News-Record.com

I’m back from vacation and delighted to see that political campaigns of all ilks seem to be preparing for an enthusiastic slide into trivial silliness as we approach the two months of campaign season where most folks are paying attention.

In the mean time, Gov. Mike Easley has called the honorables back to down to deal with his veto veto of H 2167, known affectionately as the wide boats bill.

The veto session has been called for Wednesday at 11 a.m.

I can well imagine the honorables glee at being pulled away from the campaign trail and their real jobs to re-consider this bill. I mean, there must be legions of constituents that have a 9-and-1/2-foot wide boats sitting around that they’re just dying to tow to the coast and fuel up?

The Barkeep has detailed where the push for the bill is coming from. Meanwhile, as many pictures of tractor trailers wedged under overpasses as my paper has run over the past year, how long is it before we get our first picture of a wide boat wedged on a one-land bridge?

By the way, the legislature has several options during a veto session: let the veto stand, over-ride and pass the bill as is or craft some new bit of legislation that addresses the topic but fixes whatever problem the governor has. As of yet, the North Carolina legislature has never done a straight-up veto-override.