News-Record.com

I'm catching up after being laid up by an industrial grade cold for most of this week. And waiting at the top of my to-do pile this morning was this:

RALEIGH - Bills to restore protest petition rights to Greensboro residents were filed in both the House and Senate this week.

Protest petitions are tools used by neighbors of property involved in rezoning cases, legal proceedings that change what can be built on a property. If a sufficient number of neighbors file such a petition - representing 5 percent of the property bordering the property in question - a city council must approve the change in land use by a supermajority vote.

Greensboro is the only city in the state where residents do not have protest petition rights. They were taken away by a 1971 law that current lawmakers and city council members are at a loss to explain.

The bills filed Wednesday would reverse that law. They must be heard by committees and passed by both chambers before taking effect.

House Bill 64 was filed by Reps. Pricey Harrison, Maggie Jeffus, Alma Adams, Laura Wiley and John Blust.

Senate Bill 67 was filed by Sens. Katie Dorsett and Don Vaughan.

Those in need of more background can click here.

As our friends at Politico note, usually when the website TMZ catches a public figure in public the exchange rates somewhere between "awkward" and "hold on while I dial my lawyer."

But, as seen in this clip, Sen. Richard Burr doesn't mind showing his thing to the Web site at all.

To be precise, Burr's "Thing" is a 1974 Volkswagen convertible that he uses to get around Washington, D.C., even in the nastiest of weather. From a blog post a couple years back:

The Volkswagen Thing, a Mexican variant of a European jeep from the late 1960s and early 1970s, is about as ugly a mod of transportation as one might find. Sen. Richard Burr has two.

"As most would tell you up here, rarely if ever does the top go up," he says. "I leave the top down because the weather is pretty good most of the time and I can ride from here to the White House and kind of forget that I'm in Washington. It's as much therapy as anything else."

OK, I'm having a little fun with my friends over at Americans for Prosperity, who are doing their best to promote their effort to shoot down the pending economic stimulus bill.

The effort comes complete with its own Web site (natch) and a radio commercial aimed in part at urging U.S. Sen Kay Hagan to vote "no" on the bill.

(Worth noting: Sen. Richard Burr was tagged in a radio ad, urging him to vote "yes," that was aired by stimulus supporters last week.)

The AFP commercial lists all bad stuff that's in the stimulus bill and includes this line:

"It's the same old wasteful spending for pet projects we've seen before....$50 million to fund art. That's right - art."

Now, art projects may not be the most urgent things in the world, but does it really get the same intonation move voice-over guys reserve for evil, evil things?

Here's how AFP describes the ad:

Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina (AFP-NC) today launched a radio ad blitz urging citizens to contact Senator Kay Hagen to vote 'no' on the trillion dollar stimulus scheme that would drastically increase the size of government.

Airing in Wilmington, Greensboro, and Raleigh, the ad states that Washington politicians are up to their old games, using the economic crisis to fund pet projects proposed in the wrongfully titled “stimulus” package.

"We can't spend our way to prosperity," said Dallas Woodhouse, AFP North Carolina Director. "We are encouraging our members, and anyone who is concerned with the out-of-control spending of taxpayer money, to contact Senator Hagan and urge her to find free market solutions to stimulate the economy."

Listen for yourself.

Rep. Earl Jones said back last year he wanted to be Guilford County delegation chairman. He got the job. From a news release:

Ms. Sherrie Burnette, North Carolina House of Representative Legislative Administrator for Representative Earl Jones (D-Guilford), announced the election of Representative Earl Jones as Chairman of the Guilford County Legislature Delegation by unanimous acclamation on Monday evening February 2, 2009. Jones replaces Representative Maggie Jeffus as chairperson of the Delegation.

"I hope to provide the same committed, hardworking and excellent leadership as our former chairperson, Representative Maggie Jeffus," Jones said. Jeffus served two terms from 2004 to 2008.

Rep. Jones is entering his seventh year and fourth term as a legislator and was formerly a member of The Greensboro City Council. “As chair of the local delegation I hope to maintain the delegation focused on issues and concerns crucial to the well-being and quality of life of the citizens of Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County.” Jones stated.

As I've written before, the job of delegation chairman sounds important but really comes down to herding cats. A large part of the job is setting up meetings between the 10-member delegation and the public or groups of people from back home. In addition to the annual "Take it to Raleigh" meetings the delegation traditionally does in High Point and Greensboro, there are occasions when groups of business leaders or arts advocates or health workers come up to Raleigh and want to meet with the delegation.

A second part of the job is coordinating legislative action and lobbying on behalf of causes important to the county. In the past several years, that part of the job has mainly been concerned with landing funding for things like the furniture market and the nanotechnology school. This year, that's really a matter of playing defense, trying to keep appropriations from being cut - or cut too badly - in the face of mounting economic pressure.

Along with that responsibility comes very little power. There's no way to force people to show up to meetings and no special powers accrue to county delegation chairman.

I got an e-mail in response to this story on some legislators wanting to seek longer terms, hoping to expand from two-years to four-years. Brad Crone, a political consultant here in Raleigh, wrote to say there's nothing new under the sun:

FYI, voters rejected extending 2-year terms to 4-year terms in 1982 in a campaign led by Greensboro's Tom Gilmore. It was the first statewide campaign I worked on. The vote was 66-34 if I remember correctly. It was very easy to defeat because voters don't like giving up the right to vote.

Although not quite the same thing, I would point out that the voters did give up the right to vote (on bonds) when they voted in Amendment One a few years back.

Of course, Amendment One was coated in a whole discussion about economic development and got kind of esoteric.

The idea of making sure legislative critters don't get to big for their britches is a lot more straightforward argument.

Back last summer, I wrote this story on the budget, the one that now has a big ol' gap in it that Bev Perdue is trying to fix.

Rep. John Blust wrote to ask me about it the other day, because he was trying to remember the quote he gave me at the time:

Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican pointed to a line in the budget document that estimates how much revenue the state would earn next year.

"Those that vote yes on this budget in just a few minutes are making a big bet that that number is going to hold up," Blust said.

As he points out, that number didn't hold up.

Sen. Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, also had a salient quote at the time:

Opponents, mainly Republicans, say there's increasing evidence that the slowing economy will mean less revenue to spend than budget writers expect.

"What we're doing is setting ourselves up, or rather we're setting up next year's legislature for a serious problem," said Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican and the Senate minority leader. He likened the pending budget to one passed in 2000 that plunged the state into deficit just as Easley took office.

"Those memories are still pretty vivid to me," Berger said.

Now there is an argument to be made that Republicans criticize the budget every year. And, frankly, you'd be correct. In the four years I've been covering the GA full time (and the few years before that of pitching in the occasional story) lots of folks in the GOP express skepticism about the budget - particularly Blust and Berger.

But whether this is a case of the blind squirrel finding the not or not, it does seem they were spot on this time.

Whether it be from an editor scrounging for copy or one of my friends in the political world, I've been getting this question a lot as of late:

"So, um, what's going on down there at the General Assembly?"

The implication is this: Hey, it's been a couple weeks since they've gone into session, shouldn't these folks be doing something news worthy.

Patience.

It takes awhile for the General Assembly to lumber to a start. The Senate appointed committees last week, and the House is due to appoint committees this week. The honorables are still working on drafting bills.

Today, a lot of legislators are down at Gov. Hunt's Emerging Issues Forum

There's also the small matter of getting everyone up to speed on the budget (defining just how "bad" is "bad") and making sure the new kids can find their way about and reassigning offices.

And, of course, there's all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes in terms of staff work, legislative bonding, lobbying, etc. ...

Already, there are some signs of life. The GOP is holding their weekly press conference and other legislators are getting us scruffy media types together to pitch various bills. Groups like the state employees and right-to-life Democrats are already planning lobby days.

Look for hard core legislating to start in a week or two.

Rep. Garland Pierce was stumping for his bill to ban texting while driving, one of several bills meant to curtail bad behavior while behind the wheel this section.

The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison of Greensboro.

It's worth noting that Greensboro has something of a special interest in this bill. A UNCG professor was hit by a driver while he biked home from work. The driver was texting at the time.

Rep. Maggie Jeffus brought up this case during Pierce's presser today. Here's that video:

In the case Lawrence V Texas the U.S. Supreme Court said that what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home with each other is, essentially, their business.

That case struck down a bunch of state laws that outlawed sodomy, including North Carolina GS-177.

So, to clean up the statute books, lawmakers have proposed H 100, presented here only because it made the part of me that's still a 12-year-old giggle:

§ 14-177. Crime against nature. (a) If any person shall commit the crime against nature, with mankind or beast, he shall be punished as a Class I felon.

(b) Subsection (a) of this section does not apply if the conduct engaged in under subsection (a) of this section: is not with a beast, is not unlawful under Article 27 of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes, and is between mutually consenting adults in a private home, private residence, or other private abode."

For those who don't know, Gary Robertson is one of the hardest working men in the news business. He's the Associated Press writer who has been based at the legislative building since 2004. Because Gary is on the job, the rest of us can go work on features or investigations or spend time blogging or doing whatever it is that we do because we don't have to chase about after a million different committees.

Well, the AP has recognized his hard work. From the wire this morning:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Gary D. Robertson and Mike Baker are the 2008 North Carolina AP Staffers of the Year, an honor awarded for months of enterprising and relentless work reporting on last year's historic campaign and election.

The award was presented Wednesday in Raleigh by Sue Price Johnson, the AP's chief of bureau for North Carolina and South Carolina.

Traditionally awarded to a single member of the North Carolina staff, the award is shared this year by the two reporters who led the bureau's political coverage in 2008.

Baker began following John Edwards more than two years ago as part of a beat that includes covering the North Carolina congressional delegation. Robertson has served as the AP's state government corespondent since 2004.

If you see him today, it will embarrass Gary horribly if you congratulate him, so of course you should do it at your earliest opportunity.

I should ad that Mike Baker is good guy as well, someone I saw quite a bit on the campaign trail.

Gov. Bev Perdue has written a letter from her undisclosed vacation spot to members of Congress asking them to speak up for certain items in the stimulus package.

Click here to read the letter.

Click here for the latest story on the stimulus from the Washington Post. It notes that negotiators have trimmed the price-tag of the bill about $50 billion from what the Senate approved earlier in the week.

Perdue outlined two groups of items she considered vital to North Carolina. They're grouped together here:

1. Funding for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund at the level of $79 billion over two years, as included in the House version. This will deliver $1.1 billion to North Carolina for education and provide the flexibility to effectively direct $716 million for other urgent funding gaps we suddenly face.

2. Making the funds available immediately, as the Senate version directs, upon enactment rather than waiting for July 1, 2009. Waiting until the start of our state’s next fiscal year will be too late to help us with the revenue shortfall we face today.

3. Making the funds eligible to sustain current state commitments to education, as the National Governors Association recommends, so that states like North Carolina are not penalized for keeping up with our commitments to education by sacrificing much-needed services in other areas.

4. Maintain the House provision providing approximately $364 million to North Carolina school districts. These funds would put people to work immediately on the $1.1 billion in “shovel ready” school projects.

5. Provide maximum level of funding for the wastewater and drinking water projects. The estimated $1.25 billion in wastewater and $124 million in drinking water infrastructure “ready to go” projects in municipalities, and the $309 million “ready to go” in rural areas only cover a portion of these needs.

6. Support the House version of funding for various law enforcement assistance. That version will provide more near-term jobs and have a greater impact on public safety in our state.

7. Include Unemployment Insurance extension and modernization language and funding. This bill must address these issues, particularly if we face a lengthy and deep recession.

What do we scruffy media types chase relentlessly?

Scoops…or, this afternoon, “Scoop” the mouse:

This little critter caused quite a stir when he was chased into the press room at the General Assembly building. After much hustle and bustle and a couple “almost had him” moments, he escaped behind a file cabinet and row of cubicals. In this picture, WUNC Radio report Laura Leslie and N+O reporter Ben Niolet give chase.

About 10 minutes later he re-emerged and was captured by committee. He since has been released into the wild. Best guess is he will next be seen introducing a bill next week regarding the official state cheese. Here's a picture of myself and the little offender:

And that's what's passing for excitement these days. Dear goodness, let's hope committees start soon.

House Speaker Joe Hackney announced committee appointments and chairmanships this afternoon. I'll post a link to the full electronic version when I get it.

Update: Click here for the full list.

Of interest to Greensboro:

• * Rep. Pricey Harrison gets a bump up as a co-chairman of the NER Appropriations Subcommittee. That subcommittee oversees a section of the budget that pays for economic development programs and the commerce department as well as more environmentally-minded departments like Agriculture and DENR.

• * Rep. Earl Jones keeps his gavel as head of the Local Government Committee.

• * Reps. Maggie Jeffus and Alma Adams are still "big chairs" of the Appropriations Committee.

More globally, there were not a lot of big moves. The Appropriations and Finance committees remain in the same hands, as does Rules. Rep. Bill Faison will chair the Ways and Means and Broadband committee.

Sen. Don Vaughan spent part of his first day as a legislator stuck in an elevator.

Part of the problem, he said, was that firefighters and maintenance workers could not figure out which elevator he was stuck in.

Hence we have S 130 filed by Vaughan, which would require: "The Commissioner of Labor shall adopt rules pursuant to Article 14A of Chapter 95 of the General Statutes (Elevator Act of North Carolina) to require, in any building or structure having more than one elevator, the posting of a distinct number in plain view in the passenger cabin of each elevator for the purpose of identification of the elevator to facilitate extrication from any elevator that malfunctions while occupied."

A great many of us scruffy media types who work in the states have been looking for anything resembling meaningful information regarding the stimulus bill Congress is supposedly due to pass this week.

While some broad strokes are available, there's nothing like the level of detail out there that would let us say with any precision or confidence how much money North Carolina might get for a particular program or to even begin thinking about translating that down to a county level. Yes, you can sort of extrapolate from prior versions of the bill, about how much in free-and-clear state aid or Medicaid funding might be coming down, but it’s really guesswork at this point. Take this bulletin from the AP:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina lawmakers are trying to get an early read on what federal economic stimulus legislation would mean for local construction projects and government payrolls.

State House Speaker Joe Hackney said Thursday a previous estimate of $2.2 billion in Medicaid help from Washington could be reduced. The federal $789 billion package is on track for final votes in Congress on Friday.

A key question affecting state government jobs is how much North Carolina would receive in funds designed to help states cope with the recession. Hackney, an Orange County Democrat, said the chunk targeted to help state budgets is about midway between previous congressional versions.

After striking out with normally helpful staffers in Gov. Bev Perdue’s office and at a couple Congressional offices in D.C., I put out a tweet looking for help. That request copied to my Facebook account where Stateline's Dan Vock pointed me to this post by the Sunlight Foundation:

While the House and Senate conferees have agreed on what the stimulus bill will look like in final form, the public may very well have to wait for President Obama to sign it to get a chance to read it. The House rules require that all conference reports (which is how the bill will be reported to the floor) be made publicly available for 48 hours before consideration. Yesterday, the House Rules Committee waived that requirement to allow the House leadership to bring the bill to floor immediately. And we still have not seen the bill, and “we” includes many, many members of Congress.

At this point, I have a great deal of sympathy for the point of view that any piece of legislation, much less one that spends $790 billion, which cannot stand up to public scrutiny before it is voted upon might not be worth the paper you haven't printed it on yet. This hardly fits with promises of a more open and accountable government we’ve heard so much about.

After seeing my griping about a lack of information on the stimulus, a Congressional staffer felt my pain and sent along a cheat sheet that they'd been given on the stimulus package's benefits for North Carolina. It's telling that they cautioned that just about everything in it had changed several times this week and they didn't want to put their boss's name on it since it could still turn out to be not exactly right.

So with the caveats that the list is:

• A - still more outline that mean on the bones, and
• B - could turn out to be not precisely on point
• C - clearly written with the idea of selling the package to skeptics

I'll pass it on to you after the jump.

It is time once again to tell your friendly local legislator what's on your friendly local mind. From Rep. Earl Jones' office:

The Guilford Legislative Delegation is scheduled to have a Public Hearing on Thursday, February 26, 2009 in Greensboro. “This hearing titled, Take It To Raleigh, will provide an opportunity for the delegation to receive input from citizens about their concerns and issues, as well as provide opportunities to receive input from local municipalities and other entities representing Guilford County”, said Representative Earl Jones, Delegation Chair.

The Hearing, which will be held at the Greensboro City Council Chamber in the Melvin Municipal Building on Eugene Street from 6-8:00 p.m., is open to any citizen who would like to address the delegation.

Citizens are encouraged to come to share their thoughts with the Guilford County elected members of the North Carolina General Assembly. Speakers will be given a limited time and are asked to (919) 733-5825 to sign up. Organizations and individuals who need additional information are asked to contact Representative Jones office.

So the Guilford County delegation will hold their
annual Take it to Raleigh meeting in a couple weeks. But maybe you don't want to schlep to the Melvin Municipal Building; maybe the meeting time conflicts with your weekly Canasta game; maybe American Idol Season 8 is really just that compelling.

My friends, I'm here to help.

If you have a question for one of the ten honorables who represent Guilford County, send them my way. The easiest thing to do is leave a comment on this post, but I'll take them by e-mail too: mark.binker@news-record.com.

A few ground rules:

• *I may actually consider a question aimed at someone who represents Alamance, Davidson, Rockingham or Randolph if it's a particularly good one ... I'm capricious like that.

• * I am not going to lobby for you. If your question is something like, "Would you please support a bill to name March National Fuzzy Kitty Month," keep it. However, something like “Why do you support or oppose legislation to make March National Fuzzy Kitty Month” is dandy.

• * I will not deliver insults veiled as questions.

• * I reserve the right to reject any question because it's been asked and answered repeatedly, because it makes no darned sense or because I'm feeling cantankerous that day and that's just how it is.

Otherwise, fire away. Do you want to know how a legislator feels about a particular bill? Do you want to know how they prefer to get questions from the public? Do you have a question about something on their campaign finance report? Are you just looking for a good restaurant tip and think they might know a place?

Let's have 'em.

After much anxiety yesterday, details of the stimulus bill are beginning to emerge.

click here for the legislation as offered by the House Rules Committee. The first of two parts is 13.4 MB. Anyone think your friendly local Congressman is going to have time to read that thing before they vote today?

NCSL has some more information here, although a lot of it seems to be linked back to what's posted on Congressional websites at this point. The Ceneter on Budget and Policy Priorities has some analysis up.

As the Barkeep mentions, there are still open questions as to how this will affect North Carolina.

Although, I would argue that the "state stabilization" piece, while important, may not turn out to be important as the feds picking up an increased share of Medicaid costs. So much of North Carolina's budget gets plowed into health care programs for the poor that relief of that end of things makes other parts of the budget puzzle easier to fit together. The question is what kind of maintenance of effort caveats come with that Medicaid money and what they mean in practical terms.

Gov. Bev Perdue's office just sent this list of what stimulus spending will mean to North Carolina.

The thing that jumps out at me right away is it doesn't look like there's any money for school construction, which just strikes me as odd. There is money for Head Start, Special Education and Educational Technology.

Update: That's no mistake. School construction funding was eliminated from the bill. From the Washington Post:

House Democrats were particularly incensed that language relating to school construction had been eliminated -- along with nearly $20 billion in funds -- and that governors would be restricted to paying for school renovations and repairs out of a $54 billion pot of money that included other education projects.

From today's paper:

RALEIGH - Women's volleyball isn't the first thing that comes to mind in the discussion of big-time college athletics and full-ride scholarships.

But for UNCG, it's one of the sports that may be caught up in an argument over whether taxpayers should subsidize the efforts of athletics boosters to recruit athletes at UNC system campuses.

Rep. Pricey Harrison , a Greensboro Democrat, is leading the charge to repeal a 2005 budget provision that allows athletics programs to get more athletes for their scholarship dollar.

Under that law, booster clubs who give full scholarships to athletes from outside North Carolina pay the in-state tuition rate. For the current academic year, that's a difference of $11,494 for students attending UNCG and $15,206.24 for students at the Chapel Hill campus.

"It has been extremely positive legislation for us, especially for our women's sports," said Nelson Bobb, UNCG's athletics director . "In volleyball we went from a bottom-dweller to a top competitor. In two of the past three years we played for the championship in the tournament."

Click here for the full story.

You can read the bill here and find contact information for Harrison here.

Summaries of its impact on schools and the state general fund are here and here.

From today's paper:

RALEIGH - Sex education as taught in most of North Carolina's public schools isn't working, says Rep. Alma Adams.

The Greensboro Democrat is one of the primary sponsors of a measure that would give parents the choice between two sex-education curriculums for their middle school students:

• *One would be the current standard course, emphasizing abstinence until marriage, that the legislature prescribed in 1995.

• *A more comprehensive approach relaying more information about disease and pregnancy prevention.

"There's just so much evidence that our kids do need to be informed," Adams said last week. "It's an issue I don't think we've addressed adequately."

Click here for the full story.

Click here to read the bill and click here for contact info on Adams.

Mentioned in the story:

• * The North Carolina Family Policy Council, which has opposed prior versions of this bill.

• * The Guilford County Coalition on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention.

• * The The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. In their rankings of teen pregnancy rates, North Carolina is 42 - or put another way, we have the 8th-highest rate of teen pregnancy in the nation per 1,000 girls age 15-19.

For stats and other stuff mentioned in the story:

• * Teen pregnancy stats for girls 15-17 by North Carolina County.

• * Guilford County-focused teen pregnancy stats, including by girls ages 10-14 - there were 28 in 2007.

• * Teen pregnancy stats by county over 1978 to 2006.

• * More stats from the state.

Stories and posts from the weekend:

• The Stimulus and North Carolina: Newspaper story // Blog post with more info.

• Sex Ed Bill: Newspaper story // Blog post with more info.

• Tuition Exemption repeal for full-ride athletes: Newspaper story // Blog post with more info.

Finally, do you have a question for the Guilford County legislative delegation? Click here to pass it on.

As House and Senate committees fire up, the Greensboro protest petition issue is one of the first items on the legislature's regular work calendar.

House Bill 64 would restore protest petition rights to Greensboro. If you need more background, I suggest reading Amanda Lehmert's story from this weekend.

The House Local Government II Committee is scheduled to take up the bill this morning at 11 a.m. Committee calendars are a bit fungible, so there's a chance it won't be heard or voted on today. Will update.

Update: The bill passed the LG II committee with no opposition. It next travels to a Judiciary Committee, either JI or JIII. (It is currently destined for JIII but Rep. Harrison, the bill's sponsor, now sits on JI so it may go there instead.)

There was all sorts of fun debate over S 15 and S 35 today, bills filed by Sen. Rand and Sen. Hoyle in an effort to trim the length of legislative sessions. Both bills passed the Senate today.

The idea behind the bills is that General Assembly sessions run on too long, making it hard for members to plan their lives and giving the public the idea that the honorables are just down here frittering away time rather than working on the problems at hand.

Rand's bill would cut off per diem - the $100-plus dollars per day legislators are paid to keep themselves housed and fed while in Raleigh - after 135 days in the long legislative session. Hoyle's bill would create an early organizational session that would allow the legislature to appoint leaders and then recess for three weeks while top leaders appoint committees, move offices and what not.

You can debate the merits of either measure. On per diem, there's something to be said for providing a financial incentive for the honorables to get their work done and get home.

Of course, there's also an argument, put forward by Sen. Martin Nesbitt, that cutting off payments merely punishes rank and file members who don't set the agenda. After all, it's the legislative leaders who are usually cutting the big deals on the budget and other items at the end of session.

Cutting off per diem, Nesbitt argues, will just make it that much harder for those who aren't retired or independently wealthy to serve in Raleigh, he said.

All of that is kind of moot since House leaders don't seem to be going for it. That's pretty much to be expected, because the House has either ignored or voted down similar efforts over the past couple decades.

When I asked Rep. Hugh Holliman, the Majority Leader, whether the House would be more kindly disposed this year, he gave me a quick answer: "no."

He elaborated a little bit, saying that the legislature shouldn't send the signal that it’s rushing through work, particularly in a year when the problems will be so tough to crack.

"People are pretty anxious to get out of here when the time comes," Holliman said.

Rep. Bill Owens, the Rules Chairman, didn't seem to hold out a lot of hope for the measures either. He worried that having more hurried sessions could put more power in the hands of professional staff members, rather than giving legislators time to craft bills.

And Speaker Hackney has said several times that he does not consider the organizational time at the beginning of session wasted. He said it is useful for members to hear reports on the budget and get to know one another.

So don't expect to hear much about the session limits bills again, at least not from the House.

Rep. Hugh Holliman said today he expected the smoking ban bill to be heard in the House Health Committee Thursday. That committee typically meets at noon in Room 544.

This is the measure that would ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants.

"I think we have the votes in the committee but I don't want to cut off debate," Holliman said. It's possible, he said, that the Health Committee could send it on to a Judiciary Committee Thursday.

Gov. Bev Perdue is making her way around the state today announcing various road projects she expects to fund with $466 million in stimulus money. Click here to read the full list, including two projects in Guilford County.

You can read the news release that came along with the list after the jump.

For those following the Greensboro Protest Petition issue, mark your calendars: H 64 is due to be heard in the House Judiciary Committee I on Thursday at 10 a.m.

Okay, I'm trying something new (for me) with the live blogging here. Let me know if you like it.

Text of the president's prepared speech after the jump.

Click here for my newspaper story on the bills to ban gay marriage filed at the General Assembly. The bill would enshrine a law already on the books in the N.C. Constitution.

For those looking to save time and hand-wringing, the most relevant portion of the story might be this:

In 2007, Hackney used his power as Speaker to kill a similar bill in the House that had managed to pass its first committee hearing. When asked if he would do the same again this year, Hackney said, “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

Senate leader Marc Basnight also was skeptical about the need for such a bill. When asked if he worried North Carolina’s marriage law could be overturned, Basnight said, “No one has shown me that could occur.”

Asked Tuesday afternoon if Forrester’s bill would be doomed to the same fate as in previous years, Basnight was noncommittal.

“Will it come up? I can’t say,” Basnight said.

But he assigned the bill to Ways and Means, a committee that has not met since 2001 and is controlled by one of Basnight’s chief deputies. Assigning a bill there is viewed as an efficient way to kill legislation.

In other words, the same legislative leaders who have blocked similar bills in the past show no signs of letting up on them.

You can read the Senate version of the bill here.

Update: You can click here to listen to Rep. David Lewis take questions about the bills from us scruffy media types during a news conference Tuesday. Lewis is a genuinely nice guy (whether you disagree with him or not, he's always very civil - unlike yours truly) and got a lot of hard questions from us. And frankly, the harder the questions got, the less help he got from other supporters of the bill.

Gov. Bev Perdue announced earlier this month that she would peruse $300 million to fix the the bridge that carries I-85 over the Yadkin River.

What didn't sink in to me at the time is what an audacious play this is.

There is $1.5 billion set aside for competitive highway grants under the recently-passed stimulus package. No one state is allowed to pull down $300 million of that, which is about one-fifth of the total funding available.

And the Yadkin River Bridge would cost about $300 million to fix, according to N.C. Transportation Sec. Gene Conti.

"This is North Carolina's top priority," Conti told the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees that oversee transportation funding. "If we're given the money this year, we can get that under contract this year."

But with 50 states scrapping for the money, North Carolina is displaying some pretty sharp elbows laying claim to that big of a share.

And Conti told legislators that the state would need a "Plan B" if the stimulus funding doesn't come through. While the bridge is safe enough to travel on for now, it's not in great shape.

"We need to get that bridge taken care of in the near future," Conti said. He wasn't real specific on what "Plan B" might entail, but it could involve spending state dollars or using bonds that are repaid with future federal grant dollars, he said.

Conti was at the legislative building today briefing the honorables on how the state planned to use the $838 million in transportation funding coming to the state from the stimulus bill.

The $466 million in projects Perdue announced Tuesday was the first set of that spending. (More here.)

States have to hit some deadlines for spending the money or it will go back to the feds to be reallocated. Conti said North Carolina was poised to spend its share and then some.

"We're not going to give any of our money to other states, I can tell you that," Conti said.

Gov. Bev Perdue is putting together her budget proposal for the tax and spending plan that would take effect July 1. Because the state is facing down a budget shortfall that's somewhere in the $2 billion-to-$3 billion range, she asked agencies to give her potential budget cuts.

Unhappy with the first round of suggestions, she asked agencies to go back and look for more things that could be cut.

The results of that new round of suggestions were boiled down into this spreadsheet, which details options the agencies have offered up as budget cutting alternatives.

The spokeswoman who passed this along stressed these are OPTIONS, not recommendations and not things the governor necessarily will do.

But worth noting for High Point: The Commerce Department recommends doing away with $866,250 in recurring funding for the Furniture Market. That's money that goes to promote the market and was mentioned as vulnerable in a story I wrote for today's paper.

Also among the potential cuts is reducing state funding for the Shakespeare Festival, which is based in High Point.

These cuts were the "deeper, more programmatic changes" Perdue asked for after getting the first round of optional budget cuts. They only add up to about $74 million, which does not get you that big of a dent on a $2 billion (or more) budget gap.

On a related note, the governor's office sent this along late today:

As part of Gov. Perdue’s ongoing efforts to manage the current fiscal year budget shortfall, she is taking the following steps under Executive Order No. 6:

Asking most state agencies for further reduction amounts from 7 percent to 9 percent. Governor Perdue will continue to protect public education as much as possible while managing the shortfall.

As a precautionary step to manage cash flow, the state will transfer up to $300 million dollars from several special accounts into the General Fund. The money will be put into a reserve and may be used to support General Fund obligations if necessary. These transfers will be managed so that existing activities supported by these special funds aren't impacted. The state annually faces cash flow issues between mid-February and April 15. The state's cash position is more heavily impacted this year because final corporate payments are now due by April 15, 2009, rather than March 15, 2009.

Reserve Transfer Amount Current Cash Balance

Education Lottery
Reserve Fund $ 50 million $ 50 million

Clean Water
Management
Trust Fund $100 million $251 million

Public School
Building
Capital Fund $100 million $316 million

Public School
Textbook Fund $ 50 million $ 65 million

Total $300 million $682 million

“The state constitution requires that I balance the state budget, and I will do that while protecting public education as much as possible,” said Gov. Perdue.

The House Judiciary I committee approved a bill this morning that would restore protest petition rights to Greensboro residents.

“This is a very popular issue back home,” Rep. Maggie Jeffus, a Greensboro Democrat, to the committee. “The citizens of Greensboro want this right restored.”

The measure, House Bill 64, next goes the House floor for approval. If it passes the full House, it would then be heard in the Senate.

When a land owner wants to change how their property is used – from a home to a business for example – they often have to seek rezoning. In most cities across the state, if five percent of the neighbors within 100 feet of the property oppose that change, they can file a protest petition with the city.

That petition requires that the City Council vote by a supermajority – seven of nine council members must approve in Greensboro’s case – to rezone the property, rather than just a simple majority.

Although some members of the committee said that the state might want to look at raising the threshold for filing protest petitions statewide, they agreed that Greensboro should not be treated differently.

A vote in the full House will likely come next week.

More background: here.

Update: Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, a Republican and the House minority leader, was the only member of the committee to raise a concern about the bill.

He said it was "anti-democratic" because a protest petition could thwart the will of a majority of a council. If six members out of nine want to approve a rezoning, goes his logic, why shouldn't that change take hold.

Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican, supported the bill but said the five percent threshold should maybe be raised. Five percent, he said, may be too low. But he added quickly that Greensboro should not be singled out.

"I do think it's important to have citizens treated equally across the state," Blust said.

Last night's "Take it to Raleigh" meeting in Greensboro hosted by the Guilford County delegation had a pretty good turnout - about 100 people in the room, 45 of who spoke on a variety of topics. Click here for the report from today's paper.

This week, Republican North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr gave the GOP response to President Barack Obama's weekly radio address. Obama spent the time pitching his budget proposal, while Burr said that the federal government needed more spending restraint.

Click here for Obama's radio address.

Click here to listen to Burr's response.