News-Record.com

The N.C. Supreme Court issued two interesting opinions today.

In WAKE CARES, INC V WAKE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION the court said school boards could assign students to year-round schools without parental permission:

We hold that the Board is statutorily authorized to compel attendance at year-round calendar schools. The Board's action in converting traditional calendar schools to year-round calendar schools comports with its statutory duty to provide a school system adequate to the needs of increasing student enrollment while assuring appropriate class sizes in its schools. See N.C.G.S. § 115C-47(1), (10). Moreover, the more efficient use by year-round calendar schools of existing school facilities complies with the public policy of the state to create a public school system “in the most cost-effective manner” while ensuring a sound basic education for all North Carolina children.

In a case that has bearing on the ongoing death penalty dispute the court ruled in N.C. Department of Correction V North Carolina Medical Board that the Medical Board can't prevent doctors from participating in executions:

Accordingly, we hold that N.C.G.S. § 15-190, by its plain language, envisions physician participation in executions in some professional capacity. Defendant's Position Statement exceeds its authority under Chapter 90 of the North Carolina General Statutes because the Statement directly contravenes the specific requirement of physician presence found in N.C.G.S. §15-190. Because plaintiffs have standing, a genuine controversy exists, the issue is ripe for decision, and the trial court did not impermissibly decide questions of fact or fail to allow additional presentation of evidence; and because the Position Statement is an invalid exercise of defendant's statutory powers, we affirm the decision of the trial court.

She's no Linda Richman, but North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan is inviting you by for coffee if you happen to be in the D.C. area on Wednesday during the Congressional session. From a release:

North Carolinians visiting or living in Washington, DC, are invited to attend Carolina Coffees, which will be held every Wednesday morning while the Senate is in session, from 9-10 a.m.

“Serving North Carolina in the U.S. Senate is such an honor, and it is truly a privilege to invite constituents to visit my office in the nation’s capital,” said Hagan.

Click here for the whole thing. Please note, Hagan has left her temporary basement digs and now has offices at 521 Dirksen.

Also, coming Monday, maybe you can get Hagan to sign a copy of her stimulus book when she hosts a round table discussion in Durham:

WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Senator Kay R. Hagan (D-NC) will bring together federal, state and local leaders and other experts to discuss how minority and female-owned businesses, small businesses and non-profits can access funds made available through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus bill.

[snip]

WHO: Senator Kay R. Hagan; federal, state, local leaders and other experts

WHAT: Senator Kay R. Hagan will host roundtable discussion to help minority and women-owned businesses, small businesses and non-profits access funds made available through the stimulus package.

WHEN: 10 a.m.

WHERE: Room 1221 of the Mary M. Townes Science Complex at NC Central University, Concord Street, Durham, NC

Click here for more.

Rep. Cary Allred has been charged with speeding in connection with his drive to the legislature Monday night.

Nothing from me this Sunday, but my colleagues in Greensboro and around the state have plenty of good stuff on tap. First and foremost, this comes from Taft Wireback:

GREENSBORO — State highway builders plan to buy and demolish part of a new neighborhood in northeast Greensboro, displacing about 15 families and adding millions of dollars to the cost of Greensboro’s Urban Loop.

Meanwhile, agents for the marketer of Quail Oaks subdivision — Keystone Group Inc. — are not telling interested home buyers that they sit squarely in the Urban Loop’s bull’s-eye. In fact, at least one company representative continues to offer lots directly in the new interstate’s path.

“They (Keystone Group) told us it would be coming, but it wouldn’t affect us,” said home owner Janice Chapman , whose three-year-old house is within feet of an Urban Loop exit ramp planned by the state Department of Transportation.

“They were like, it’s been a thought for 15 years, but nothing’s ever been done with it,” said Rachel Wilson, who bought in Quail Oaks in June. “We’re royally screwed.”

As recently as last weekend, one Keystone sales aide told a pair of prospective buyers she knew of no highway — even when asked point blank about any in the works nearby.

The story, by the way, was helped along by a former N+R staffer who did some undercover work for Taft.

Click here for the whole story.

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Fayetteville's Paul Woolverton uses a Sunday blog post to write through the Cary Allred saga thus far.

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The N+O's Mandy Locke tracks down the investigation into former Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator John Edwards:

John Edwards marched toward the White House in 2006 seeking an arsenal of millions collected a little at a time.

He also gathered more ammunition, about $11 million, collected in larger chunks by nonprofit groups conceived and operated to further his aspirations. He also courted a girlfriend.

Federal investigators are trying to connect those dots, sifting through Edwards' financial records to probe whether he used any donations solicited for his campaign to keep quiet his affair with Rielle Hunter.

Click here for the whole story.

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Asheville's Jordan Schrader writes through the latest news on the state's video poker laws.

RALEIGH – State lawmakers could soon return to their pursuit of an elusive goal: wiping out video gambling in North Carolina.

First, they want to figure out how to avoid inflicting collateral damage on businesses from Pepsi to McDonald's to Food Lion.

The General Assembly banned video poker in 2006, heeding arguments that it invites corruption and preys on the poor. But a Guilford County judge has blocked law enforcement from weeding out the Internet-based games that have popped up in many convenience stores since the ban, even after the Legislature intervened again last year.

Legislation under consideration this year threatens a more blanket ban on games of chance, but even the lawmakers who introduced the bills call them overly broad.

Worries about hurting retailers have led Rep. Ray Rapp, a Mars Hill Democrat, to shelve his bill for now and Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand to try to rework his.

Click here for the whole story.

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On this next one, I came for the headline, stayed for the story:

Headline: Why is Ronald Adrin Gray still alive?

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Twenty-three years ago, Linda Jean Coats made a fatal mistake.

She opened her door.

The 22-year-old Campbell University student had been lying on her sofa when a neighbor came to her home in Fairlane Acres Mobile Home Park.

Army Spc. Ronald Adrin Gray asked to use the phone.

Coats had likely seen Gray many times. He lived a few streets away with his wife and stepdaughter. He jogged through the neighborhood almost every day, lifted weights in his yard and listened to rock music on his front steps.

That night — April 27, 1986 — Gray became a murderer.

Coats let him in.

In the nine months to follow, Gray would rape eight women and murder three of them.

In those months, Gray sent terror through Fairlane Acres and Fayetteville.

By the end of 1986, people were fleeing the mobile home park, off Bragg Boulevard, by the dozens.

During a five-day stretch that December, Fairlane Acres resident Tammy Wilson was raped and fatally shot in the head. Another resident, Pfc. Laura Lee Vickery Clay, disappeared; her home was burned and her car found parked a block away.

Click here for the whole story from the Fayetteville Observer.

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Finally, Charlotte's Mark Johnson writes a profile of Rick Killian, a legislator I didn't know much about until this morning:

Rep. Ric Killian, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, had already scoped out the unfriendly terrain.

He was proposing a bill that would tighten the driver's license regulations on older drivers, frequent voters whom politicians alienate at their peril. And the opposing party, Democrats, controlled the committee hearing the bill.

Killian, a Republican from Charlotte, anticipated hefty opposition. So he delivered an extensive presentation on accident statistics and the potential benefit of older drivers taking a driver's license test more often. Then he got outflanked, not by a Democrat, but by a fellow Republican. Rep. Bill McGee, a 73-year-old from Forsyth County, gutted Killian's bill.

Call it legislative lesson No. 52 for Killian. He has made himself a walking case study for what a junior member of the minority party in the legislature can accomplish, what he can get passed into law and what gets shot down, often along party lines, but not always.

Click here for the whole story.

From today's paper:

RALEIGH — Railroad company representatives say a bill pending in the state House is “forward-looking,” ensuring that high-speed trains and new local transit lines can be built throughout the state.

Robert McIntosh, who owns Universal Scientific Supply Co. on Pine Street in Greensboro, scoffs at that notion.

“They’re not looking forward for me,” McIntosh said as he stood outside a legislative committee room last week. “They’re going to tell me what I can and can’t do with my property going forward.”

The legislation is the latest attempt by lawmakers to help railroads ensure that their trains can safely operate and that there is room to expand in the future.

“We need to work with these landowners to preserve the corridors,” said Scott Saylor, president of the N.C. Railroad Company, whose lines pass through Guilford County and Greensboro.

Click here for the whole story.

And click here for a bill explanation from the bill drafting office.

The bill is H 116. Here's a link to more information.

For those of you who have been following Rep. Cary Allred's problems last week, I have a few updates. (Background here, here and here.)

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You can click here for a PDF of the actual speeding citation. You can see he was charged not only speeding 102 in a 65, but with driving "Without due caution and circumspection and at a speed or in a manner so as to endanger persons and property," which is a separate charge.

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I interviewed Rep. Allred a couple times last week, including late on Friday afternoon. In addition to asking about the ticket, the Speaker's investigation and what not, I also asked if any of this would make him resign his seat. He had a two word answer:
"Hell no."

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I interviewed Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall this morning.

Woodall said that he got a call from a Highway Patrol Trooper on Friday morning.

"He asked me if there was any provision in the law that allowed someone, a lawmaker, to speed to get to a legislative session," Woodall recalled. "I said I wasn't aware of one."

So what did he tell the officer about charging members of the General Assembly or other public officials?

"In my opinion," Woodall said, "any time there's an allegation of a 102 in a 65, a ticket should be written, whether it's the governor or my wife or anyone else."

Woodall said he didn't know who the lawmaker in question was at the time and had to have a staff member go pull up news accounts of Allred's problems.

I asked Woodall how unusual it was for traffic citations to be issued days after the fact.

"More than once I've had citations issued after the fact," Woodall said, adding that it wasn't the most common thing to have happen but that sometimes officers had questions about the proper charges or something else. "It usually involves questions about the law, as it did in this case."

Gov. Bev Perdue was in rare form this morning at the Council of State meeting. For a brief minute, she even channeled a bit o' the godfather. She was talking about the fact all state employees had been required to take 10-hour flexible furloughs and how she couldn't MAKE any elected official cut their pay.

"I cannot ask you all by law to do it automatically. Anyone who is elected has to voluntarily offer to give up that portion of their salary ... Personnel ... must have that information in hand no later than the 15th or your name will appear on the list of electeds that did not follow the voluntary request. And I really don't want that to happen to anybody who is elected.

One can imagine how this might be scripted in a mob movie: Hey, that's a nice reputation you got there. It'd be a shame if something should happen to it. Oh, things can happen, like, you know, you fail to return a portion of your salary to the state and then somebody, not saying who, puts out a list of elected officials who haven't made good. You know, bad things can happen - badda-boom.

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After the Council of State meeting, Perdue talked to us scruffy media types.

She was asked about Rep. Cary Allred's speeding ticket. She said she was looking forward to reading the Highway Patrol's report on why the ticket wasn't issued immediately and said that legislators should expect greater scrutiny.

"I think it's critically important that electeds have a higher standard of behavior," Perdue said. And she said that Allred and everyone else involved in the case needed to make sure they resolved it appropriately.

"Everyone in the state is watching," she said.

Perdue was also asked about furloughs - and said she didn't like doing them - and about the seven things she was lobbying legislators to keep in the budget before all else. Some were things we've heard before like protecting classrooms, creating jobs and keeping public safety folks on the job. But she made a particularly strong pitch for children’s' health insurance.

"I find it unconscionable that we might have a child taken off the children’s health rolls because we have no money," Perdue said.

Click here for the full Q+A. If you stay to the end, you get to hear the governor call a camera man a pervert during this exchange:

Perdue: Now let me undress to give you back your microphones.

Camera Man: Alright!

Perdue: I am an old woman, you are a pervert. You are a per-vert!

Back in March, I wrote about the lottery brokering a deal to sell lottery tickets at check cashing businesses.

After that story ran, Rep. Pricey Harrison filed H 1289: No Lottery at Check Cashing Sites.

It passed the J-I committee today with bipartisan support and no objection from the lottery.

According to a list of lottery retailers I laid my mitts on earlier this year, there are eight ticket sellers who have "check cashing" or some variant as part of their name.

An amendment to the bill was offered that would have prevented those who work for businesses that sell tickets from playing lottery games. It was withdrawn due to objections from the lottery.

"The amendment, I guarantee you, will severely impact our return to education," said Lottery Director Tom Shaheen. He called reports (here and here) about retailers playing the lottery in a fraudulent way over-blown.

For those following H2, the smoking ban bill, it is headed back to committee.

"I hope to have it back in the Health Care Committee tomorrow," said Sen. William Purcell, the committee's chairman. He said that some changes for a new, less strict version were being worked on by staff Tuesday afternoon in advance of the Tuesday meeting.

The measure had been due for floor debate on Wednesday.

So why is it heading back? Simple: supporters of the strict measure, which would ban smoking in almost all public areas, don't have the votes to pass it.

Rep. Mickey Michaux just announced that the full appropriations committee will hear a bill Wednesday morning to make sure that the flexible furloughs - or at least the pay cut - Gov. Perdue ordered for all state employees will apply to members of the legislature and judicial branches as well.

House Appropriations this morning:

H 1172: The furlough bill. As descried by Rep. Ownes: "We've talking and going back and forth between voluntary furloughs and mandatory furloughs ... We've gone back to just voluntary furloughs."

The bill lays out the rules for how furloughs might be done.

"No one HAS to take any days under this," Owens said.

The bill passed out of committee on a voice vote.

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H 917: Holds state employees harmless on longevity, retirement and other matters if they take a furlough.

And it extends the furlough provisions to the judicial and legislative branches.

It passed on a voice vote.

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Rep. Mickey Michaux, the senior appropriations chairman, noted that both bills sailed through committee with very little opposition.

"I need to put a few more (bills) on there 'cause y'all are sure amenable this morning. Sheesh," Michaux said.

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The House and Senate Appropriations Committees will meet at 9:15 a.m. to hear about revenue forecasts for the coming year.

Yesterday, a House committee sent h 1252, which concerns whether or not cities can get into the broadband internet business off to the Rules Committee, where it will be folded into the annual study bill.

The study bill typically directs legislators and staff to look at dozens of topics between the time the legislature adjourns – maybe in August – and the time it returns in May. Topics included in the study are considered eligible for consideration in the short session that begins in 2010.

Click here for yesterday's story.

That action pretty much ended debate on the House side for the session. Once a measure is shuffled off to be included in a study, members are done fooling with something until after adjournment.

”But wait!” say the folks over at StopTheCap.com. S 1004 was on the Senate Commerce Committee calendar this morning. It is the Senate companion to H 1252 and had the same language that would have prevented local governments from getting into the broadband business.

Don't get too riled.

The Commerce Committee also turned it into a study. It's not exactly the same bill. The House created a Legislative Research Commission study while the Senate bill would just send it to the Revenue Laws Study Committee. They’re two different critters that both serve the same purpose.

Either way, both chambers are saying the topic needs to be looked at - "chewed on" to use Rep. Faison's phrase from yesterday - before they go tinkering with the law.

You can expect to see 1004 on the Senate floor and sent over to the House soon, said Sen. David Hoyle, its sponsor. Hoyle says he doesn’t much care how it gets studied, as long as it gets there.

"It's an issue that needs to be looked at," Hoyle said. "All the parties need to get in the same room and defend their position."

Opponents of the original bill say that local governments should be able to get into the broadband business, particularly where a private company isn't providing service or service at the level that residents want.

Supporters of limits - Hoyle is among those - say local governments shouldn't be able to compete with private enterprise.

The result for the time being is that there is unlikely to be any more action on this front this year. Look for the issue to return either in May or in the next General Assembly.

A spokesman with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called this afternoon to say the group was launching a web ad against Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

To be clear: they're not investing in TV time yet. But it does signal that North Carolina's 2010 Senate campaign is going to draw the same kind of outside fire power as the 2008 Dole-Hagan race did.

"This signal that North Carolina is going to be one of our top, targeted races this cycle," said Eric Schultz, communications director for the DSCC.

It also seems to signal that although Burr thinks the story was much ado about nothing, campaign consultants for the Democrats plan to ride this thing as far as it will take them.

This is all the more interesting since the field of Democrats ready to run against Burr is limited.

The ad targets Burr's comments saying that he asked his wife to withdraw money from the bank during last year's banking crisis. Background: here and here.

Here's the video:

I just shipped this story re: the smoking ban to our news site:

The North Carolina Senate voted 26-18 to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, passing a weakened version of a workplace smoking ban.

“It was much less restrictive than the original bill,” said Sen. Don Vaughan, a Greensboro Democrat who voted for the compromise legislation.

Vaughan was among numerous Democrats and a majority of Republicans who sided against a more sweeping bill that would have banned smoking in virtually all workplaces. When Senate leaders determined they didn’t have the votes to pass that measure, they reworked the bill into the weaker form.

The House has already passed a version of the smoking ban. It is more broad but has major loopholes for bars.

Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Lexington Democrat and the bill’s author, said it was unlikely the House would accept the Senate version of the bill. Rather, he said, the bill would go to a conference committee. Such committees rework legislation into a single version that is then sent to both chambers for a final vote.

Locally, Sens. Don Vaughan, a Greensboro Democrat, and Stan Bingham, a Denton Republican, voted for the bill.

Sen. Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, voted against.

Sen. Katie Dorsett, a Greensboro Democrat, was absent but "paired" her vote, which means she was able to support the bill by canceling out the vote of a colleague on the other side of the issue. In this case, Dorsett paired with Sen. Andrew Brock of Mocksville, who would have been a no vote.

The Senate gave tentative approval to H2, which is now a smoking ban for bars and restaurants, earlier today. Click here to catch up on the news.

For those who weren't able to listen to the debate, I have some audio clips.

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Sen. William Purcell, the chief proponent on the Senate side, started off the debate with the understatement of the day.

"This bill has gone through a lot of compromise and changes from where it started," Purcell said. Ya think?

What started as a "workplace smoking ban" aimed at protecting all workers is now something much different.

"The purpose of the bill is to prevent exposure to second hand smoke for patrons and workers at bars and restaurants at bars and workers in North Carolina," Purcell said.

Purcell, a Democrat and chair of the Health Committee, had tried to move a very strict smoking ban to the floor but quickly found that the broad measure didn't have enough support to pass. And, say supporters, it's more of a ban than we have now.

Click here to hear Purcell make the argument for the bill in its current form.

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Sen. Jim Jacumin, a Connelly Springs Republican, offered an amendment to gut the bill further. It would have restored a provision, passed by the House, that would let bars exempt themselves if they didn't hire or serve anyone under the age of 18.

I have it on good authority from two different sources that at least one or two senators who voted against the final bill, and who probably would have liked the amendment, voted against it because the Jacumin's argument was so, well...bad.

Not only did he provide as reprise of his solution to pollution is dilution line, arguing that second hand smoke wasn't all THAT bad, he provided this gem:

"In studies just recently by Vanderbilt University...a smoker costs the taxpayers. A non-smoking costs the taxpayers $417,000. Smokers give the taxpayers a $91,000 bargain - not the right way, of course, but they do."

Right. Because if you smoke and get a disease and it kills you, you're not a strain in the entitlement system. (Coming next week, a bill to require all those with chronic diseases to take up bear wrestling, sky diving and live porcupine swallowing.)

Click here to listen to Jacumin's remarks.

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Sen. Phil Berger, a Republican of Eden, tried to jump in and save Jacumin's amendment.

"What this amendment does is says that the bar owner, the restaurant owner, the owner of the property can make a decision as to whether or not they want to allow smoking on their premises. It gives the individual patron the right to choose to go to that establishment or not go to that establishment. It says that the people of the state of North Carolina are intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves about these kinds of things."

Berger gets props for fighting through what sounded like a nasty cold. But the amendment still failed.

Click here to listen to Berger's remarks.

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Sen. David Weinstein may have earned a spot as the Senate's resident feminist scholar today (end sarcasm) with this exchange:

Weinstein: And Mr. President, if I may, I would like to see if Sen. Tillman would yield to a question.

Lt. Gov. Dalton: Sen. Tillman do you yield for a question?

Tillman: I will.

Dalton: He yields.

Weinstein: Sen. Tillman, is it true, that a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke?

Dalton: You don't have to answer that Sen. Tillman. We're going to let Kipling answer that in appropriate time.

Tillman: I'd give you a Tony Rand answer, but that wouldn't work either.

Weinstein: Well, it is true to me and I'll tell you this. I rest my case with that statement and I'm going to have to vote no on this bill.

All due respect to Sen. Weinstein and Rudyard Kipling, I’m pretty sure that if you don’t enjoy the company of a fine lady (yes, dear wife, I mean you) more than fine cigar, you’re going about it all wrong.

Click here to listen to that exchange.

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Sen. Doug Berger (no relation to Phil, that I know of) said he would vote against the bill because of his father.

"My daddy worked hard, but he also played hard. He wasn't a member of the country club. In the country club, folks are going to be able to smoke. He went down, Sen. Rucho, to the 'Little Brown Jug' after he did a hard days work. When this bill passes, he wouldn't be able to smoke there, while the folks who were over there in the bank, and they go to the country club up there in Johnston County, they'll be able to able to smoke and I just don't think that's right."

Click here to listen to Berger's thoughts.

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After all the arguments against, supporters of the bill piped up. Among those, was Sen. Tony Foriest of Graham:

"This is absolutely amazing to me that we're having this kind of conversation because to me, it seems, that we have an opportunity to absolutely make a difference ... We have the opportunity to send a message certainly to the people that we're around and to the next generation coming up...I'm a little bit disappointed that we're debating this for so long, because this is something we need to do."

Click here to listen to Foriest.

It's your turn to sound off by way of the comments link below.

It is "cross over" week at the General Assembly. May 14 is the self-imposed deadline for legislation that does not raise or spend money to pass either the House or Senate. The deadline is a way for the honorables to impose some discipline on their processes, while leaving plenty of ways to work around when needed or desired.

The upshot: there are tons of bills moving through committee and on the two floors this week. The House calendar was 30-plus bills long tonight. The Senate had 42 bills on the agenda, although pushed off consideration of a few.

At any rate, here are some of things that went down Monday:

• More coming on this in Tuesday’s paper, but the House Commerce Committee voted for a measure that would do away with some of the state's more stringent clear air regulations:

  The measure, approved by the House Environment Committee on a show of hands, would exempt from state reviews businesses building a new factory that emits toxic substances into the air subject to certain federal air-quality regulations.

  “Let’s not make them do the same test twice,” said Rep. Pryor Gibson, a Wadesboro Democrat.

  But environmental regulators and advocates say the measure would gut the state’s ability to head off air-quality problems before they arise.

  “We strongly support the air toxics program as it currently exists, largely because it does give us the opportunity to assess the public health impacts of a new air emissions source before we issue the permit as opposed to having that analysis done later, after the source has already been permitted and constructed and is in operation,” Robin Smith, N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources assistant secretary, told the committee.

• * Judges would have to say WHY they were recusing themselves - in writing - under S 797, which passed the Senate. Currently, appellate judges can beg off a case and not give a reason.

• * Schools could start earlier under a bill that passed the House Commerce Committee Monday.

• * The Senate passed a bill to set a floor on the gas tax.

• * The Senate approved a tax cut for an unnamed large company widely rumored to be Apple.

• * And finally, the Senate gave a second blessing to H2, a bill that would ban smoking in bars and restaurants. The measure falls short of the sweeping smoking ban for all businesses originally passed by the House.

  Senators rejected an amendment offered by Sen. Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, that would have exempted for-profit private clubs that are essentially bars with lose membership requirements.

  “People’s choice is what we ought to be about,” Berger said. “It is a legal product.”

  At one point during the debate, Sen. Stan Bingham, a Denton Republican, asked if truck stops could be exempted along with private clubs. Bingham said that several truck stop owners had called him opposed to the bill.

  “Sen. Bingham, I’ve just never seen a truck stop that was a private club. Have you?” asked Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat who was picking apart the amendment.

  “Well,” Bingham said, “I’ve been there at night. It seemed like a pretty good club to me.”

  That reply drew chuckles from his colleagues and onlookers.

  “Were you a member?” asked Rand. “And how did they select you if you were?”

  Bingham replied, “The way you were selected is if you had any money,” drawing further giggles.

  Although the House could vote to accept the Senate version of the bill, the measure is much different from when the House approved it. Sponsors have said they anticipate the two chambers will appoint a conference committee to work out differences between the two.

Among all the fun of crossover - in which dozens, nay, hundreds of bills are given various level of approval in a short amount of time – the bill in the first position on the House calendar today will grab some attention.

H2, which would ban smoking in restaurants and bars, has come back from the Senate and Rep. Hugh Holliman says he'll urge his colleagues to accept the Senate version of the bill. Even though the measure falls short of the more sweeping "workplace ban" that Holliman had originally pushed, the Lexington Democrat said that the Senate version of the bill is a "major step" and about as much as he can hope for politically this year.

"We'll take the gains we got and come back another day," Holliman said.

My read is that passage is not a slam dunk. But if the measure fails, it would go to a conference committee where the bill could be re-worked some and brought back to the floor.

A new law that would ban smoking in bars and restaurants is on its way to Gov. Bev Perdue’s desk.

The House voted 62-56 for the Senate version of the bill Wednesday afternoon. That was the final legislative approval needed.

Although the bill falls short of the more sweeping “workplace” ban favored by supporters, it does allow local governments to impose some stricter regulations.

“It’s not the bill we would have liked to have,” said Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Lexington County Democrat and the lead author of the measure. Despite what he saw as shortcoming, Holliman called the bill a “major step” toward protecting public health.

Rep. Nelson Cole, a Reidsville Democrat, urged colleagues to reject the measure, arguing that infringed on the rights of business owners.

“I think in this case we need to take this back, we need to discuss these issues,” Cole said.

Click here to see how your member of the House voted on the smoking ban.

There has been much speculation about whether state Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, would run for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Richard Burr. The answer is "no" according to an e-mail the AG is about to send to supporters:

Dear Friends:

A few weeks after I took the oath of office for my third term as Attorney General, many of you asked me to consider becoming a U.S. Senator in 2010. Because this can be an important way to help the people of North Carolina, my family and I considered it. While I am honored by the encouragement I’ve received, I don’t want to go to Washington and serve as a U.S. Senator at this time. I am committed to public service and I want to serve here in North Carolina rather than in Washington.

Right now, I’m moving forward with ways to make the lives of North Carolinians better and safer, even during these challenging times. We’re pushing for new laws and helping people struggling with bad loans, debt and foreclosure. At my request, the Governor just signed an executive order this week to begin “StreetSafe”, a project that will reduce the number of repeat offenders and cut the crime rate by coordinating nonprofits, businesses, faith-based initiatives, and government to rehabilitate people who have committed crimes.

I am taking action right here in North Carolina to boost our economy, bolster education, improve our health care and make us more secure. I will continue to need your ideas and help. I am grateful for your encouragement and support.

Roy Cooper

Now that the fun and games of crossover week are over, we can all go back to agonizing over the budget.

You remember: it was $21 billion give or take last year, it will probably wind up in the neighborhood of $17 billion at the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, lots of gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth anticipated as everyone's favorite programs are hacked?

Right.

So a calendar given to various appropriations folks on the House side shows the House Subcommittees working through this week, taking Memorial Day off, and then having subcommittee chairs report to their progress to the big chairs (Rep. Mickey Michaux and company) on May 28, June 1, June 2 and June 3.

If they were to stay on that track, you could see the House budget rush (votes in the full finance and appropriations committees followed by votes on the floor) the week of June 8.

However, on the calendar appropriators are working off of, that June 8 week is left blank in case they need some "buffer" and floor votes aren't anticipated until the week of June 15.

If the process follows that later time line, conferees wouldn't be appointed until June 19 and the House and Senate would have only a week and a half to get a compromise measure worked out.

Raise your hand if you think the House and Senate (and the governor) can agree on how to cut $4 billion (or more) from the state budget in only 12 days or so.

From this Sunday's paper:

RALEIGH — Regulatory changes that phone companies say they need to compete with wireless providers and cable companies could hurt consumers, particularly those who buy only the most basic land-line services, say consumer advocates.

The measure, which passed the state House last week, amounts to a partial deregulation of telephone services provided by companies such as AT&T and North State. Under the bill, utility regulators would no longer keep close tabs on services and prices related to local phone service.

“You’ve got some legacy rules and regulation that were created to manage an industry that frankly no longer exists,” said Clifton Metcalf , a spokesman for AT&T, which pushed for the bill. “Consumers have a tremendous amount of choice now.”

But consumer advocates say that those choices — mainly mobile phones and phones provided by cable companies — aren’t available equally across the state. And they argue less-wealthy customers could suffer if rates are allowed to rise.

“(Phone companies) would now have carte blanche to raise prices as they want to with the one exception of stand-alone consumer lines,” said Bill Wilson , a lobbyist for AARP, who said the rise in rates would hurt more than just those over 50.

Click here for the full story.

Click here for information on the bill, including the latest draft.

I have one bit of business to tidy up here. North Carolina has not only a Public Utilities Commission, which serves as a regulator, but a Public Staff, which serves as an advocate on behalf of the public to that regulator.

The staff is a group of public employees but they're not under the commission and are fairly well regarded by advocates in the nonprofit community.

I was unsuccessful in catching up with them last week and particularly wanted to do so because someone working for a phone company suggested to me that the Public Staff might actually favor H 1180.

That's not the case.

John Garrison, who oversees the communications division of the Public Staff, and I finally got a chance to speak this morning. He said that the Public Staff wasn't actively opposing the bill but favored the existing law.

"That's what we think would be best," he said.

Garrison said that the latest version of the H 1180 offered "some protections to consumers," but the public staff thought the existing regulatory scheme did more to ensure quality and price protections.

"Not opposing" something and "favoring" it are two different things on Jones Street. If you favor something, you want to see the change and may be actively working on its behalf. "Not opposing" means you may not like something, but you're keeping your political powder dry - either because you have other issues to work on or because there's little you can do to stop a particular political train from rolling down the tracks.

This just came in from the N.C. Department of Revenue today:

As of May 13, the N.C. Department of Revenue has released all tax refunds that have been processed. The Department of Revenue has written 2.7 million refunds totaling $1.9 billion since Jan. 1, 2009. At this point last year, the Department had written 2.5 million refunds totaling $1.7 billion.

The department continues to process 2008 individual income tax refund returns that were filed in April. As the tax returns are processed, the department anticipates releasing the refunds on a timely basis.

The state had delayed issuing some refunds due to a cash flow problem.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan is expected to make recommendations on who should fill key federal judicial vacancies in North Carolina, such as the U.S. Attorneys for the state and judgeships on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Hagan assembled a three-member panel to help her vet appointments, including Locke Clifford, a Greensboro attorney and long-time supporter.

It was a bit surprising to learn today that Clifford has stepped away from this panel. When I called to ask why, he said:

"I can't speak on that subject right now, sorry, and I've got to hang up, bye."

That's a bit odd for Clifford, who has usually been very polite and patient on the phone with me. But it may speak to reason why he's stepping away.

Word on the street here in Raleigh is that Clifford may have been hired by former Gov. Mike Easley. If that's the case, it would be a sign to my scruffy reporter’s mind that Easley thinks he might actually have some trouble on his hands. Clifford is very well regarded for taking on difficult criminal defense work in Greensboro.

Replacing Clifford on Hagan's judiciary vetting panel will be Jim Phillips. Hagan's office sent over this short bio on Phillips:

Jim Phillips, an attorney in Greensboro, is a graduate of the Wake Forest School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Wake Forest Law Review, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he served as student body president. Phillips is involved in the North Carolina academic and legal communities, serving as the former chair of the UNC Board of Governors and as a member of the North Carolina Bar Association Committee on Judicial Independence.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan just did a conference call with the hometown scruffy media types.

Item #1 for discussion was the ongoing mark-up of a bill that would allow the FDA to regulate tobacco, which the Greensboro Democrat opposes.

"We need to have FDA focus on monitoring our food, our drug safety, rather than taking on a product that I think people know is inherently unsafe," Hagan said.

There's nothing new in that position for her. She said that some changes made to the bill will help out small tobacco manufacturers, but they were short of anything that would make her vote for the final bill.

Hagan and Republican Sen. Richard Burr are angling to offer another bill that would create a whole new agency to regulate tobacco.

------

When Hagan through the call open to questions, she was asked about her recommendations to fill appointments on federal benches and prosecutors’ office. Of particular interest was news that one of her screening panel members had resigned.

In addition, the job of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina is of particular interest. That's the federal district that prosecutes most of the corruption cases in the state and is the office looking at former Democratic Gov. Mike Easley and his wife.

Hagan had this bit of news to share:

"It is my feeling that George Holding should stay on until these investigations are over with," Hagan said. Holding is the current, Republican-appointed, U.S. Attorney.

While it is the president and Attorney General that really make the final decisions on such things, the recommendation of the state's only Democratic senator carry a lot of weight.

If nothing else, Hagan just gave herself some political insulation by saying that the investigations should continue unimpeded. If she had openly pushed for a replacement, Hagan could have been subject to claims of partisan favoritism.

"I don't feel it would be in North Carolina's best interest to replace someone who is investigating these two very high profile people ... He ought to have the opportunity to complete that investigation," Hagan said in response to a second question on the topic.

Update: Hagan's office just sent this out:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kay R. Hagan (D-NC) announced today she has recommended the White House not replace George Holding, U.S. Attorney for North Carolina’s Eastern District, until the conclusion of federal investigations into former Governor Mike Easley and former Senator John Edwards. In March, Hagan announced the formation of a statewide panel to screen candidates for federal appointments, including candidates for the U.S. Attorneys positions in the state. Senator Hagan called the White House to voice her concerns yesterday.

“Back in March, I announced the formation of a statewide review panel to help screen federal nominees of whom all North Carolinians, regardless of their political affiliation, will be proud,” Hagan said. “To uphold that promise, I called the White House yesterday to inform them of my recommendation that President Obama not replace Mr. Holding until the ongoing investigations into John Edwards and Mike Easley are completed. It is of the utmost importance to me, as well as to the people of North Carolina, that we ensure this process is carried out as transparently and honestly as possible.”

The House Sergeant at Arms staff just issued its report on Rep. Cary Allred's really bad day, during which he was pulled for speeding and accused of acting inappropriately on the House floor.

Click here for a PDF of the report. (This link is updated if you had trouble with an earlier version of the file.)

The document contains both a report from Robert Samuels, the Sergeant at Arms himself, as well as written reports from members.

Not a-typical, although more colorfully written than many of the accounts, is this from Rep. Mitch Setzer:

"However, the most disturbing thing I witnessed on the evening of April 27, 2009 involved an inappropriate interaction between Representative Cary Allred and a House Page. Very close to the end of the Session, I turned in my chair to conduct a conversation with Representative Mark Hilton and directly in my line of sight, at a point on the East wall near the Brass Doors, Representative Allred had a female House Page in what seemed to be a never-ending embrace that resembled a gruesome bear hug. I personally found the scene distasteful and highly disturbing."

Allred is a Republican and interestingly enough, most of the written reports in this document come from Republicans.

Sen. Kay Hagan spent some time in Afghanistan over the weekend. From a story in today's paper:

Sen. Kay Hagan got a chance to see Afghanistan and some of the problems faced by the U.S. military there this Memorial Day weekend.

She and four other senators spent two days in the country this weekend, evaluating efforts to rebuild the war-torn country and root out the Taliban and Al-Qaeda first hand.

“It’s one thing to hear about it. It’s another thing to be in a helicopter looking over the terrain,” said Hagan on a conference call with reporters Monday.

North Carolina’s junior senator said she visited the Afghan capital city of Kabul and the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, areas where there is rising violence from a resurgent Taliban.

Click here for more of that story.

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Burr was in Europe for Memorial Day.

U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan traveled overseas as Congress began its weeklong Memorial Day recess.

While Hagan, a Democrat, visited troops in Afghanistan, Burr, a Republican, helped lead Memorial Day ceremonies at the Normandy American Cemetery in France.

Burr praised the American troops who helped liberate France and likened them to American forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

“And like their forefathers, the latest American generation to come of age on distant battlefields also knows the horrible toll war exacts on mind, body, and soul,” said Burr’s prepared remarks for the occasion. “Since 2001, they have shouldered the heavy burdens of combat and struggled with its often lonely aftermath.”

Click here for more from the Washington Watch column.

From this weekend's paper, in no particular order:

• * Inside Scoop covers a local bill to change how the Greensboro City Attorney is appointed. (Second item.) Short version: it ain't moving for the foreseeable future.

• * North Carolina Republicans are getting ready to chose a new chairman. My story talks more about what the next chairman will have to do in terms of rebuilding the party. For more on the latest mud slinging in the race (which I only mention briefly) check out this story from the Legion of Dome.

• * I wrote for Sunday's paper about efforts to change North Carolina's negligence laws. The push comes in large measure from a Greensboro family and lawmakers.

• * So it turns out that some playground equipment is safe from 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. but unsafe after school. Click here to find out how.

• * Not from me, but check out this good read from the AP's Gary Robertson on former Gov. Mike Easley's tenuous grasp on his legacy.

Republicans members of the state legislature are trying to knock down two bills related to sex.

S 526: School Violence Prevention Act, is also known as the bullying bill. The measure says that all bullying is bad but goes on to enumerate a number of categories of students who should not be bullied. That's the offending language for the GOP:

Bullying or harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics

The measure has passed the Senate and is in the House Health Committee today.

H 88: Healthy Youth Act, would require all schools systems to offer comprehensive sex education, a track separate from the current abstinence-focus curriculum used by schools.

The measure has passed the House and could be cleared by a Senate committee this week.

Again, Republican leaders say they have a number of problems with the bill, but complain that the term "comprehensive sexuality" education would include teaching about different sexual orientations.

"Sexual orientation and gender identity are so much larger than what people thing they are - it includes pedophilia for example," said Republican Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, the House minority leader.

Although, he said, the GOP has problems with how both these bills will function, he said the larger issues were the ripple effects the bills could have in North Carolina law.

"The bullying bill is not really about bullying," Stam said, describing it as a "Trojan horse."

Pointing to a recent Iowa Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage in that state and North Carolina Republican's inability to push through a constitutional amendment on gay marriage, Stam said these bills were eroding "the normal understanding of the traditional family." (Not discussed, but worth talking about, California's Supreme Court is expected to rule on this topic today.)

As noted earlier, Republicans are trying to knock down S 526, an anti-bullying bill.

The controversy in the bill resides in this paragraph:

Bullying or harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.

That has drawn opposition from groups such as the N.C. Christian Action League.

The House Education Committee heard the bill today. There was so much pending discussion that the chairman delayed a vote on the bill until at least Thursday. But I did find a couple bits of the meeting useful.

An exchange between Rep. Hugh Blackwell, a Burke County Republican, and Rep. Rick Glazier, a Cumberland County Democrat, helped clarify what would constitute bullying versus free speech.

Click here to listen to that.

Also, Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam laid out his objections to the bill.

Click here to listen to those, with a short rebuttal from Sen. Julia Boseman, the bill's sponsor, at the end.

At the beginning of that second take, Stam was asking to pass out a PCS - a proposed committee substitute. In legislative land, a PCS is a rewrite of a bill that contains more extensive body work than is appropriate for a mere amendment. The chairman didn't let him make that motion.

The House Health Committee passed S 1030, which I wrote about this weekend:

There are 748 after-school programs operating on public school campuses throughout the state. Of those, 280 have restrictions placed on their playgrounds by the Division of Child Development.

Problems found in other areas around the state include 8-to-10-foot drops with little or no surfacing to absorb falls, broken swings, rusty nails and “entrapments.”

In each of those cases, if the school deems the gear safe, children can play on it during the day.

Click here for the whole story.

The question arises because public schools and the folks who license after school programs have different standards for what constitutes "safe" playground equipment. One solution would be to require schools to get their equipment up to the division's standards. Instead, the measure says that whatever the faults with the playground equipment, it won't keep an after school programs from getting licensed.

The bill was amended by the House Health Committee to say that the fact the playgrounds might not be up to snuff can be noted on the Division of Child Development rating - a sort of caveat to alert parents.

It next goes to the Education Committee.

From House Speaker Joe Hackney's office:

Rep. Hugh Holliman is recovering Tuesday after surgery to remove a portion of one of his lungs.

Rep. Holliman is a two-time survivor of lung cancer and the primary sponsor of a new law to ban smoking in restaurants and bars. The surgery Tuesday to remove a lower lobe of Rep. Holliman’s right lung was conducted as a precautionary measure and the portion of the lung that was removed was not immediately believed to be cancerous.

The surgery was conducted at Forsyth Memorial Hospital in Winston-Salem. Rep. Holliman is recovering in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and is expected to return to his legislative duties in about a week.

Rep. Holliman is in his fifth term representing Davidson County in the House of Representatives. He is the House Majority Leader, chairman of the Financial Institutions committee and vice chairman of the Finance committee.

It's worth point out that Holliman, (eds note: I've edited this line) who at one time smoked a pipe, was the lead author of the statewide smoking ban for bars and restaurants that goes into effect Jan. 2.

When I spoke to him on Friday, Guilford County Republican Party Chairman Bill Wright said he was not going to make his preference for state party chairman known.

As I was reporting this story, Wright told me, "I won't say anything right this minute."

It was important as a county chairman, Wright said, to remain impartial.

So much for that. From an e-mail touting endorsements sent around by state party chairman candidate Chad Adams today:

Bill Wright, Chairman Guilford County Republican Party

The next Chairman must be someone who understands grassroots activism and can effectively communicate our Republican principles and those of our Constitution. Our next Chairman must have the ability to raise the funds necessary to support Party efforts in electing conservative Republicans across our State. It is my opinion that Chad Adams best meets these requirements and I am honored to endorse Chad Adams as the next Chairman of the NCGOP.

Worth noting: one of the candidates for state party chairman is Marcus Kindley, Wright's predecessor.

Back in April I wrote about coal ash ponds, which contain some of the waste produced by coal-fired power plants. There's a small one (only eight acres) up in Eden, and about dozen more throughout the state. These are smaller versions of the thing that the TVA lost control of in December, causing an environmental catastrophe in Tennessee.

Background here.

At the time, part of the story involved legislative efforts to regulate these things, which got a great deal of push-back from the utilities companies such as Duke Power and Progress Energy. Smarter men than I have opined that maybe, just maybe, the state needs to get a better handle on these things.

Well, step one toward that regulation may come in the state budget the House puts out this month.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural and Economic Resources is considering a special provision - a piece of law attached to the budget - that would remove coal ash damns exemptions from the state's dam safety act.

Currently, utility companies are responsible for inspecting their own dams that hold back coal ash from spilling into local water ways. While they file a report with the Public Utilities Commission, the dams don't get a state inspection.

The measure would also move $200,000 per year from the Public Utilities Commission to the Department of Environmental Resources to pay for dam inspections.

The measure would not hit all the points in a bill championed by Greensboro Democratic Rep. Pricey Harrison, but its first step, she said.

"It seemed like the immediate need was to remove the exemption," Harrison said.

The House budget is a long way from its final form. And even after it has passed, the House, Senate and governor have to craft a final compromise version. So there's no guarantee that this provision will stay in there.

For those following H 88: Health Youth Act - aka the sex ed bill - it was heard in the Senate Mental Health & Youth Services Committee today.

However, there was no vote. The bill will, in theory, get another hearing in the coming weeks.

For those who haven't been following the legislation, the bill would create two tracks of sex education for kids in public school. One would be the existing "abstinence only" curriculum, which actually talks about sex a bit but does so in the context of waiting until marriage.

The new "comprehensive" curriculum would be a bit more aggressive in imparting information about how one avoids unwanted pregnancies and diseases. (My understanding is that the biggest difference is in the tone of how the information is presented, although kids in the comprehensive course would get an extra day or two of learning on the topic.)

Click here for the staff summary of the bill.

{{Because the committee hearing was in a room that isn't streamed on the internet and there's a great deal of interest in this bill, I dropped a mike in the room today. The sound is a bit all over the place because the mike was at the podium and people spokes from a variety of positions. You'll hear the committee chairmen real clearly. You may need to crank up the sound to hear other people asking and answering questions.

Click here to listen to my tape.}}

Co-chairmen Malcom Graham and Ellie Kinnaird said they wanted to give time for members of the committee to have questions answered.

"We feel we owe it to our members to get those questions answered," Kinnaird said. "It's a bill that's going to be a major change to some people in this state."

I'm a little bit skeptical of that explanation. It seemed as if the decision to delay the vote was made on the fly after a couple members left and came back into the room to confer with someone in the hall outside the committee room. One definitely got the sense that word had come down from elsewhere to delay the committee vote.

At any rate - most of the questions that were asked came from Sens. Jim Jacumin and Jim Forrester, Republicans who questioned the need for the bill.

Forrester argued the state's teen pregnancy rates had dropped over the past decades with the abstinence only curriculum in place.

"Apparently they're doing a good job," he said.

That's true said Rep. Susan Fisher, one of the bill's sponsors. However, North Carolina is still ninth in the nation in teen pregnancy rates and rates of STDs are on the rise, she said.

"Evidently, it is not working," Fisher said.

(Worth noting: this is one of two bills Republican leaders have taken aim at.)

Again, click here to listen to all the doings from today's hearing yourself.

My web folks just put me on notice: Capital Beat is moving. Well, the URL isn't, so don’t change your bookmarks.

But the paper is scrapping the Movable Type blogging platform that the we’ve used since firing up the Inside Scoop blog in 2004.

For those wondering, we're moving to a Drupal-based platform, which is the same system that runs our main web page.

The move is supposed to happen Thursday morning and I have been told "There may be times when it is temporarily unavailable, and it may take some of the morning for me to go through and clean up your blogrolls, bio, etc."

So pardon our dust on Thursday as we get things moved over to the new system. Once the move is done, you'll see some changes to the page's format, although nothing overly dramatic. And I think you'll find the commenting function works a bit better.

The North Carolina Office of the Commissioner of Banks paid nearly $500,000 in "performance bonuses" to staff members during the current fiscal year.

From a story that's now online:

RALEIGH — The North Carolina Banking Commission paid $478,081 in bonuses to 72 employees last year and wants to set aside funds for another round this year.

The bonuses and potential bonuses have drawn the attention of legislators, who are trying to bridge a $4 billion budget shortfall.

“It’s hard to justify when we’re cutting salaries for some state employees and furloughing others,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who heads the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the commission.

Most state workers are subject to tightly drawn wage rules, but in 2005 the General Assembly exempted the Commissioner of Banks and his employees from the State Personnel Act.

“The banking commission has been involved in a project over the past several years to find and attract people to do the important work of banking regulation,” said Mark Pearce, the state’s Deputy Banking Commissioner.

The nearly $500,000 in bonuses were issued in August and were the first for the agency, Pearce said. Pearce received a $12,088 bonus under the program. His boss, Banking Commissioner Joseph Smith, did not receive a bonus and is not eligible for one, Pearce said.

Click here for the whole story.

Click here for a spreadsheet showing who in the agency got bonuses and how much they got.

Click here for a report to the legislature the commission did relative to its bonus program. (As far as I can tell, nobody much read this thing until this month. Fair warning; it's a 12 MB file and coming off a slow server.)