bush administration officials considered firing in 2006, according to congressional testimony and newspaper reports.

This sweeps central North Carolina's top federal law enforcement officers into the swirl of a national scandal. Congress and other critics question whether U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other administration officials tried to get rid of sitting prosecutors for political reasons.

"I've known Anna Mills (Wagoner) for quite a while now; I have the highest opinion of her," said Robert Holt Edmunds Jr. , who served as U.S. attorney in the Middle District from 1986 through 1993 and is now a state Supreme Court justice.

Edmunds was appointed by President Reagan and recommended for the job by then-Sen. Jesse Helms.

Click here for the full story.

Previous entries from me on this topic here and here.

More on the wider story:

• No-Confidence Vote Sought on Gonzales. (Post)

• Senate Democrats Plan a Resolution on Gonzales. (NYT)

• Dems to Seek Gonzales No-Confidence Vote. (TPM)

From the governor's office:

RALEIGH - Gov. Mike Easley will take the wheel of Casey Mears' No. 25 National Guard/GMAC "American Heroes" Car Saturday (May 19) to raise money for the North Carolina National Guard Family Readiness Program. The Governor, who will race a few laps around the track prior to the start of the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, has already received numerous pledges for the program from private donors.

"The men and women in the North Carolina National Guard make significant sacrifices being overseas serving our country," said Easley. "Their families feel their sacrifice and our National Guard Family Readiness Program helps out with such things as car repairs, late mortgage payments, or things that families with an unexpected drop in income would experience. I am asking every citizen and business to join in giving a little bit back during race week."

Click here for the full release, which includes how to donate.

A worthy charity, no doubt. But don't these folks know what happens when the governor gets behind the wheel?

Our friends at the Associated Press remind us:

Easley has had his share of adventures _ and misadventures _ behind the wheel of a stock car.

In May 2005, the governor kicked off a legislative session by driving Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet from the Executive Mansion to the Legislative Building less than two blocks away. As he drove away from his official residence, Easley fishtailed and nearly hit a parked car, but caused no damage.

Two years earlier, he wrecked another of Johnson's cars while driving at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Can someone please move the Lt. Governor to a safe location with plenty of water, a bible and judge until this little adventure is over? Just in case, you know.

From Gov. Mike Easley's office:

RALEIGH - Gov. Mike Easley announced today that Dempsey Benton will become the next Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. He will succeed current Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom, who is leaving at the end of the legislative session to become president of the Milbank Memorial Fund.

Click here for the full release.

Early reports out of Lowe's Motor Speedway seem to be that Gov. Mike Easley took some trouble-free laps around the track, defying fate . . . or at least expectations.

From our friends at the Associated Press, here's Easley climbing into his ride:

(AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Click to enlarge.

Are Dems more Internet savvy than the GOP? A Washington Post story addresses that question:

But implicit in his cheerleading was the acknowledgment that there is a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans on the Internet, and that his party will have to scramble to catch up. "For the most part Republicans are stuck in Internet circa 2000," he said in an interview.

Click here for the full story.

Update: I should note, the story focuses on presidential web presence, but I think it has more general application.

Before getting to some thoughts on North Carolina, I'll address a most, um, perplexing quote . . . right after the jump.

Regarding the gay marriage amendment, a House Rules Committee meeting has been called for 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. HB 493 is #1 on the agenda.

Depending on what the committee does, it could head off or expedite floor debate on the bill.

Update (3:20 p.m.): I just spoke with Rep. Bill Owens, the chairman of the House Rules Committee. He said that he planned to hold a straight up or down vote on the marriage amendment bill tomorrow (Tuesday).

That would mean the bill will either die in committee or could be heading to a fight on the floor.

"There's a lot of concern about it," said Owens. "I'm getting hundreds of calls for it and hundreds of calls against."

Update: (A little bird suggested to me that there's a third option: the Rules Committee could report it out and then refer it to another committee. This would keep the bill from being subject to a recall and keep it off the floor. It's a plausible route, since many, many bills on the House side this year are getting serial referrals.)

Click here to look up the members of the Rules Committee.

And Click here to read H 493 if you haven't already.

Gary Pearce, from a few days ago: "The stables badly need cleaning in the North Carolina House of Representatives. And Speaker Joe Hackney needs to step up to the job."

Several editorials in newspapers around the state have said essentially the same thing.

Perhaps the bucket and mop are out. Via the Associated Press this evening:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - House Speaker Joe Hackney called on embattled state Rep. Thomas Wright to resign on Monday, nearly a week after state elections officials asked prosecutors to investigate the New Hanover County Democrat's campaign finances.

"I think the members by and large feel that he should not be here and that's the way I feel," Hackney said. "He should not be here. It's time for him to resign."

Audio Update (7:20 p.m.): Hackney spoke with reporters just before the House session this evening. He repeated his comments that Wright should resign. Toward the end of this two minute take, he was asked if it was particularly troublesome to have another ethics case on the heels of former Speaker Black.

"It's an opportunity to show we mean business about our ethics laws and we intend to take issues like this very seriously," Hackney said.

Update: Audio links have been fixed.

Click here to listen to Hackney.

I also caught up with Rep. Earl Jones, a Greensboro Democrat, who said he had no comment and then proceeded to comment for two minutes.

Of the Speaker's remarks, Jones said:

"That's his opinion, but my opinion is that the process should be allowed (to work)," Jones said.

Click here to listen to Jones.

Update (9:26 p.m.): The Associated Press moved a late update that includes comments from Rep. Wright.

Wright, who has served in the House since 1993 and not been charged with any crimes, said Monday night that he wouldn't step down and was disappointed with Hackney for rushing to judgment.

"Yes, I'll be back and I'll be voting and I'll be doing my job," Wright told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Responding to Hackney's comment that Wright hasn't provided an explanation for the allegations to House members, Wright said he declined to testify at last week's hearing because he had not yet seen the allegations.

"I understand my rights under the law," Wright said. Declining to discuss details, Wright said he would provide information later that shows he spent campaign money properly.

"I look forward to bringing the facts out on that," he said.

With the crossover deadline approaching, I've been checking in on some bills of interest. Tonight, I caught up with Sen. Ellie Kinnaird regarding the bill that would allow witnesses to swear on the holy book of their choice.

(For prior notes on this, click here and here.)

Kinnaird said that the bill is indefinitely delayed while the courts work through that lawsuit. She said that the Senate Democratic caucus did not want to move on the bill until the courts had weighed in.

Attention UNC students:

Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, ran House Bill 893 Monday night. That would give the UNC Student member the right to vote on the Board of Governors like the 32 regular members of the board.

Right now, the student serves and is assigned to board committees but does not have a vote when issues come before the full board.

The debate was much as it has been in prior years. (Click here for background.)

"I'm certain whoever is the student representative is a very intelligent person and he and she certainly has great abilities, but I don't believe they have the life experiences at that age to be effective as a voting member of the Board of Governors," said Rep. Leo Daughtry, a Johnston County Republican.

Click here to listen to his 45 seconds on the topic.

Rebuttal anyone? Yes, Rep. Angela Bryant, a Nash County Democrat and former BOG member - you have something?

"The student who would be serving in that role, usually, if its the student representing all the campuses has done lots of work on these issues and is usually more informed than a lot of the board members," she said.

Click here to listen to her full remarks.

The bill passed, but is now it will head to the Senate, which received the bill last year and refused to move it. Is there any reason to think anything different will happen this year? Nope.

The entrances to the House and Senate chambers are on the second floor of the legislative building, facing each other across an interior courtyard.

Flanking the big gold-colored doors to either chamber this week are plaques showing the insignias of National Guard units from North Carolina that have served in Iraq. Here's the best picture of some of them I could get Monday night with my little camera. (Click to enlarge.)

The plaques arrived in advance of Memorial Day. Of local note, the following units are on the wall:

Btry A 5th Battalion 113th Field Artillery High Point Iraq: 16 May, 2005 - 11 Nov. 2006

113th Field Artillery Brigade
Greensboro
Iraq: 01 Aug. 2006 - present

Svc. 1st Battalion
113th Field Artillery
High Point
01 Oct. 2003 - 28 March 2005

505th Engineering Battalion (CH)
Lexington
Mt. Airy
Maryland: 03 Sept. 2002 - Sept. 2003
Virginia: 10 June 2003 - June 2004
Iraq: 06 Aug. 2005 - 01 Feb. 2007

House Bill 1718, which would let High Point enforce fair housing ordinances, passed the House Monday night.

Actually, it allows this for cities "that have a permanent population of 90,000 according to the most recent decennial census, and that are the location of a recurring special accommodation event requiring temporary accommodations for at least 50,000 people. For purposes of this act, the term "recurring special accommodation event" means a trade show or other event of less than 11 days duration that has been held in the municipality at least once a year for at least 10 years."

Yes, that applies to exactly one city within the state and that city is High Point.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

At the end of the House session Monday night, Rep. Alma Adams called an "emergency meeting" of the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus Monday night.

Coming out, she was pretty tight lipped about the meeting, saying that she would issue a statement in the morning. When pressed, she indicated that the statement would concern Rep. Thomas Wright.

Specifically, it seems that it will concern Speaker Joe Hackney's comments that he should resign. (Update: For those who have read to that prior post on this topic, the audio links are fixed.)

(Credit: Associated Press)

Adams didn't outline specifics, but another caucus member who was in the meeting said the statement would basically call for "allowing the process to work." In other words, the caucus was unhappy that the Speaker so vocally called out one of its members, especially after Democrats showed a great deal of forbearance with former Speaker Jim Black.

Also, said the member, the caucus might ask for a meeting with the Speaker "to clarify" how House Democrats would handle this and any future ethics allegations.

The N.C. Legislative Black Caucus is at odds with Speaker Hackney's call for Rep. Thomas Wright to resign. From a news release:

Yesterday's call for Representative Thomas Wright to resign was premature. The North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus urges the House Leadership and our other Colleagues to allow the appropriate processes to run their course, rather than rushing to judgment.

Failing to do so does not afford Representative Wright due process, and the same rights afforded others under the basic tenets of our constitution. Representative Wright deserves to less fairness and due process than others have been entitled to and received.

Click here to read the whole thing. (Wait, that was the whole thing. But the link gets you the gussied up version with the seal on it.)

Update: My colleague Laura Leslie is just back from the governor's press conference on Hurricanes, and just played some interesting tape for me.

It appears Gov. Mike Easley disagrees with the Black Caucus.

"I think Speaker Hackney was right and correct and in the best position to know whether Rep. Wright should resign," Easley said. He cited "documentary evidence" that something possible illegal has gone on.

"It seems to me there's going to be no good endgame for Rep. Wright," Easley said.

Update: The bill passed the Senate J II Committee on a 7-6 vote and is headed to the Senate floor.

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

Because I enjoy bills with checkered legislative histories, I've been listening in on the Senate J II committee debate a ban on using hand-held cell phones while driving. (Those of you who use hands-free devices would be in the clear.)

Click here for the bill. And here and here for background.

This bill has been run for a couple sessions now on the House side and has been shot down on every occasion.

In the Senate, Sen. Charlie Dannelly, the deputy Pro Tempore, is running the thing. Dannelly, who is old enough to be my granddad, regularly wanders about the building with a Bluetooth wireless headset on and wore it throughout Tuesday morning's committee debate.

The Committee is expected to vote on the bill today at its 2 p.m. session if a question of liability law can be resolved.

Of local note, Sen. Stan Bingham, who ran the bill last year to ban under-age drivers from using cell phones, opposes the bill for adults. So do Sprint-Nextel and the builders association, because the walkie-talkie function on Nextels can't be accomplished in a hands-free sort of way.

"I almost ran a red light because I was more interested in talking with my wife," said John Snow, a Democrat from Cherokee.

No fewer than three Senators admitted in the committee that they had run off the road or nearly run a red light while fumbling with hand-held cell phones. My early count says the bill will pass narrowly, but stay tuned.

The legion of minions that work for Dome say that Speaker Hackney will use his powers to kill the bill.

Update: And so it is done. Hackney has just referred the bill to Judiciary I, where it will in all likelihood die.

-=-=-=-=

The House Rules Committee passed the bill that would add the state's ban on gay marriage to the constitution. It is now heading to the House floor, at least in theory.

More on the politics and maneuvering in a couple minutes.

Previously.

Click here for the bill.

It was clear that the House Democratic leadership did not want to move this thing.

Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, moved that the bill be moved over the Judiciary I Committee, which would have killed it in advance of the crossover deadline on Thursday.

That vote failed on a 14-10 (or 13-11, depending on whose count you believe) vote.

Rep. Bill Owens, the committee chairman, then took a break to figure out what the honorables would do. For a while, Republicans were feared Ownes might go out and recruit a few absent members of the committee to come in and change the vote.

Instead, the committee voted to send it to the floor without prejudice. Translation: We'll pass it on but we're not happy about it. That passed on a voice vote, but no one voted "no."

There are a still a few ways this thing could be derailed. For one, Speaker Hackney could take it on himself to re-assign the bill to a different committee. Of course, he'd have to be willing to stand up to a firestorm of critics who say he's wielding to the heavy hand of power to protect his members from a controversial vote.

But for the moment, we're on for a debate and vote this week. It would need 72 votes (a three-fifths majority) to pass the House and move to the Senate.

First off, some more coverage from:

• The legion of Dome.

• Isaac Hunter.

In the 45 minutes or so when it looked like there might be floor vote at some point, I began collecting opinions from the Guilford County honorables. The strongest take was from Rep. Pricey Harrison, who offered:

"It's a civil rights issues for me and I can't condone writing bigotry and hatred into our constitution."

We'll put her down as a "no" vote, I think.

Reps. Alma Adams and Earl Jones weren't even aware the bill was moving and didn't care to offer a take one way or the other.

Rep. Maggie Jeffus was also a "no" vote, saying the measure was unnecessary.

By the time I was ready to get around to Republican Reps. John Blust and Laura Wiley, the issue was a moot point because the Speaker had declared he would kill the bill.

I'm no expert, so it's possible there's a way for the GOP to bring this thing up again this year, but I don't think so. And with the Speaker of the House willing to use the full powers of his office to kill the thing, its chances don't look good in any case.

From today's paper:

Put Jack Vine in the "unimpressed" column when it comes to the state legislature's latest effort to curb mobile phone use while driving.

The 18-year-old Grimsley student says he sends text messages while riding his motorcycle and only owns a headset for his phone so he can have his hands free while talking.

"I don't think it's the actual holding of the phone that is the reason for the car accidents," he said. "I think it's the focus divided from driving and talking to somebody, having a conversation."

Sen. Charlie Dannelly authored the bill that would require drivers to use a hands-free headset if they wanted to talk. The bill also would prohibit text messaging or using other phone functions, whether driving a car or a motorcycle.

Click here for the full story.

And click below to discuss.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on the continuing ruckus over firing U.S. Attorneys.

The U.S. Attorney based in Greensboro, Anna Mills Wagoner, was the subject of some questions today from Rep. Mel Watt. Thanks to a helping hand from Rep. Brad Miller's office, we have a transcript:

WATT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Goodling, this obviously has national implications. But it has some repercussions at local levels, too. So I'd like to ask you a couple of questions that relate to North Carolina, which happens to be where I'm from.
You testified in your opening statement this morning that, quote, "I never recommended to them that a specific U.S. attorney be added to or removed from Mr. Sampson's list."

GOODLING: I mean "them" being the White House. I did discuss with Mr. Sampson, of course, removing individuals. I was referencing my interactions with the White House in my statement.

WATT: That seems to be at odds with what Mr. Sampson testified in the Senate, when he testified that you suggested taking Ms. Anna Mills Wagoner of the Middle District of North Carolina off the list in September of 2006.
Did you or did you not recommend taking Ms. Wagoner off the list?

GOODLING: I did. I recommended...

WATT: OK. All right.

GOODLING: ... retaining her in service in January and in September.

The honorables are busy passing a resolution honoring Jimmie Johnson, who is apparently some sort of popular stock car driver.

I'll update here with audio in a bit.

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(Click to enlarge.) Here's a picture shot with my crummy little camera of Johnson address the joint session of the legislature.

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Click here for remarks from Johnson.

"I call this home. My family has moved out here. I absolutely love North Carolina. And I even talked my New York City wife to move from Manhattan down to North Carolina so we're all doing well."

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The best quote of the day came from Harnett County Republican Rep. David Lewis, speaking of Johnson and other from his racing team:

"I think it's rather interesting that they seem to be more comfortable with cars moving 200 miles per hour than to have their backs to politicians."

Click here for that take.

Those of you who don't think the axis of the universe runs along Jones Street in Raleigh may not know that it's crossover week.

The honorables are all fuzzy about this, and it does have some meaning. Not to normal folks, mind you, but for policy wonks its big.

House Bill 853 would have outlawed corporal punishment in North Carolina schools. (Previously.)

Reps. John Blust and Laura Wiley, both Guilford County Republicans, were on opposite sides of this bill.

Blust: "This bill is part of a broader societal letdown on how we handle our young people."
Click here to listen to more.

Wiley: "As a matter of logic we have had corporal punishment at our disposal for a number of years. And I keep hearing how our kids are getting worse and worse, so, just deduction, it's not working."
Click here to listen to more.

The bill failed on a 50-66 vote.

Of local note: the Guilford County system does not use corporal punishment.

Update: One quote, not really related to the bill, but it's a good one.

Rep. Cary Allred, an Alamance Republican, on why he says the state should outlaw bullying: "We've had some bullies in this chamber and I'm glad they're gone. And you know who I'm talking about."

The House gave tentative approval to House Bill 853, a constitutional amendment that would prohibit governments from condemning property for private use. The vote was 112-4, much more than the three-fifths of the House needed.

It is a response to the Kelo Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The bill faces another vote in the House Thursday before it goes to the Senate. If successful there, it would go to a statewide vote.

It's notable that Rep. Dan Blue, a Wake County Democrat and former Speaker, and Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, a Wake Republican and the current minority leader, worked together to get this bill through. Specifically, they resisted a number of amendments that would have watered-down its effect.

Update At least one honorable was not happy to be voting on this bill.

"I'm going to vote for it to, but this is a pander vote. I'm ashamed of it," said Rep. Pryor Gibson, an Anson County Democrat who offered two of the amendments to the bill, both of which failed.

Click here to listen to Gibson give his reasons.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford Democrat, didn't much like it either.

"It's pretty clear to me that we do not need a constitutional amendment, that the statute is adequate, and that's why I'll be voting no."

From this story on Congress' look-see at the U.S. Attorney firings:

After the hearing, Watt said he thought Goodling's answers about how Wagoner stayed off the list showed "the shallowness" of how those decisions were made.

"I think the more interesting questions are how she got on the list and how there came to be a list in the first place," Watt said.

So far, none of the witnesses who have testified before Congress have shed light on that topic. "This is honestly something that when it started I didn't think it would have legs or go anywhere," Watt said. "But every time you peel back another layer, it smells worse."

Previous coverage here and here.

Click here for audio of the raw milk debate in the Senate yesterday and today.

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Sen. Kay Hagan has gotten a bill through the Senate that would allow the sale of raw milk, something the state outlawed in 2004.

The bill passed on 39-9 vote.

Senators did add a requirement that the milk come with a warning label. And there was one question about that label. Click here to listen to Sen. Tony Rand ask about his cow Lucy, with whom he said he has "very close relationship."

The House has given a second and final approval to the eminent domain constitutional amendment on a 104-15 vote Thursday. It now heads to the Senate.

I'll have an audio package in just a bit.

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Update: Click here for eight different takes, pro and con, on the eminent domain constitutional amendment.

I've written before about one of the topics that gets my professional hackles raised: economic development incentives given in secret.

(More on this, and an failed attempt today to shed light on these transactions, after the jump.)

From a story in today's paper:

A bill that would allow farmers to sell raw milk again passed the Senate on Thursday on a 39-9 vote, despite objections from doctors and regulators who worry about diseases that could be spread through unpasteurized milk.

"The last thing I want to do is jeopardize my family's health or anyone's health," said Ruth Ann Foster, a mother of three and a local organizer for the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for natural-food diets.

After 2004, Foster said she and other whole food lovers did not give up raw milk. But now they have to go out of state - sometimes to South Carolina - or have it shipped in.

"A lot of people want to know where their food is coming from," said Sen. Kay Hagan, who sponsored the bill after being contacted by Foster.

Click here to read the whole thing.

And click here for audio of the raw milk debate in the Senate.

(Credit: Jenn Doscher/News & Record) Ruth Ann Foster pours unpasteurized milk for daughter Arabelle in their Greensboro home Thursday. Foster is a local organizer for a nonprofit that advocates for natural-food diets. She says she and others sometimes buy raw milk in South Carolina, where it's legal.

Linkage:

• Weston A. Price Foundation, mention in the story.
• The FDA doesn't like the idea of raw milk. Click here and here.
• The CDC isn't a fan either.
• And E. coli problem involving raw milk.
• The Real Milk Campaign says the FDA and CDC are wrong.

Have your say at the comment link below.

The legislature has crossed its crossover deadline.

Want to catch up without doing a lot of reading? Listen to WUNC's Laura Leslie give the roundup.

Want the nitty gritty? Go see Gerry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Senate budget this week. Whatever. Now for the really important news:

The Hopkins men's lacrosse team took the national title today in a hotly contested match against the Duke Blue Devils today in Baltimore. The Blue Jays had an early lead but nearly lost it in the second half, narrowly winning the game 12-11.

More here. Please forgive alums for being extra chipper today, especially those who attended the school during the national championship drought years.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled political wonkery.

Update:The Senate has put its version of the budget up online (PDF) and Gerry has more linkage at his blog.

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Well, the Senate has its draft budget out this morning. They've printed the whole thing before the subs begin meeting at 11 a.m. The full appropriations committee is scheduled to begin work at 2 p.m., we're told.

Some quick notes on the Senate budget:

• The Senate version of the budget would authorize borrowing for the full $58 million needed for the nanotechnology school on the east side of Greensboro. The House budget provided start-up money but not the full capital funding.
• Bullet #1 seems to be part of a lot of borrowing in the budget, more than the House did. I haven't added up the numbers yet.
• There is language in the pending provisions bill (page 210) regarding an Earned Income Tax Credit although I haven't seen any numbers associated with it elsewhere in the document. (Update: If I'm reading it right now, this is just an outreach program to help people apply for the federal EITC.)
• The Senate budget lets the two "temporary taxes" (sales and upper-end income) expire.
• As a consequence of that last bullet, the Senate plan appears to spend about $300 million less.
• There is an extra $1 million for furniture market funds.
• There does appear to be at least a few special provisions - laws that don't really have a whole lot to do with the budget - peppered throughout the money report. House budget writers didn't include such provisions in their version of the document and have said that they don't want them in the final version.

More later when I am able to do a more thorough run-through.

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From Gary Robertson at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Senate Democrats rolled out their proposed state budget for the next two years on Tuesday. It would let two "temporary" taxes finally expire and borrow almost three times what the House agreed to earlier this month for state and university construction projects.

The roughly $20 billion spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1 is $263 million less than the House budget, primarily because the Senate wants to eliminate a quarter-penny on the sales tax and a higher income tax bracket for the state's top wage-earners.

The House decided to let the two temporary taxes _ first approved in 2001 and extended twice already _ remain on the books for another two years. They would add about $300 million to the government's coffers next year and are expected to be a key point of contention in upcoming negotiations to hammer out a final budget for Gov. Mike Easley.

The Senate made up for the lost revenue by setting aside about $165 million less than the House in the state's already flush rainy-day reserve fund and spending about $116 million less in upfront money on the state's building needs.

Instead, the Senate wants the state to incur more than $1.2 billion in debt to pay for 32 university, prison and other government construction projects. The debt would be issued without the approval of voters in a statewide referendum, which is sure to draw the ire of fiscal conservatives, already upset by the about $450 million in such debt proposed in the House budget.

The Senate also would give 4 percent pay raises to rank-and-file state employees _ the House gave them 4.25 percent. The Senate gave teachers an average raise of 5 percent, matching the raises included in the House and Easley's proposed budget.

In the House version of the state budget, counties would have gotten about $100 million to offset their costs associated with the ever-growing Medicaid budget.

Senate budget writers call that idea "a band aid." So what did they come up with? This:

MEDICAID COUNTY SHARE RELIEF

SECTION 6.16. In recognition of the increasing cost of Medicaid services and the burden this places on county finances, it is the intent of the General Assembly to develop a method for relieving counties of the county share of the nonfederal share of Medicaid expenditures. It is the further intent of the General Assembly that this relief will be in place by July 1, 2008. Methods being considered will allow counties to use those funds the counties would otherwise spend on Medicaid to support improvements in education at the local level without limiting the State's ability to provide critical State-funded services, including education.

What does that mean?

It means the Senate wants to do something to fix the Medicaid problems for the counties, but they want to do it permanently. So that paragraph is a place holder. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, tells me that representatives and senators are talking about what exactly that fix should entail.

So, if you're a county, the bad news is the Senate budget has no money to fix your Medicaid problem. The good news is they may come up with a permanent fix by the end of the session.

From Charlotte's Mark Johnson, the most epicurean of the legislative press corps:

The state's new ethics law that took effect this year bans lobbyists from giving gifts to lawmakers, including buying them dinner. Nowhere has the pinch been felt more than at Raleigh's pricier bistros, especially downtown near the Legislative Building.

(snip)

Perhaps a winner in this mandated economizing is the Roast Grill, a 67-year-old house-turned-restaurant on an obscure side street near downtown. The lunch spot is so narrow that a customer has to practically slide between the row of counter stools and the two tables. Maximum seating for the place is a tight 14. The only entree is hot dogs -- no ketchup -- plus a couple of desserts.

On Thursday, five senators perched at the counter. Edmisten said he now sees more legislators there than at the steakhouses.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Via Gate, who rues the changes. Hey Gate, if you ever stop by an introduce yourself I'll take you to get a hotdog, my treat.

In the "you can't make this stuff up" category, there was an exchange between Sen. Linda Garrou, Democrat of Winston-Salem, and Sen. Tom Apodaca, Republican of Henderson County, at the end of today's appropriation meeting. I'm not going to transcribe it, but it involves whether the burly Apodaca lost an ear-ring or not.

Click here to listen. (PG-13, I think).

...the honorables are considering a couple of bills that might be of interest to a few folks in their Judiciary I Committee Thursday:

• HB 1526, Streamlined & Cost Effective Capital Case Act. This one redefine the aggravating circumstances that makes something a capital case.
• HB 1691 Suspend Execution for Two Years.

Committee meeting is 10 a.m. in Room 1228 of the Legislative Building.

The Senate busied itself putting its budget through the committee process today. Of course, something that the House spent a good three or four days total doing, the Senate ran through in one.

Part of the fun of these committee meetings you get to watch legislators try to move around money to fund stuff for their home districts. And because of the way the rules that govern this sort of thing work, an amendment that helps one thing invariably has to draw from somewhere else.

Case in point: Sen. Julia Boseman sought to set aside some money for an accelerated teacher training program at UNC-Wilmington.

But she had a problem, as pointed out by Sen. Tony Rand:

"If we're taking this out of learn and earn, you better lock and load is all I can tell you," Rand said.

Learn and earn is one of Gov. Mike Easley's favorite programs and tapping it for anything, no matter how noble, is seen as a non-starter.

Click here to listen to the full exchange. If you listen carefully (or just crank your volume) at the end, you can listen to Rand another Senator who might not have realized they were on quite so open a microphone talking about the amendment.

Boseman ended up changing her amendment to tap a less protected pot of money.

The Senate should put the budget on the floor Wednesday and Thursday. Then the real negotiating will begin among the House, Senate and governor.

The Republican leaders of the House and Senate, Rep. Skip Stam and Phil Berger, held their weekly news conference this morning. On the agenda: that pesky Senate budget. Some quick notes and quotes:

• Berger says the budget produced by Senate leaders isn't all bad, but that it was produced in secret and with little input from Republicans and even some rank and file Dems.

  "The big problem is there are a lot of things nobody knows except the people who put it together," Berger said.

• Republicans will do "everything we can" to remove a needle exchange provision form the budget, Berger says. This measure was included in early drafts of the House budget but removed. It would make legal and provide for state funding of programs that give drug users clean needles.

• Stam says we scruffy media types shouldn't be confused. Although much will be made of the House and Senate pushing their various positions, its really a GOP versus Democrats game.

  "The House Democrats and the Senate Democrats are on the same team, they both want to spend as much as possible."

With respect to Rep. Stam, there are some pretty big philosophical differences between the House and Senate Democrats, leading some members to predict a long negotiating session.

Senate debate on the budget is scheduled to begin shortly after noon today.

An amendment here, an amendment there, and the Senate passed their version of the budget. Republicans ended up backing it because it ended the two temporary taxes.

They'll vote once again tomorrow to make it official and then the negotiations begin between the House, Senate and governor's office.

Given the pretty broad differences between the House and Senate, it could be a long hot June, and maybe more.

My duties have taken me out of Cap City today and it doesn't look like I'll be back downtown until Monday.

A couple placeholder items until I get back:

• Click here for a list of bills that survived the crossover deadline. (PDF)
• I along with Isaac Hunter and the head of the Legion of Dome were on the radio box today. Click here for info on downloads and this evening's re-broadcast from the State of Things.
• Treasurer Richard Moore will be stopping by the Greensboro newsroom today and I may have a few tidbits from that conversation up later.

(Audio link below.) N.C. Treasurer Richard Moore - a declared candidate for governor, if you didn't know - stopped by the paper's Greensboro offices today and chatted for a while with editorial writer Doug Clark and myself.

I'll have more from that conversation later, but one bit was relevant to this week's budget festivities in the Senate.

Moore is not enamored with the $1.2 billion the Senate would spend on Certificates of Participation (known as COPs), which is a way for the state to borrow money without going to the voters for bond approval.

"It's got nothing to do with the worthiness of the projects," Moore said. He specifically pointed out the proposed nanotechnology school as a very good item on the list. (The Senate budget proposal would borrow $58 million to finish the school.)

But, he said, COPs should be used sparingly, only in instances where they are truly necessary such as building prisons or, say, replacing a school that had burned down.

The state constitution, he said, is fairly clear on how government should go about borrowing.

"If they're such great ideas, why can't we vote?" Moore said.

Of COPs in general, he said, "They should be rarely or if ever used."

Click here to listen to his full answer on the topic. (About 4:15 seconds.)