News-Record.com

I'm catching up on my e-mail after a quick trip out of town to do some training (I can now fetch, roll over and shake paws on command) and just saw an e-mail from the House Speakers' office with the rules for tomorrow's session on board. For those not living and breathing Jones Street, this is the special session to consider whether to expel or otherwise punish Rep. Thomas Wright for various misdeeds, including soliciting donations for a nonprofit that didn't go into a nonprofit's bank account.

Of the most interest in the temporary rules governing this session:

(5) Adoption of a resolution to expel a member of the House of Representatives shall require an affirmative vote of twothirds of all the members of the House, notwithstanding any other provision of law.

That's quite a bit higher than the simple majority standard that I think a lot of us pundits were expecting.

"It's a serious matter so they wanted to set a high bar," said Bill Holmes, a spokesman for Speaker Joe Hackney. He said that the two-thirds standard will also avoid possible charges of undue partisanship. (One could imagine, for example, that if enough Democrats decided not to show for tomorrow's proceedings, Republicans might actually hold enough or nearly enough votes to win a simple majority vote.)

For those trying to do the math, if all 120 members show, 41 members would have to vote against expulsion to keep Wright in the House. Since Wright presumably gets a vote, the question is simple: does he have 40 colleagues who think he ought to keep serving?

He has at least one.

Reports earlier in the day said Rep. Earl Jones of Greensboro would offer a censure motion rather than back plans to expel Wright.

Either way, the ball gets rolling on all this at 10 a.m. in her post Tuesday, the barkeep rounded up the rumor report. I tend to agree with her, Wright is much more likely to burn his friends and neighbors rather than just tuck tail and resign at this point.