News-Record.com

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.

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

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!