News-Record.com

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

-=-=-=-

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I am by no means an expert concerning the ongoing problems with the state health plan. But judging from the latest audit report, there are few who can claim to be. And really, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that losing $79.7 million when you projected earning $57.9 million indicates something is out of whack.

The state auditor posted this audit report today (click here) detailing some of that out of whackness.

Among the findings:

"The BCBSNC contract limits the Plan actuary's ability to forecast administrative expense accurately because:

• * The contract requires the State to reimburse BCBSNC its costs, but does not specify which costs are allowable or how BCBSNC will measure those costs;

• * The contract allows BCBSNC to control any audit of BCBSNC costs initiated by the State Health Plan and prohibits an independent auditor from providing the cost data to the Plan;

• * The BCBSNC contract is a cost-plus-a-percentage-of-cost contract that provides no incentive to control costs and results in increased revenue to BCBSNC as the State's costs increase.

Does that sound like a really bad contract to anyone else? "We'll pay you some money to do a thing and y'all let us know how much we should pay because, you know, we trust you."

Click here for a thorough and dispassionate rundown from the AP, including this response from BCBSNC:

While current health plan administrator Jack Walker's office agreed that his predecessors failed to share crucial information about the Blue Cross contract, Walker said they were required to keep the otherwise-confidential information from their actuary.

Blue Cross spokesman Lew Borman said "the previous administrators of the State Health Plan, indeed, had the authority and obligation to share the contract and administrative cost information with their actuary." Failing to do that led to the plan's problems, he said. Blue Cross' profit on the contract was less than 1 percent, or $480,000 in 2008, Borman said.

The Blue Cross contract has been a sore point for the State Employees Association of North Carolina, whose union members saw their health insurance costs increase and benefits decrease as a result of the bailout Gov. Beverly Perdue signed last week.

Speaking of the state employees, the leadership of their association sounded none-to-pleased:

RALEIGH— The State Employees Association of North Carolina stands by its position that legislators are at fault for inadequate oversight and failed projections that resulted in the State Health Plan’s financial troubles. As chairmen of the legislative committee that oversees the plan, Sen. Tony Rand (D-Cumberland) and Rep. Hugh Holliman (D-Davidson)--the only two individuals with full access to the administrative contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina--bear full responsibility for the health plan shortfall.

“It’s easy to blame a former plan administrator, but Senator Rand and Representative Holliman dropped the ball,” said SEANC Executive Director Dana Cope. “They shouldn’t have been surprised by a major shortfall if they were truly watching over the health plan on behalf of its 667,000 members and state taxpayers.”

Click here for more of their release.

In that release, they point out that a 2003 audit found many similar deficiencies, saying that the state didn't track expenses closely enough. Click here for the copy of that that SEANC attached to their release.

I just posted an early version of this story online:

House Speaker Joe Hackney has ordered an investigation of Rep. Cary Allred, an Alamance County Republican, who numerous witnesses say may have behaved inappropriately on the floor.

“I heard various reports of alcohol use by him, of speeding on the way to session and his embrace of a page,” said Hackney, a Democrat.

House pages are typically high school students who help distribute papers and otherwise keep committee meetings and meetings of the House running.

Allred acknowledged in an interview that an investigation was ongoing, calling it a “witch hunt” by the Speaker, with whom he frequently spars with on the floor.

“I am simply responding to what I would characterize as numerous reports from people of both parties,” Hackney said.

Update: Click here to listen to my interview with Allred before the House session started today.

Update: Click here to listen to one of the more contentious moments from the House session Monday night.

Update: These two bills will NOT be considered Thursday. Also, H2, the smoking ban bill, will not be heard as calendared today - it is now on for this coming Wednesday.

-=-=-=-=-

Much buzz surrounding these two bills today. From the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A Senate panel has quietly approved separate bills telling North Carolina public schools to change how they teach sex education and to adopt detailed anti-bullying policies.

The Senate Mental Health and Youth Services Committee recommended the legislation Wednesday to the full Senate.

The sex education bill passed the House just two weeks ago. It would require schools to offer children in grades seven though nine one curriculum focused on abstinence until marriage and another with more about contraception. Parents would choose either one for their child or none at all.

The anti-bullying bill is opposed by conservative Christians who argue it would advance special protections for gay people.

So someone passed on a copy of H 1560: Attacks on America earlier this week.

The resolution, filed by Greensboro Republican John Blust, says in part:

Whereas, the United States of America has been unfairly attacked and pilloried at recent international forums as a cause of many of the world's problems; and

Whereas, such attacks have come primarily from leaders who have abysmal records on human rights and oppression who head nations where elections are not free and fair; and

Whereas, the President of the United States, while attending these forums, sat silently while America was under attack and has made apologies for the United States; and

Whereas, the United States of America was founded and continues to exist on the greatest set of principles and ideals ever known and articulated by man and adherence to such principles and ideals is what makes the United States of America strong, prosperous, and free; and

Whereas, the United States of America has throughout its history been what Abraham Lincoln called "the last best hope for mankind" and has been a strong, positive source of progress and good in the world; and

You can click here to listen to Blust and I talk about his resolution on Tuesday.

"That's just a reaction to what happened on some of the presidential tours where some of these thugs like Chavez bad mouthed, and nobody else said anything in the defense of this country," Blust said.

Blust, who said he still believes in American Exceptionalism, said he was genuinely angry that Obama apparently tolerated leaders who bad-mouthed the United States. For example, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Obama has the same "stench" as his predecessor but Obama still shook hands with him at a recent summit. (Not to mention a contender for the worse presidential gift ever.)

So did he mean to call out President Obama as part of this?

"I would think the president would be somebody that (said) whoa, wait a second," Blust said. "This is the head of our country I would have liked to have seen something said."

With news breaking out all over Raleigh (and interesting doings in D.C.) it is time to catch up on the news of today and get a jump on tomorrow:

-=-=-=-=-=-

The smoking ban bill is on the Senate calendar for Thursday. Although political handicappers like me have been saying the Senate is an easier win for the bill than the House, I'm hearing tomorrow's vote - if it happens - could be close. I'm hearing it will need at least a few Republican votes to pass.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Also on the Senate calendar for Thursday: Katie Dorsett's S68 which would keep ABC Stores 1,000 feet from local schools. The measure now applies only to Guilford County.

-=-=-=-=-=-

On the House Calendar tomorrow: H 1010 would let the City Council appoint the Greensboro City Attorney. Currently, the manager hires that person.

-=-=-=-=-=-

For those who missed last night's House public hearing on the budget, the video is online here.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Jordan Schrader, a colleague with the Asheville paper, reports that the sex ed bill (Health Youth Act) cleared a Senate committee Wednesday afternoon. But according to its bill status, it won't hit the floor. Rather, it has been re-referred to the Committee on Mental Health & Youth Services. So, no floor action on that Thursday. Update: So apparently this bill passed out of the Youth Services committee and there is growing speculation we could see this thing on the Senate floor Thursday...because there's just not enough going on. Sheesh.

The smoking ban bill, H2, cleared the Senate Health Committee this morning. (Background.)

Now that film industry concerns are addressed, the bill is rolling to a vote in the Senate. It has been to a state close to its original form, eliminating most of the loopholes the House put in during its consideration.

Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Lexington Democrat and the bill's primary sponsor, got the committee hearing started by explaining his bill to the senators.

“This bill is not about personal property or business rights,” said Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Davidson County Democrat. “It’s about the right of all North Carolinians to breathe clean air.”

Click here to listen. Much of Holliman's talk will sound familiar to those of you have been following the bill.

Later in the hearing, Lorillard lobbyist and lawyer Michael Shannon was at the hearing to try to convince the honorables to reject the ban.

“The bill before us right now is one of the most restrictive in the country,” said Michael Shannon, a lawyer and lobbyist for Lorillard, a cigarette maker based in Greensboro. “It’s on par with New York City and California.”

Click here to listen. Shannon did have an interesting point. Senators delayed work on the bill so that a concern of the film industry could be addressed:

"Last week in the paper I was shocked by a comment that says we need to postpone hearing this bill because the film industry had an issue and the film industry is very important to the North Carolina economy. I found that as an interesting comment. I think all industry is important to our state, but I do believe North Carolina still has a strong, vibrant tobacco industry. I guess it reminded me of the Mark Twain vote that the reports of our death are greatly exaggerated. Tobacco manufacture alone is a $23.9 billion dollar value-added to the state of North Carolina.

There were a couple of attempts to add back in loopholes that the committee substitute bill took out. Sen. Jim Jacumin made one of those attempts. He would have added back the Cole amendment, which let businesses opt out of the ban if they didn't employ anyone under 18-years-old and didn't serve anyone under 18.

Click here to listen to Jacumin state his objections to the bill - including the immortal phrase "the solution to pollution is dilution" - offer his amendment and hear that amendment rejected.

The bill next goes to the Senate. Should it pass there, H2 would return to the House for a concurrence vote.

I've been writing for a while now about the Jordan Lake Rules, designed to clean up the water supply and recreation for the Triangle.

This affects the Triad and Greensboro because Jordan Lake is fed by the Haw River, which winds through Guilford County.

Environmentalists and state regulators say the rules are needed to clean up the lake. Local officials say they would be very costly for cities to put into action and not achieve very much.

The latest version of those rules rolled out to the House Environment Committee today:

RALEIGH — The latest draft of rules designed to clean up pollution running from Greensboro and other Triad cities into Jordan Lake pleases neither environmental advocates nor those representing builders and municipal officials.

The product of closed-door work sessions, the latest plan was handed to members of the House Environment Committee on Tuesday.

“It’s never what anybody wants,” said Rep. Pryor Gibson, a Wadesboro Democrat, said of legislative compromises on environmental bills.

Jordan Lake is principally a water supply and recreation area for the Triangle. But it is fed by the Haw River, which winds its way through Guilford and Alamance counties.

For a decade, environmental regulators have tried to establish rules that would curb the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus running into the lake. Although those nutrients are helpful as fertilizers for lawns and crops, in an over-abundance they can lead to harmful algae growth in waterways.

The final draft of those rules as written by regulators was approved late last year, but opponents have appealed the plan to the General Assembly. Legislators have undertaken what amounts to a rewrite of the plan.

Click here for the whole story.

Click here for the text of the bill and other legislative information.

Click here for a bill explanation that was handed out to the committee. This handout gets down into the nitty-gritty of the changes.

Click here for a chart showing Chlorophyll-a levels in different parts of Jordan Lake. Chlorophyll-a is a key indicator of something going amiss. (This chart came from Environment North Carolina.)

Parents or guardians would have to give written permission before a child could be spanked as part of a corporal punishment regime under a bill the House passed 91-24 Monday night.

Click here to read and for more info on H442.

The measure now goes to the Senate.

Many North Carolina school districts, including Guilford County, have policies that forbid corporal punishment. But state law still allows the practices and in some counties a child can be spanked without notifying parents.

“This is not about whether you believe in corporal punishment or not,” said Rep. Laura Wiley, a High Point Republican. “This bill is about giving parents the choice to opt out of corporal punishment as a form of discipline. We owe that to these parents.”

Click here to listen to Wiley's full comments.

But some members, including Greensboro Rep. John Blust, said that the state moved away from more stringent forms of punishment at it peril.

“I do think the practical application of the bill will be to diminish and ultimately end the use of corporal punishment,” Blust said, adding that he was a “beneficiary” of the practice. “I think over time I had it taught to me, and reinforced, a certain respect for authority that I think is missing” in some students.

Click here to listen to Blust's full comments.

From a story posted online this afternoon:

RALEIGH — Rep. Hugh Holliman’s role in rewriting the state’s health plan makes him “part of the problem,” according to an employee group running radio ads criticizing the Lexington Democrat.

The two-year, $675 -million bailout raises deductibles and copays as well as increases the cost for dependent coverage. It also cuts benefits for those who are overweight or smoke. And while it costs taxpayers, it is not as expensive as other potential fixes to the plan.

The ad attacking Holliman is sponsored by SEANC, the State Employees Association of North Carolina, a 55,000-member, union-affiliated group that frequently gets involved in political campaigns and lobbies the legislature.

“Hugh Holliman has his priorities wrong,” says the SEANC ad, airing on WZTK-FM and WSJS-AM in the High Point and Greensboro markets. “He’s part of the problem when he needs to be part of the solution. Maybe it’s time for new leadership in the North Carolina legislature.”

Click here for the full story, including this from Holliman:

“I think it’s fair to say I really don’t appreciate that (the ad) but they’re certainly welcome to do what they think they need to do,” Holliman said. “I think SEANC needs to discover they’re in the real world... and we don’t have money to just throw around.”

Click here to listen to the ad.

Worth noting: SEANC also targeted Rep. Margaret Dickson with a radio ad, as you can read in this release.(PDF)

As I point out in the story, Holliman is really part of a two-headed beast that oversees the state health plan. The other is Sen. Tony Rand, the majority leader in the Senate.

I asked SEANCE why they were going after Holliman and not Rand. The reply came back from SEANC political director Kevin LeCount that Rand's time may come. From the story:

“Everything we say in the ad about Rep. Holliman, we would be happy to make the same assertions about Rand,” LeCount said. “It’s not because we’re not going to talk about Rand.”

However, I think it's worth nothing that Holliman had a relatively close General Election in 2008, winning by 5 percentage points in what could be a swing district. Meanwhile Rand was unopposed and in a district carried handily by Democrats at all levels of the ballot.

It would not be unreasonable to speculate that SEANC is spending its ammunition where it thinks the impact is more likely to be noticed.

From a story in Monday's paper:

RALEIGH — An effort to more tightly regulate material left over from burning coal to create power faces stiff opposition in the General Assembly, despite a massive December coal ash spill in Tennessee.

Coal ash can either be wet and stored in ponds or as a powder. Both forms can contain arsenic, lead, selenium and other toxic substances, researchers say.

“If the public understood the situation, they would scream for some regulations on this stuff,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who has introduced legislation that would more tightly control how coal ash is stored, disposed of or used in commercial applications.

In December, a Tennessee Valley Authority dam broke, releasing more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge into nearby communities and waterways.

Although none are as big as the TVA pond, Duke and Progress Energy have 14 coal ash ponds next to power plants throughout the state. They include Duke’s Dan River Steam Station in Eden and Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County.

Click here for the whole story.

Here's a map of where you can find coal ash ponds throughout the state (click for slightly bigger version):

So what does one of these things look like? Well, the WV Gazette "Coal Tattoo" blog has some good pictures of what happens when things get loose.

For a view of an in-tact ash pond, let's turn to the Google Earth image of Duke's Energy's Dan River Steam Station in Rockingham County:

View Larger Map

The baseball-diamond-shaped area that is dark black is the coal ash pond, with an estimated surface area of 8 acres. That, by the way, is one of the smaller ponds in the state.

Update: I'm told that the baseball diamond-shaped thing may be a stockpile and the coal ash pond is the thing to the right of the photograph that's kind of a dark, milky gray. And now that I look at it, that feature jibes better with the written description of the ponds as well as the size.

Basically, anywhere in the state where Duke or Progress Energy has a coal-fired plant, you have an ash pond.

Something that I wasn't able to map right off was all the places where coal ash has been used as fill. I found references to it being used in NC to help level road projects and parks. There has been some evidence this use can lead to icky things leaking into groundwater. More here.

Click here for info on H 1354, Rep. Harrison's bill that would regulate coal ash.

So I heard from a source or two last week that the North Carolina Education Lottery was looking at online games like Keno or video poker.

It's a pretty fair guess that at least part this rumor was inspired by the recent spate of news over video poker - including two court cases that could lead to legalizing some or all of the industry. (The statute that created the lottery gives it pretty broad authority to create whatever games it wants leaves, so legally the door seems pretty wide open.)

The rumor also fit with something I heard from video poker operators back before the General Assembly took a crack at outlawing them. They argued that their industry could adjust to work with the lottery, and that they could become a servicing arm for the machines while the lottery ran the servers and what.

But the lottery's boss, Director Tom Shaheen, says that video poker is not in the cards - at least not right now.

"This is not something I've brought up to anybody - never taken it to our commissioners, never taken it downtown," Shaheen said.

Part of why the video poker idea hasn't come up, Shaheen said, has to do with the age of the lottery.

"We're still building a basic lottery here, and that can't happen over night," Shaheen said. He noted that the lottery has just added a Pick-4 game.

As for what should happen with video poker - outside of the lottery context - Shaheen wasn't saying. He acknowledged, rightly, that if he were to say "Yes, it's bad, get rid of it," the statement would be seen as self-serving for the lottery.

"These are political things, and we're not a political machine over here," Shaheen said.

So, does video poker cut into lottery sales?

"Certainly, that (banning video poker) would benefit the lottery and benefit our sales - but these are North Carolina issues, not lottery issues," Shaheen said. "My concern, my focus is on what affects this lottery directly." And, he pointed out, the lottery began operating before the video poker ban fully went into effect and continues to thrive even though the industry lingers.

So is video poker not in the lottery's future?

"If the climate were right," Shaheen said - re-emphasizing that the climate is NOT right today. "In part it's a social issue, what's acceptable and what isn't."

Update: Ha, ha, stupid me. There I go listening to presiding officers and committee chairmen again.

H 1537, Jones' video poker bill, didn't get assigned to Rules. Sure, that's where Speaker Pro Tempore Wainwright, who was running the House session today, referred it on the floor. And yes, Rules Chairman Bill Owens, said his committee had the bill and wanted to hold onto it for a while.

But no.

It was sent to J II and then on to Finance.

So, ignore the rest of this post, except as a monument to my overly trusting nature.

From today's paper:

RALEIGH — The good news: Sales taxes and income tax rates would drop under a finance package state senators started examining Wednesday.

The bad news: North Carolinians would end up paying the state more anyway.

“We’ve got a short-term fiscal crisis on us and it has run smack-dab into the long-term problems we’ve got with the state revenue system,” said Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a Charlotte Democrat.

Click here for the full story.

More, including documents outlining more about the plan and audio of Wednesday's briefing, at this blog post.

Two bills of local interest were filed in the House today:

• * H 1538 honors the 100th anniversary of the High Point Furniture Market.

• *H 1537 is Rep. Earl Jones' bill to legalize video poker. More on that here, here and here.

Sen. Dan Clodfelter and the Senate Finance committee rolled out their much anticipated proposal to rewrite the state's tax system.

You can click here for a 45-minute audio file that contains Clodfelter's explanation of the bill.

During the hearing, three different documents were handed out, presented here as handy PDFs:

• * Document 1 is an overview of the proposed changes.

• * Document 2 outlines in more detail changes made to personal and business income taxes and sales taxes.

• * And if you stare at it long enough, Document 3 supposedly shows the impact of the various tax changes on different kinds of tax payers and state collections.

Clodfelter took pains to say that the proposal would not be voted this week and may not see a vote next week. And, he said, the committee was open to reviewing changes. However, he warned, if someone wanted to pare down the revenue coming from a particular tax, they would be asked to make up the difference somewhere else.

I'm still trying wrap my brain around all this, but here are some highlights gleaned from today's presentation:

• * Income and sales taxes are lowered, but there are trade offs in each case. For sales taxes, the trade off is that more things - including services - would be taxed. For both personal and business incomes, the trade off comes in the form of fewer deductions and weird little loopholes.

• * State income tax would be based on federal adjusted income. This should, Clodfelter said, make filing state income taxes easier. Also, the plan would create a new bracket for the first $10,000 of income a couple earns. Instead of getting a credit, those very low income families would not be taxed at all, Clodfelter said.

• * Sales tax would be reduced to 6 percent.

• * You'll be paying sales tax on software on the software you download over the internet, as well as warranties and repairs for tangible personal property.

• * Heavy equipment, such as mill machinery, would be exempt from sales tax but things like grease and parts used to maintain those machines would be subject to sales tax. That's a change from the current system that taxes all such items at 1 percent but caps the maximum amount payable at $80.

• * Cities and counties would lose their sales tax exemptions. School boards have been battling for years to get the same exemption that other local governments have. Now, all local governments would be in the same boat.

• * Cigarette taxes would be increased 15-cents-per-pack to 50-cents. The tax on other tobacco products would rise 3 percent.

• * Alcohol excise taxes would rise. The amount collected would be similar to the amounts outlined in governor Bev Perdue's budget, but collected as an excise tax rather than the extra sales tax that Perdue had proposed. Taxes on particular alcoholic products would rise based on the amount of alcohol by volume they contained.

There’s more to it than that. If you have a question or a highlight (lowlight?) you want to point out, the comments link is open.

The Workplace Smoking Ban, aka H2, was due to be heard in the Senate Health Committee today but was pulled from the calendar.

According to Committee Chairman William Purcell, the film industry had a concern that needed to be addressed.

"The concern came up about film makers in Wilmington not being able to smoke on sets," Purcell said. Apparently, they wanted to ensure that there wouldn't be any fines handed out for actors doing a scene that involved smoking.

Purcell said that was the only issue of substance that would keep the bill from moving forward.

Purcell said the PCS - legislative talk for "proposed committee substitute," which is essentially a rewrite of a bill - took out the "Cole Amendment." That amendment allowed any business that didn't serve or employee people under 18 to post a sign and allow smoking. Essentially, the Senate is looking at running a bill that regulates smoking more tightly than the House version.

The Cole amendment had raised the ire of the restaurant industry, which thought it gave bars an unfair advantage over restaurants.

Purcell said the Senate PCS would also tighten the definition of "private clubs" where smoking would be allowed. That definition, Purcell said, would carve out VFW or other fraternal groups, but not exempt private clubs that exist pretty much as stand-alone bars.

Purcell said the bill would come back next Wednesday.

Today was a busy day on Jones Street and frankly, I don't have time to do justice to everything. So here's a little wrap of things I haven’t had a chance to blog yet.

• * The House Education Committee passed a bill that would let schools start as soon as Aug. 8.

  The measure, H 593, would reverse a change made only a few years ago that made Aug. 25 the earliest start date possible.

  It next goes to the House Commerce Committee.

  Click here for debate from the committee, including education lobbyists arguing for earlier starts and one student arguing against.

• * The House passed H120, a municipal campaign finance bill, on a 60-56 vote.

  I've written about this before (here and here)

  The measure was changed on the floor today to exclude towns with fewer than 50,000 people. Sponsors made the change to keep the heat off rural Democrats. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative anti-tax group, had targeted "about a dozen" members of the House, according to its leader, Dallas Woodhouse.

  According to Woodhouse, the group used robo-calls and member phone calls to convince some members who were on the fence to side against the bill.

  Click here to listen to the end of the debate from the House floor.

• * The House also passed H148, a bill to allow local governments to raise sales taxes to help fund transit systems on a 77-40 vote. The House must vote again Wednesday to confirm the vote.

  The bill would allow Guilford and Forsyth Counties to raise taxes to help fund PART.

  Part Director Brent McKinney said his agency would need more money by 2012 to sustain its planning and operational activities.

  "It gives the citizens the option to decide their future transportation choices and how they want to see their region developed," McKinney said.

The breaking news of the late day comes from the Associated Press' Gary Robertson. Senators seemed to have been of two minds all day over whether they would run their tax package Wednesday or not. Gary says we'll see it tomorrow:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina's Senate Democrats are set to consider a plan Wednesday that would change the state's tax system by reducing overall rates but adding taxes to many services for the first time.

The Senate Finance Committee is expected to receive a proposal that would lower the sales tax rate people pay in most counties from 6.75 percent to 6 percent and reduce corporate and individual income tax rates, according to a document highlighting the potential changes obtained by The Associated Press. The 2 percent tax on food at grocery stores and other retailer also would be repealed, the document said.

But the proposal, which will serve as a template for Senate leaders seeking to reform the tax system this year, also would place the sales tax on a host of services, including building repairs, warranties, information technology, moving expenses and sales of downloaded music and software.

[snip]

Under the plan, the individual income tax rate would be reduced from 7.75 percent to 7.5 percent, while the lowest rate would drop from 6 percent to 5.25 percent, according to the document.

There also would be a new bracket in which income earners would pay no new taxes - for example, married couples filing jointly and making up to $10,000. Right now, people must pay 6 percent even if they earned only a few hundred dollars.

Individual income tax rates would be simplified by basing payments on a taxpayer's adjusted gross income as calculated on federal tax returns, instead of having to change the amount to compute state taxes. There would be some credits for charitable donations and home mortgages, while the per-child tax credit would increase from $100 to $125, the document said.

The corporate income tax would be reduced from 6.9 percent - one of the highest in the Southeast - to 4.5 percent over two years, but limited liability companies would have to pay franchise taxes while state and local privilege license taxes would be repealed.

A host of business tax credits started in the mid-1990s to reward companies that created jobs or invested capital would be eliminated.

Earl Jones effort now has some public support from a group calling itself "The Entertainment Group of North Carolina."

You can see the group's lobbying filings here. They recorded no expenses in the first quarter.

Update: The registered lobbyist for The Entertainment Group of North Carolina is Gardner Payne, who works at McGuire Woods. His company bio lists several interesting extra-curricular activities, including serving as finance director of the Bev Perdue committee.

Update: A blog commenter suggests (correctly) that I should clarify Payne served during Perdue's days as Lt. Governor, not her latest run. And an e-mailer notes Payne helped push for the lottery earlier in the decade.

Update 2: One more time: Another e-mail says while it's correct Payne didn't have a PAID role during Gov. Perdue's 2008 run, he did have a volunteer position with the campaign.

The point of all this being: Payne has more than a passing familiarity with the current governor. And, by the way, former Gov. Mike Easley officially signed on with his firm today.

From a news release sent by the group:

RALEIGH – The Entertainment Group of North Carolina, a coalition of business owners in the amusement industry, today announced their support for legislation sponsored by State Rep. Earl Jones, which would create a set of new, tough oversight regulations and taxation of video lottery terminals.

“We are dedicated to partnering with the State of North Carolina to regulate the video terminal industry and provide a new dedicated stream of money that will help offset some of the revenue shortfalls we are currently experiencing and to provide new jobs and opportunities for locally owned and operated businesses across the state,” said Chase Brooks, Public Affairs Chairman with the Entertainment Group of North Carolina.

“We will work with Rep. Jones to bring in a new era of laws, regulation and oversight to the amusement industry. We see this as a win-win solution for the State of North Carolina and our locally owned and operated businesses,” Brooks said.

[snip]

“We already have gaming in North Carolina and the state is the largest operator. This legislation will enable locally owned and operated businesses to offer their customers a video lottery terminal that will be monitored and regulated in real time by the Department of Revenue and will pay taxes to the state,” Brooks said. He said estimated revenues for the state alone will exceed $480 million based on $2.4 billion in estimated annual gross revenues.”

Two bills of interest were in House Judiciary I this morning:

• * H 422, Parental Involvement in School Discipline, would allow parents to keep schools from administering corporal punishment in districts where spanking students is still allowed. Yes, there are districts in Guilford County that allow teachers/administrators to spank their students.

  Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican, spoke in favor of the bill: "I think we ought to go the other way and make discipline stricter in the schools."

  It passed on a 9-6 show of hands vote. It next heads to the House floor.

• * H 193, Electronic Notice of Public Hearings, would allow some towns and cities to make notice of public hearings over the web rather than in newspapers.

  Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam pulled the bill from consideration when it became evident he would lose the vote. I talked to Stam afterward and he intends to bring it back if he can.

Rep. Earl Jones, a Greensboro Democrat, would like to return video poker to a place among the state's legal amusements. From a story in today's paper:

RALEIGH — Rep. Earl Jones said he plans to introduce a bill this week to legalize video poker, a form of gambling outlawed amid accusations of political corruption and operators skirting rules.

The Greensboro Democrat said it is “hypocritical” for the state to run a lottery but outlaw another form of gambling that some people enjoy.

“I think it’s very unfortunate that you have some folks who are very paternalistic,” Jones said Monday. “Some people can’t pay $200 or $300 to play golf or $100 to go to a Panthers game. This is their entertainment.”

Click here for the whole thing.

Update: When asked about Jones' bill, Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, the Republican leader in the House, said: "That's the bad bill of the week."

Also in the paper today:

• The Washington Watch column update's the Alcoa fight and looks at some recent bill filings from the federal honorables.

• The Libertarian and Green parties had their day before the Court of Appeals, arguing that the state's ballot access laws are too strict.

As I noted earlier, North Carolina could soon designate an official potato festival.

The measure passed the House Monday 114-0 and will be sent to the Senate. You can click here to listen to the debate. Some highlights:

Rep. Jerry Dockham: “This doesn’t have anything to do with barbecue does it?"

Rep. Bill Owens: "No sir."

Dockham:"Just wanted to clear that up."

Last session, Dockham put forward a bill to designate the Lexington Barbecue Festival as the official state ‘cue festival. It was changed to become the official state “food” festival. The change was made to accommodate – apparently still raw – regional rivalries that exist between adherents of Lexington and eastern ‘cue styles, which came up during this debate over taters.

Rep. David Lewis: "Mr. Speaker?"

Speaker Hackney: "For what purpose does the gentleman from Harnett, Rep. Lewis, arise?"

Lewis:"Point of order."

Hackney:"The gentleman may state his point of order."

Lewis:"Rep. Dockham’s bill also had nothing to do with barbecue."

Earlier in the debate, Owens allowed as how most of the potatoes celebrated at the festival were white potatoes, which prompted this friendly exchange:

Rep. Mickey Michaux: “Did I hear you say all white potatoes?” (This prompted laughs. Michaux is a prominent member of the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus.)

Owens: “Actually, we have some red ones too, which Rep. Sutton likes." (Rep. Ronnie Sutton is the one Native American member of the House.)

Michaux:"I suggest you vote against the bill."

Fresh on the heels of Sunday's story about sorting out the stimulus comes this announcement from a pair of local legislators:

Sen. Katie Dorsett, Rep. Adams and Fellow Legislators to host Economic Recovery Summit April 27 at Guilford Tech

Senator Katie Dorsett (D-Guilford), along with Rep. Alma Adams (D-Guilford) and other members of the Guilford County legislative delegation, will host a summit entitled “Coping During Economic Difficulties: Stimulus Opportunities” on Monday, April 27th at Guilford Technical Community College. The meeting will bring together some of North Carolina’s top officials to discuss ways in which the federal recovery funds may be used to create jobs and grow the economy. They will also share information about how to apply for grants funded by the federal stimulus.

The summit will feature presentations by Dempsey Benton, Director of the North Carolina Office of Economic Recovery & Investment, who is know as our state’s “stimulus czar,” state Transportation Secretary Gene Conti, state Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco and others.

The public is invited to attend.

“The Economy Recovery funds are essential in helping us get out of the recession. It is also important to provide information for residents and organizations in Guilford County so that the stimulus can help us locally. I look forward to an exciting and informative event,” Senator Dorsett said.

Details after the jump.

The Court of Appeals this afternoon will hear the N.C. Libertarian Party's appeal of their loss in a 2005 declaratory judgment action. In that suit, the Libertarians contend that their party and its members have been deprived of a fundamental right to have the state sanction the party of their choice.

The state argues no such right exists.

A lot has happened since the 2005 suit. In 2008, Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger won enough votes to keep the party on the ballot until the next election.

But if the Libertarians were to win, it might open the official political marketplace of ideas to more purveyors, such as the Green Party.

Read the Libertarian's brief here.

Read the state's brief here.

Before heading over to the court house, this line from the Libertarian's appeal caught my attention:

All members of the General Assembly, which enacts the election laws, including those on recognition of political parties, are either Democrats or Republicans. There are no members of the General Assembly affiliated with any other political party nor, upon information and belief, have there been any in at least thirty-five years.

Oh, how soon we forget.

Rep. Steve Wood, who represented High Point in the 1990s and early part of this decade, was once a member of the Reform Party. This came about after his own party wouldn't have him in their caucus and now-Rep. John Blust ran against him and beat him in a Republican primary in 2000. (Wood switched to the Reform Party and ran against Blust in the General Election, losing that one too.)

In fact, Wood was for a short time the highest ranking elected official in the Reform Party, an outgrowth of Ross Perot's quixotic presidential campaign. It was also the party of Jesse Ventura, the wrestler turned Minnesota governor, until he switched to Independent in 2000.

Now, the larger point the brief was making is still valid and Wood was never ELECTED to the General Assembly as a member of the Reform Party, he switched after voters put him in as a Republican.

But for the record, there you go.

The North Carolina Potato Festival in Elizabeth City would become the "Official NC Potato Festival" under a bill (H588) filed by House Rules Chairman Bill Owens. A vote by the full House is scheduled for this evening.

I confess: I did not know there was a potato festival, nor did I know that the title of Little Miss Tatter Tot would be decided there.

File this under fun with GS 145, which has recently added the official state food festival and official state collard festival.

This story from today's paper looks at the ongoing fun and games over video poker in North Carolina:

RALEIGH — The bill was simple enough. It would have affirmed the legislature’s intent to outlaw video poker in all its forms without making changes to existing law.

In particular, backers of the measure are frustrated that a video poker variant based on a sweepstakes computer system continues to thrive in the state and wanted to send a message to law enforcement and the courts.

“We’re really displeased with the way this law is being circumvented,” said Rep. Ray Rapp, a Mars Hill Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors.

But moments before the measure was to be heard Thursday, a clutch of legislators hurriedly conferred and pulled it from consideration by a House Judiciary committee.

“Some folks had some reservations,” said Rep. Ronnie Sutton, the committee’s chairman. Those reservations, he said, revolved around worry the state could be interfering in an ongoing court case.

Click here for the full story.

Also from today's paper, a chat with Rep. Mel Watt about his recent trip to Cuba:

When U.S. Rep. Mel Watt traveled to Cuba earlier this month, he was curious to meet President Raul Castro , the younger brother of the island’s long time leader, Fidel.

During his previous trip to Cuba in 2004, Watt said, one rarely heard about Raul , who ran the military but was not much of an up-front figure.

“I thought he would be a lot more restrained and a lot less outgoing” than his older brother, Watt said. “But, you know, Cubans like to talk. Raul is just as outgoing and loquacious as Fidel is.”

Watt, who represents parts of Guilford County, was part of a seven-member Congressional Black Caucus trip to the island.

The trip was a timely one, as Watt and other members of the delegation returned only days before President Barack Obama lifted some travel restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to the island.

Click here for the full story.

As the story says, the CBC trip was a timely one because the whole area of Cuban-American relations appears to be ready to shift. More info on recent developments in U.S.-Cuba policy comes from the Miami Herald and N.Y. Times.

Sen. Vernon Malone of Wake County died Saturday, according to the N+O. He was 77.

Update: This statement came from Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight:

“It is hard to put into words how much Vernon Malone meant to the North Carolina Senate, and to everyone who knew him. He had prepared himself for service early in life and he believed in a better opportunity for all. He was a man for all people and a man of integrity and he did not just seek to help those people with talents, he loved all people. He was such a big man in the way he lived his life – the concern, the love and compassion he had for people was special.

I can think of no one, nowhere in this state who meets the description of what Vernon was as a person. He was a wonderful friend to me and a real leader in the Senate, and I will miss him a great deal. What I knew of him as a person, not to mention the contributions he has made throughout his life, cannot be replaced. It is a huge loss, not just for the people of his Senate district, but for all the people of North Carolina.”

Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton has issued this statement:

“The Senate, the people of Wake County and the State have lost a great advocate for education and for the future of our State. Throughout his life, Senator Malone was committed to public service and to making our State a better place. I am honored and proud to have served alongside Vernon Malone in the Senate, and the prayers of the entire State are with his family during this time of great loss.”

I don't have any other details and hadn't heard that he was sick. In fact, Sen. Malone cast votes on the Senate floor Thursday.

Update: The following is from the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina State Sen. Vernon Malone has died of natural causes at his home in Raleigh. He was 77.

Malone's son Rod said his father died Saturday morning.

The Democrat served most recently as co-chairman of the education budget subcommittee and had represented District 14 in the General Assembly for four terms.

The Shaw University graduate held public offices in Wake County over three decades. As school board chairman, he presided over the merger of Raleigh city schools and Wake County public schools in 1976.

He served as a Wake County commissioner from 1984 until his election to the Senate in 2002.

Details for a memorial service are not yet set.

More from WRAL here.

Update: The following came from Gov. Bev Perdue:

“Vernon Malone was one of my closest personal friends and was a powerful voice for North Carolina’s future. He fundamentally believed that every kid should have a shot at success, regardless of their background and dedicated his life to making that belief a reality.”

The House debated and tentatively passed H 88: Health Youth Act on a 64-53 vote today. There will need to be a vote on 3d reading before the bill kicks over to the Senate.

The bill essentially creates two sex education tracks in North Carolina. Both supposedly emphasize abstinence until marriage. But as described by backers of the bill, they differ this way:

• * The abstinence track is what most NC students get now. Although some birth control methods are covered in this course, proponents of H88 say its emphases is unrealistic.

• * The comprehensive track would say waiting to have sex until married is better, but goes on to talk about birth control and disease prevention from what advocates say is a broader perspective.

Click here for a story I wrote back in February outlining the bill.

And click here for Wednesday's story on the House debate.

I could try to recount this debate, but it may be more effective just to let you listen in:

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Update: Here's one more piece of audio I didn't have in the original post. Wake County Republican Rep. Marilyn Avila argued against the bill: "Until we take the same attitude towards our children learning the responsibilities that they owe their bodies with regards to sex that we want them to take with regards to smoking, we're not going to see much of an improvement."

As hard as the workplace smoking ban was to pass the House, I dare 'em to try a ban on sex.

Click here to listen to Avila's full clip.

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Click here to listen to the debate on the first amendment of the day, which would say that if a parent doesn't give their written consent the student could not take either sex education track. Rep. Earl Jones challenged this idea, saying that kids with less involved parents who might not bother signing forms are the very kids who need the comprehensive course.

"It seems to me that science should not be trumped by fiction or fairy tail," Jones said. Bill sponsors backed this amendment as a way to make the bill less controversial and more likely to pass.

-=-=-=-=-

Rep. John Blust worried that parents wouldn't necessarily understand the choice between the two sex education curricula.

“I’m asking what information parents will be given as to the details of the proposed curriculum,” Blust said. “Reading these guidelines of what we’ve called euphemistically abstinence-based comprehensive — some of these particulars do not appear appropriate. We cannot even read them on the floor (of the House) probably without being gaveled down.”

Click here to listen to Blust's question and remarks.

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Another amendment offered to make the bill less controversial removed references to "long-term, committed relationships." From my story:

Conservative groups had railed against that language as opening the door to teaching about homosexuality or that having multiple spouses was acceptable. Backers of the bill said removing the language would make the measure less controversial.

“I’m a little curious about your amendment,” Rep. Jennifer Weiss of Wake County said. “Did you know your wife before you married her?”

Goforth paused, then said, “I think that’s a personal question and I don’t think —”

Weiss shot back, “I did not mean in the biblical sense,” as others on the House floor laughed.

“I did know my wife before I married her; I didn’t get her off the Internet or anything,” Goforth said.

Weiss argued that most people are involved in relationships with potential spouses before marriage. And she added that people in their 20s were waiting for years to marry while still involved with the same person.

Click here to listen to that debate.

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Rep. Paul Stam of Wake County argued against the bill pretty forcefully. Click here for his thoughts - all 13-plus minutes worth.

It includes the soon-to-be immortal line: "Big love is coming to North Carolina," a reference to plural marriages. Oh, and he had a couple of really oblique references to masturbation and anal sex.

-=-=-=-=-

Rep. Alma Adams of Greensboro offered her thoughts in support of the bill.

“We’re teaching in most of our school systems abstinence, but abstinence is not what most students are doing,” Adams said.

H 148 passed the House Finance Committee this morning.

It looks like the bill would help PART expand. Committee members talked a fair bit about regional rail service during their discussion this morning.

Here's the AP's first blush account:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina legislative committee has approved a plan allowing the state's second- and third-largest metro areas to expand mass transit systems if voters approve raising local sales taxes.

The House Finance Committee voted 19-6 on Wednesday to advance the bill to a House floor vote.

The bill would allow voters in Forsyth, Guilford, Wake, Durham and Orange counties to decide whether to increase local sales taxes by half a cent and car registration fees by up to $2, piggybacking onto Mecklenburg County's popular experiment with light rail. The state's 94 other counties could raise sales taxes by a quarter-cent for transit projects.

The committee added a provision allowing Research Triangle Park to increase property taxes on its tenant companies to pay for transit.

The bill faces opposition from Republican members, who seem to both oppose the potential for property tax increases and have a standing philosophical object to how transportation money is divided among the state's counties.

With apologies to Paul Harvey, from our "For What It's Worth" Department:

RALEIGH — Some North Carolina tax returns are arriving in Raleigh steeped with what has become the ad hoc symbol of protest: a tea bag.

Drawing on the imagery of the Boston Tea Party, a movement driven mainly by conservatives has been sending tea to government offices — including some in Congress — as a signal that they would like to see taxes and government spending lowered.

“There has been some of that,” said North Carolina Revenue Secretary Ken Lay, confirming the spread to his agency. But whatever signal the filers are hoping to send may not be getting through.

“I don’t read anything into it at all,” Lay said. “For me to try to guess what’s on someone’s mind when they do something like that is an exercise in futility.”

A spokesman for the federal IRS, by the way, declined to say whether his agency was seeing anything similar.

From today's paper:

Car dealers regularly shop loans for new and used cars to a variety of banks, said the center’s Chris Kukla, often getting loan offers that vary in interest rates. Consumers, Kukla said, often don’t know if they’re getting the best of those rates.

“That’s the really tricky part,” he said. “There’s no way for consumers to know. The dealer is under no obligation to tell them.”

Frequently, finance companies can offer a “dealer reserve,” an incentive to the deal to put the customer in a higher-priced loan, according to Kukla.

Such reserves would be outlawed under a bill filed by Rep. Dan Blue, a Raleigh Democrat, and backed by Greensboro Reps. Pricey Harrison and Earl Jones.

Click here for the full story.

The bill is H 1223.

It is supported by the Durham-based Center for Responsible Lending.

Back last month, I wrote about the brewing battle over beer distribution laws. Short version: Guilford County's Red Oak is asking the General Assembly to raise to 60,000 barrels the amount of beer a brewer can distribute itself. Currently, if a brewer makes 20,000 barrels or more of beer, they have to sell through a distributor.

Beer distributors and even some alcohol control advocates have pushed back against that effort, saying that it would throw the three-tiered alcohol control system out of whack. Executives at Red Oak say they just want to be able to make sure their product gets to market in a proper manner.

Since that story ran, bills have been filed in the House and Senate to raise the self-distribution cap:

• * Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison is among the primary sponsors on H 1017. Rep. Maggie Jeffus of Greensboro has signed on as a co-sponsor. The bill has been assigned to the House ABC committee and then Commerce.

• * Sen. Katie Dorsett filed S 918, which has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee.

As those bills were being filed (heck, as I was writing my story on the topic) Red Oak owner Bill Sherrill sent a letter to legislators advocating for his bill. In that letter, Sherrill took aim at the beer distributors, claiming that due to consolidation there were only two that served the Triad. And to support claims of big money in the beer distribution business, he said Greensboro-based R.H. Barringer paid $100 million to buy another distributor.

The Beer wholesalers fired back a letter of their own, asking Sherrill to retract his claims and, essentially, saying he was full of you-know-what.

You can download a PDF with that exchange by clicking right here. (It's a PDF. The packet was distributed by the wholesalers and is worth the read if only to appreciate the fine art of how lobbyists knock down legislation they don't like.)

When I had occasion to ask Sherrill about how he got the $100 million, he didn't produce any documents but said he had asked Barringer CEO Mark Craig about the purchase.

Did he get an answer? I asked.

Not really. "He just kind of smiled at me," Sherrill said.

So since the battle is joined down here at the legislature, it's fair to ask if the bills are going anywhere. My guess is the Senate Commerce Committee will have other fish to fry unless the bill crosses over from the House.

In the House, the ABC Committee will be a tough test. They'll hear from interests that they have seen fight some pretty fierce battles (brewers and distributors versus the Christian Action League and other control advocates) line up against the same bill. That sort of unified front usually gets a committee's attention and makes the job of the people pushing the bill that much harder.

Also worth noting: Greensboro Sen. Don Vaughan did not sign on to the bills, nor did Greensboro Reps. Earl Jones or Alma Adams. However, you will see some names from out in the western part of the state (where they have some pretty good microbrewers) as well as some Alamance County honorables. Although Red Oak started as a brew pub in Greensboro, its new factory is out toward the Guilford-Alamance line. I've had at least one member of the Guilford delegation express some parochial reserve about the brewery limit bill because Barringer is located in the city and Red Oak is almost in the next county over. (Essentially, they want to support the position of the business that still the home town business rather than one that could be drawing on Burlington's water supply.)

The Senate gave final approval to the budget, $500 million mystery tax increase and all.

The flagpole outside the General Assembly had some extra cargo this afternoon:

I am sure if Duke or some other institution of higher learning elsewhere in the state brings home a national championship they'll be accorded the same honor.

For those of you playing "Senate Budget, the home game," here are some resources:

• * News reports to help you understand the budget from the News & Record, News & Observer, AP, and the Winston-Salem Journal.

• * Click here for the money report. You will find the bulk of the dollars-and-cents numbers here. (PDF)

• * Click here for the budget provisions. This is the budget bill itself, complete with changes to state law made by the budget. You'll find some items in here not illustrated by the money report. (PDF)

• * Click here for the General Assembly's audio page. You can tune into the Senate Appropriations Committee meeting here today. (It will be held in room 643.)

• * Click here to listen to the first part of Linda Garrou's news conference from Monday explaining the Senate budget. (Sens. Charlie Albertson and A.B. Swindell were also there.)

• * Click here to listen to the question and answer part of the Garrou news conference.

Here’s how this plays out the rest of the week: The Appropriations (and maybe Finance) committee makes changes to the document as it’s presented today. Then the bill is heard by the full Senate on Wednesday. Amendments on the floor are possible. It will then have to be heard by the Senate a second time on Thursday. Typically, the debate is far more muted and number of amendments offered is far fewer on that second day of debate.

The budget next goes to the House, which will have to deal with the consequences of whatever numbers come in on April 15. In most years, the “April Surprise” is a good thing for budget writers. This year, well, maybe there’s a reason the Senate wants to pass the budget on before than news comes through.

After the House is done with its version, then the House, Senate and governor try to come up with a workable compromise.

The folks in charge of the Senate budget say they'll have the full package online tonight sometime around 7 p.m. Some highlights from a 2 p.m. briefing with Sens. Linda Garrou, Charlie Albertson and A.B. Swindell:

• * Total size will be about $20.05 billion, or about $1.4 billion less than last year's budget and just under $1 billion less than what Gov. Bev Perdue proposed.

• * About $320 million of those cuts come by raising the average size of a classroom by 2 students. For K-3 classrooms, average size rises to 20 students. For 4-12 classrooms, average size rises to 22.

• * About 712 government workers could lose their jobs under the Senate proposal, with another 900 vacant jobs eliminated.

• * The process of merging Smart Start and More at Four, the state's two early childhood education programs, begins under the Senate budget, although both keep their names for now.

There was not much talk about what the finance package that pays for all this will look like, although we’re told they need to come up with another $580 million to make the budget work.

From the Monday paper:

• * This story looks at a proposed law to more closely regulate mopeds. The thing I learned from this story is that scooters are legally mopeds in North Carolina because they fit this definition: "A vehicle that has two or three wheels, no external shifting device, and a motor that does not exceed 50 cubic centimeters piston displacement and cannot propel the vehicle at a speed greater than 30 miles per hour on a level surface." (S 135.)

• * This story looks at a tax break requested by Greensboro members of the General Assembly for the purchase and installation of aircraft simulators. (H 869 and S 1057.)

In case you haven't heard: the smoking ban bill passed the House.It will now go the Senate where leader Marc Basnight said, "I hope we pass it."

More here and coming in tomorrow's paper.

Rep. Beckey Carney, 64, collapsed in her legislative office and was taken to Wake Med hospital this afternoon, according to Rep. Bob England.

Carney, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, was treated by England, a doctor, and General Assembly police until EMS arrived.

"She was talking to Rep. Insko on the phone," England said. Carney collapsed around 4 p.m., he said.

After determining that Carney's heart had stopped, England said that he performed CPR and used one of the General Assembly's defibrillators to help revive Carney.

"She left here talking," England said. According to England, Carney was taken to WakeMed Raleigh.

Update: This came from an Associated Press update:

She was taken to Wake Med hospital in Raleigh, where she was in stable condition Thursday night, said Bill Holmes, a spokesman for House Speaker Joe Hackney. Carney had a heart arrhythmia, Holmes said, which can be a cause of cardiac arrest.

Here's hoping she makes a quick recovery.

Sen. Linda Garrou, the Winston-Salem Democrat who is the chamber's senior budget writer, said this morning that the Senate would roll out its version of the budget next week.

The schedule, she said, would be subcommittees on Monday, full appropriations and finance committees on Tuesday and floor votes on Wednesday and Thursday.

She said that agencies would be given "negative reserves" to help balance the budget. That's basically like giving an agency a $1 million but only letting them spend $900,000 of it. It's also a different approach from that taken by the governor, whose "truth-in-budgeting" approach would have more tightly defined what agencies could and could not spend.

As far as what areas are spared from the most severe cuts (education and economic development) and those that aren't (everything else), Garrou said the Senate and the governor were largely simpatico.

"I think we're tracking with a lot of things the governor has," she said.

As expected after last night, the N.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association now opposes the smoking ban bill.

The association stayed on the sidelines when the bill applied to everyone equally. But an exemption added Wednesday would allow bars to ban people under 18 and post signs saying they allow smoking. That change, association officials said, broke the peace.

"It's clear now that there's no longer a level playing field," said Paul Stone, who heads the association.

Many family-friendly restaurants pick up an active bar scene after 9 p.m. If the bill passes in its current form, he said, those businesses would be at a disadvantage competing against bars that can allow smoking.

Rep. Hugh Holliman, the bill's chief proponent, said last night he would ask the Senate to return the bill to its original form.

But Stone said it is not a matter of fixing the bill.

"We're going to fight the bill," he said. "We're going to tell the senate we're opposed to House Bill 2."

That hard line is strategic. Even if the Senate returned the bill to a blanket ban, it would go to a conference committee to reconcile difference between the House and Senate.

Conference committees are black boxes and non-legislators who have an interest in bills aren't thrilled when their bills hit conferences. That's because just about anything can emerge from the black box of non-public conference committees.

Having the association in the fight is problematic for smoking ban supporters. They helped kill the 2007 version of the bill (for the same reasons) and their membership has a wide reach. (Think representatives from tourist areas as well as big cities with lots of hotels and restaurants.)

The vote tallies and amendment language for H2, the workplace smoking ban, have been attached to the bill's NCGA information page.

Background here and here.

And here's the AP story.

The bottom line: The House Wednesday gave tentative approval to a workplace smoking ban that will cover bars and restaurants.

Rep. Nelson Cole offered an amendment that would let some bars and restaurants opt out if they post signs warning that smoking was allowed and do not employ or serve anyone under 18.

Update: Click here for my story from Thursday's paper that explains why the change could be problematic.

For those who didn't listen live and want a flavor of the debate, the following are some audio clips. (You can hear a recording of the entire day's session here.)

• *Click here to listen to Rep. Hugh Holliman introduce the bill.

• *Click here to listen to Rep. Jeff Barnhart explain his support for the smoking bill. Barnhart's father died of lung cancer. He was a non-smoker but worked in an office full of smokers.

• *Rep. Alma Adams, who gave up smoking after 30 years, supports the smoking ban. Click here to listen to her comments.

• *Rep. Nelson Cole says that the original version of H2 was too strict. He offered an amendment that would let bars and restaurants opt out of the smoking ban if they posted signs and excluded minors from working or being served. Click here to listen to him give his rationale.

• *Rep. Johnathan Rhyne, Jr. supported Cole's amendment. His was one of the better offerings in support of Cole's amendment and against the main bill. Click here to listen.

• *Rep. David Lewis's comments prompted a lot of feed-back as I was live-blogging the vote. "Somehow we've become convinced in this chamber that people don't have enough sense to make decisions for themselves." Click here to listen.

• *Click here for the end of the debate. The clip picks up in the middle of Rep. Dale Folwell's remarks opposing the bill, moves into Rep. Hugh Holliman's closing statement and ends with the vote.

For those who need it, here's background on H2, the proposed North Carolina smoking ban. The House is due to start debating the bill within the five o'clock hour.

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Update: For those who don't want to wade through the live blog, here's the early AP summary of the vote on the smoking ban bill:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Lawmakers in the North Carolina House have tentatively passed a measure that would ban smoking from restaurants and other workplaces that admit children

Lawmakers voted 75-42 in favor of the ban on Wednesday after the measure was changed to allow smoking in businesses that don't employ or serve anyone under age 18.

Democratic Rep. Nelson Cole of Rockingham County succeeded in easing restrictions that would have outlawed smoking in any workplace.

Supporters of the stricter ban said the change negates their efforts to protect waiters and other workers from inhaling secondhand smoke.

It should be noted the House will have to give the measure a final vote tomorrow (Thursday) before the bill travels to the Senate. I'll have more on the blog later tonight and in the paper tomorrow.

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The window below will carry live tweets from my Twitter account giving updates on the bill's progress.

The House Finance Committee held one of their auction sessions this morning, clearing out a bunch of local bills with no real controversy attached to them. At the end, Rep. Pryor Gibson, one of the committee’s chairs, warned his members and anyone else who happened to be listening that a reckoning was coming with regard to license plates.

In particular, Gibson said he was concerned about the proliferation of special plates that honor particular causes. Usually, the extra fees paid for those plates help fund whatever the cause may be. (In Greensboro there's a special plate authorized to support Guilford Battleground. Bills have been filed this year to support the High Point Furniture Market, Girl Scouts and the Town of Oak Island.)

Dozens of such bills have been filed this session, he said, and more were coming. (My own rough count shows 51 such bills filed between the House and Senate, but I could be missing some.)

"It's getting a little out of hand," Gibson said.

Members who had plate bills in should expect to see e-mails tweaking the boiler-plate language of such measures or adding another layer of scrutiny. Bottom line: it'll get harder to get a special plate authorized by the General Assembly.

"That's fair warning," Gibson said. "I don't know when it will come but it will be very soon."

For those who needed more explanation on H 688: Jamestown/Satellite Annexations, my colleague E.A. Seagraves has you covered with this story:

The town currently can only have satellite properties that make up no more than 10 percent of the town’s corporate limits. Town manager Kathryn Billings explained that Jamestown Park — separated from the town’s corporate limits by High Point City Lake — takes up the town’s 10 percent allowance.

Removing the satellite annexation cap would allow the town to take in future voluntary satellite annexations for areas that have requested water and sewer service.

Rep. Hugh Holliman told me this evening that he expects
H2, the smoking ban bill to be debated Wednesday "barring any unexplained absences."

He seemed pretty confident that the bill would prevail, but added, "It will be close."

For those following H 120, which would allow for taxpayer-funded elections, it was due to be heard tonight (Monday) but supporters say it needs a technical fix. The measure is heading back to committee, but Holliman said he expected to see it back on the House calendar later this week.

As for tomorrow's calendar: I'll be in Greensboro Tuesday to cover Gov. Perdue's big health care shindig.

From this morning's story on tobacco under fire in North Carolina:

“The argument I’m getting is this thing about tobacco farmers and companies, that we owe some sort of debt to them because they built the state,” Haynes said. “Well, our country was also partially founded on slavery, and we’re not doing that any more. We woke up and got some common sense one day. … Why aren’t the farmers farming something else? They’ve had plenty of time to switch.”

Isley shakes his head when asked if there’s another crop that could yield as much money for his 100-acre farm as tobacco.

“Maybe one acre of strawberries, and if you could have a little stand up on the roadside, maybe that could sustain your family,” he said.

Really?

“No. I wish it was,” he said.

So why doesn’t he get out of farming altogether?

“It’s in my blood,” he said. “It must be. It sure wasn’t because I wanted to get up at 4 a.m. every day and go to bed at midnight every night and make less money than my classmates.”

Click here to read the whole thing.

Haynes is Holly Haynes, a Winston-Salem woman who is fighting cancer. Isley is John Isley, a fourth-generation tobacco farmer from Reidsville. Among others, the story also includes quotes from folks who work at Greensboro-based Lorillard.

What I hoped to do with this story is let you hear a little bit from folks who are deeply vested in the tobacco policy debate but whose voices aren't often heard.

My editors and I talked over several times whether we needed to include a smoker in the story and decided against it because we've heard from them on many occasions. If you're dying for that perspective, Mark Johnson's excellent piece from earlier this year can scratch that itch.

And I should thank N+R news librarian Diane Lamb, who helped me sort through figures from the ESC, BLS and Reynolds American regarding tobacco-related employment.

If you're looking for more on this story:

• * Click here for H2, the smoking ban bill sponsored by Rep. Hugh Holliman. And Click here for background.

• * Click here to read the 2006 Surgeon General's report that declared:

  "Research reviewed in this report indicates that smoke-free policies are the most economic and effective approach for providing protection from exposure to secondhand smoke. But do they provide the greatest health impact. Separating smokers and nonsmokers in the same airspace is not effective, nor is air cleaning or a greater exchange of indoor with outdoor air. Additionally, having separately ventilated areas for smoking may not offer a satisfactory solution to reducing workplace exposures. Policies prohibiting smoking in the workplace have multiple benefits. Besides reducing exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke, these policies reduce tobacco use by smokers and change public attitudes about tobacco use from acceptable to unacceptable."

• * You can read details of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement on tobacco here. Good resources that help explain more include here, here, and here.

• * The Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently did a good story on the pending federal tobacco tax hike, while McClatchy's Washington Bureau put out this story about the ongoing conflict over FDA regulation of tobacco.

• * For those interested in public opinion, a March 2009 Elon University Poll showed that "A strong majority support local or state laws that ban smoking in all public places, including public buildings, offices, restaurants and bars. Seventy percent support local laws and 67 percent support state laws."(PDF)

So, does your opinion line up with the public's? The comment link is open.

House Bill 2, aka the smoking ban, is on the the House Calendar for Thursday, 3/26.

Don't freak.

"We're not going to do it tomorrow," Rep. Hugh Holliman, the House majority leader and the bill's chief author told me a minute ago.

It could come up next week, he said, but there could be some scheduling conflicts there as well.

The vote on this bill is expected to be very *very* close, so Holliman is counting votes carefully and only going to pull the trigger when he's sure as many friends as possible are in the chamber.

Smoking bill clears committee:

The House Judiciary I committee approved a bill to ban smoking in most public places, including bars and restaurants, on a voice vote this morning.

Several amendments aimed at making the bill less strict - one would have exempted veterans organizations - were withdrawn in committee after proponents raised questions about them.

Proponents say studies show there are no safe level of second-hand smoke and that the public needs to be protected.

"There's no risk-free exposure to bacon and eggs," said Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam arguing against the bill. "It's just not as great as smoking."

According to House calendars, the bill is next due to go the full House but according to its sponsor, Rep. Hugh Holliman of Lexington, may have to be heard in one more committee before it comes to the floor.

Background here.

I just spoke with at Rep. Holliman who says the bill will likely hit the floor early next week, barring a fortuitous head-count Wednesday or Thursday. (Read: if four opponents miss session this week, expect H2 to be brought up for immediate consideration.)

A contemplated dip into the House Finance Committee will not be necessary, he said.

The Senate would get the bill next.

The Elon University Poll just put out its latest two-day cycle of data, and in their news release today played up this question:

I'm going to read you three statements, and, after I read all three, I'd like for you to tell me which statement comes closest to your position on this issue:

[(#1) I oppose any legal recognition for same sex couples,

(#2) I support civil unions or partnerships for same sex couples, but not full marriage rights, or

(#3) I support full marriage rights for same sex couples].

Whether or not to put a constitutional amendment on same sex marriage before the voters has been a topic before the General Assembly. The Elon Poll reported the following results on the question:

(#1) OPPOSE ANY LEGAL RECOGNITION FOR SAME SEX COUPLES 44.4

(#2) SUPPORT CIVIL UNIONS OR PARTNERSHIPS FOR SAME
SEX COUPLES, BUT NOT FULL RIGHTS 27.5

(#3) FULL MARRIAGE RIGHTS FOR SAME SEX COUPLES 20.8

OPPOSE ALL ASPECTS OF THE SAME SEX MARRIAGE (v) 1.5

OPPOSE SAME SEX MARRIAGE ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS (v) 1.0

DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT IT, DOESN T BOTHER ME (v) 1.7

DON'T KNOW (v) 2.8

REFUSED (v) .4

(My gut reaction is the "Don't really care" answer rate would be higher if it were offered as an initial response choice.)

The Elon Poll results seemingly conflicts with those gathered from a recent Civitas Poll. The Civitas Institute is a conservative think tank and has sent representatives to news conferences supporting a gay marriage ban. It asked about gay marriage this way:

North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast that does not have a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and woman. Do you support or oppose a constitutional amendment in North Carolina defining marriage as between one man and one woman?

Support 76%

Oppose 21%

Not Sure 4%

Refused >1%

For those who may be wondering, I'm told the more liberal-leaning PPP hasn't put out public numbers on the topic.

Elon also asked a roughly analogous question to Civitas - "Would you [support or oppose] an amendment to the North Carolina constitution that would prevent any same sex marriages?" - respondents remained split: with a little more than half opposing a constitutional amendment and about 40 percent supporting one. Civitas was up at 76 percent. So what gives?

Both polls seemingly did a good job get a broad spectrum of the population, although I think it's possible that the Civitas Poll's question 27 regarding political philosophy may reflect some over-sampling. (The party affiliation question, #30, is spot on with what I'd expect to see, though.)

Remember, Elon didn't preface its question with information about other states. It definitely seems like the wording of the question might have gotten in the way of replicable results here. Put crudely: The Civitas questions established a norm by referring to other states and there’s a pretty good body of research that shows poll respondents like to seem “normal” to those asking the question.

Elon also allowed people to express a middle path on both their questions. As with a lot of political issues, you have die-hards on either side and then folks who are willing to trod the middle road.

One of my favorite time-wasting/good-for-background-noise shows on cable is Mythbusters, mainly for the show's propensity to gratuitously blow stuff up.

Among the best tag lines from the show comes when the two hosts approach a damaged apparatus (usually one subjected to the aforementioned gratuitous explosion) and notes, "Well, there's your problem."

It's a slightly more succinct way to say, "Wow, there's no question why this won't work anymore and I really don't need to explain it because the evidence is right there in front of your face."

I had one of those moments this morning, although, sadly, it didn't involve an explosion.

The latest Elon Poll asked a question reported deep down in its data sheet:

"Would you say that campaign contributions to state lawmakers influence their legislative activities [a lot, some, not much, or not at all]?"

Now, I know what the response would be if you asked your average journalists. But these results come from a sample of folks roughly split on public financing of elections and who, as much as ever happens in a poll, seem to reflect the general population of the state:

NOT AT ALL 4.9

NOT MUCH 5.3

SOME 43.0

A LOT 40.9

DON T KNOW (v) 5.4

REFUSED (v) .4

Simply put: Well over 80 percent of those surveyed believe campaign contributions in some way, shape or form influence how state legislators go about making the laws of North Carolina.

I've written dozens of stories over the years about campaign donations and they inevitably contain some quote from a politician or their spokesman that says, "Well, sure, I get money from X industry, but they just must like where I stand." In fact, you can find just such a quote regarding donations on the federal level in the Charlotte Observer's story about tobacco industry donations to Richard Burr:

Burr spokesman Chris Walker says the campaign donations don't influence Burr's policy agenda.

"It's not something that comes into any equations here," Walker said. "It doesn't really affect what we're doing legislatively."

Let's be clear: this is a Republican/Democrat thing. You can write that same kind of story for just about any politician of any influence at the local, state or national level.

Even if it's true the policy position came first, even if it's true that a few thousand bucks isn't so much money in the grand scheme of fundraising, and even if it's true the money chased the policy position and not the other way around, the Elon Poll says 80 percent of the people don't believe you.

Well, there's your problem.

It does not matter if the campaign finance system is pure as the driven snow. The average citizen is unwilling to make the leap of logic to say; sure, you might get thousands of dollars from a particular interest but you, Mr. or Ms. Legislator, but it doesn’t influence your choices at all.

If you accept the poll results, there are a couple of relevant questions:

• * Is there a fix?
• * If so, what is it?

The same Elon Poll says folks are split on the idea of public financing for campaigns. The idea of putting tax dollars into campaigns with whose sentiments you might disagree sits poorly with a lot of folks.

So what's your solution? (Or should we take the results of the poll to mean that people believe money influences politics but they're okay with that?) The comment link is open for opining.

Filed in the House today was H 688 Jamestown/Satellite Annexations. The measure would remove the training wheels from Jamestown's satellite annexation powers - the ability to take land into the town that is not contiguous to the corporate limits. Currently, the town cannot have satellite territory that adds up to more than 10 percent of the town proper. Sponsor: Rep. Laura Wiley

Update: Click here for Friday's newspaper story.

-=-=-=-=-=

Here's a little more on the NC Community College Board's discussion (click for today’s brief update) over whether to admit illegal immigrants to colleges in the system.

First off this post from earlier in the month (click here) has links to some of the policy letters that went back and forth and bills that have been filed in the legislature.

Also interesting, my friends at Stateline have written about a very similar discussion going on in California and elsewhere.

Finally, you can hear the most interesting bits of consultant Gina Shkodriani's and lawyer Alice Maginnis' presentations to the board by clicking here.

Moving from our news desk this afternoon:

• * This update from me on the Board of Community College's efforts to adopt a policy on illegal immigration. There will be a little more on this in tomorrow's paper, but some background is here.

• * My colleague Joe Killian reports: People need to understand the hard facts of coming deep budget cuts, University of North Carolina President Erskine Bowles said Thursday at a UNC Board of Governors meeting. "We're going to lose hundreds of people and it's going to hurt this University," Bowles said. "It's going to hurt our academic core."

Gov. Bev Perdue's budget continues to provide stories for us scruffy media types ... and consternation for just about everyone else.

From today's N+R:

• * Click here for my story about a social worker training program that could get cut. Telling here is that no one says this is a bad program, but folks in Raleigh say it's not efficient enough.

• * On day one of the budget release, UNCG and NCA&T were still evaluating the pain that the governor's budget would impose. Day two, my colleague Joe Killian reports they're feeling the pain.

Okay...I have to run off and do some reporting outside the Beltline today. Y'all play nice.

A couple of Greensboro-focused local bills - those that affect just one particular area of the state - floated through the House Local Govt. I Committee Wednesday morning:

• *H 541: Greensboro Motor Vehicle Levy would give the City Council the ability to raise the city's annual motor vehicle tax from $10 to $16. The extra money would go to support public transportation. The bill next goes to the Finance Committee.

• *H 519: Greensboro/Energy-Related Dev. Incentives would allow Greensboro to offer incentives to developers to use "green" construction techniques. The bill next goes to the committee on Energy and Energy Efficiency.

Among the things that got lost in the wake of Gov. Perdue releasing her budget Tuesday was an update on H 2, the proposed workplace smoking ban.

When last we left the bill, it had cleared the House Health Committee and was on its way to House Judiciary I. I'm told J-I nearly approved the bill yesterday but held off to give Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam time to offer some amendments.

Here's the report from AP's daily news roundup:

SMOKING BAN: The effort to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places has soft enforcement provisions, but a provision allowing local governments to impose tougher enforcement if they choose could increase penalties to include a misdemeanor. The bill discussed in a House judiciary committee would ban smoking in enclosed public places, including workplaces. Smokers asked to stub out their butt who refuse could be fined up to $50, but only by a public health officer. Businesses could be fined up to $200 after their third failure to stop smokers. The bill also allows local government to be tougher on secondhand smoke.

If what I'm told is right, you'll see the bill back in J-I on Tuesday and then it will probably bounce in to the House Finance Committee before hitting the floor. If it follows the same pattern as in 2007, it won't be any of its committee stops that are a problem for the bill, but its floor vote that's in doubt.

So, Gov. Bev Perdue rolled out her budget today and it got a fair amount of attention from us scruffy media types.

Click here to read the whole thing for yourself. Fair warning: the books measure roughly a foot high when stacked on my desk, so I'm guessing the PDFs are pretty big.

For those who want some of the early media coverage:

• * Update: Legislative leaders didn't give Perdue's budget the dreaded "dead on arrival" stamp, which means she did better her first time out than former Gov. Mike Easley did on his last.

• * The AP's Gary Robertson takes you through the basics.

• * One of my stories for tomorrow looks at some of the parochial effects of the budget, including the possibility a local prison could close.

• * My colleague Sonja Elmquist writes about one of the far flung effects of the current budget crisis.

• * The N+O's budget-paloza.

• * News 14 rocks some video.

Sen. Stan Bingham filed S 351: No Felon as Sheriff earlier this month, and I've had it rattling around on my to-do list for a while. (Dome posted on it here.)

Currently, a sheriff can't hire someone as a deputy who has been convicted of a felony. But, as long as someone has had their voting rights restored, a convicted felon can run to be sheriff.

Bingham's bill would put a constitutional amendment before voters. If enacted, it would add the following to the qualifications for sheriff:

No person is eligible to serve as Sheriff if that person has been adjudged guilty of any felony against this State or the United States, or of a felony in another state that also would be a felony if it had been committed in this State, whether or not that person has been restored to the rights of citizenship in the manner prescribed by law.

(Click here to listen to Bingham and I talk about his bill.)

Who might this apply to? Well, Bingham is from Davidson County and there have been rumors - See this discussion on the Lexington Dispatch's forums page - that former Davidson County Sheriff Gerald Hege might give it a go in 2010.

Hege, for those of you who don't remember, was once dubbed "America's toughest sheriff," but ended up pleading guilty to two felonies in 2004. From a News & Record story in 2007 when Hege finished his probation:

The probation stemmed from his guilty plea in May 2004 to two felony counts of obstruction of justice for attempts to cover up money missing from the vice and narcotics unit of the sheriff's department. He resigned from the office he had held since being elected in 1994.

During Hege's first year of probation, he was under house arrest with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and was allowed to leave his home only for work, said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Corrections.

[snip]

Hege also paid $7,900 in court-ordered fees and restitution, Acree said. Hege completed 50 hours of community service working in the kitchen of the Salvation Army in Lexington.

Hege's guilty plea in 2004 ended a nine-year tenure as sheriff marked by his eccentric tactics: pink jail cells, paramilitary garb and media grandstanding. Hege generated national - and even international - attention for some of his techniques.

The criminal case against Hege stemmed from a State Bureau of Investigation probe that involved testimony from 28 of his own employees, including two top supervisors.

There were allegations Hege ordered prisoner abuse, promoted racial profiling, recklessly drove his sheriff's car and misused county personnel and equipment. But it was Hege's attempts to cover up money missing from the department's vice and narcotics unit that sealed his fate.

As a convicted felon, Hege couldn't carry a firearm, but he could hold the office.

Bingham said that he was contacted by several Piedmont area sherrif's asking him to run the bill. When asked if it was in direct response to the possibility Hege will run again, Bingham said, "Of course it is, Hege and others. He's not the only one."

Bingham said he expected Hege to run in 2010 but said the prospects for getting his bill through the General Assembly weren't good. That's because amendments to the state's constitution are scrutinized closely by members who are reticent about changing the state's foundational document.

So, was Bingham concerned about a Hege run in 2010?

"Absolutely he'll run again, but I don't think he'll get elected," Bingham said. "But there's no doubt about it, he's going to run."

Click here to listen to Bingham and I talk about his bill.

The state budget dance will formally begin Tuesday when Gov. Bev Perdue unveils her tax and spending proposal.

Already we've seen the preliminary handkerchief waving, bowing and pleasantries that go along with the beginning of any cotillion. The honorables have been reading up on various sections of the state budget in committee meetings while getting briefed on how bad the revenue picture really is.

Meanwhile, Perdue has been telling anyone who will listen how "tough" the choices she's going to have to make are. Her senior budget staffer even briefed us scruffy media types on the fiscal picture last week.

After Perdue makes her opening move, the action shifts to the legislature like this:

• * The Senate will take a crack at writing the budget first this year.
• * After the Senate passes its version, the House will get a shot at writing it and almost certainly put their own stamp on it.
• * The House, Senate and governor's office negotiate until a final budget is put before the honorables.

All along the way, updated tax revenue figures, breaking news, and the odd policy priority that bubbles to the surface shapes the final product. While some changes are big and thematic – what percent raise will teachers get, if any or how much money will be put into the mental health care system – often the fiercest battles are fought over the smaller pots of money.

For those small programs, such as support for the High Point Furniture Market, inclusion in the governor’s budget is a golden ticket to the final round of budget negotiations. And it’s a good bet those golden tickets will be harder to come by than a Wonka Bar at a health food convention this year.

Perdue has been giving different glimpses of her budget over the past week. Gov. Mike Easley used to do this sort of thing, putting out pieces of his budget agenda in advance to make sure they got media attention before putting out the entire thing, when reporters would start asking pesky questions about how he might pay for all those goodies.

As Laura Leslie notes at her blog, this isn't a half-bad idea since the stories written tomorrow will all be about which programs are getting slashed or who is getting taxed to balance the budget.

So what do we know of Perdue's budget priorities so far? The summary is this:

• * This afternoon she'll talk about her education spending plans, but she already said in the state of the state address that she wants to increase per pupil spending.

• * Over the weekend, Perdue released an audio statement on the National Guard, which seems to have gone missing from her web site. In it, she said that she would propose spending $2 million for National Guard family assistance centers and more from other programs, such as one that helps the children of national guard soldier cope with their parents' deployments.

• * Last week, she pledged to spend millions on beefing up the probation and parole system, where officials have admitted they can't keep track of all the offenders they should.

• * In another address last week, Perdue outlined economic development priorities that included raising the earned income tax credit, creating a tax exemption for small businesses and spending millions on job creation and recruitment programs.

Left unsaid so far is how Perdue plans to pay for all of this while tamping down a budget shortfall expected to be in the $2 billion range.

Undoubtedly, Perdue will have to make cuts in other areas and she has been gathering suggestions on what those might be. And while few expect she'll propose a broad-based tax hike such as a sales tax increase, taxes on alcohol and tobacco will almost certainly be proposed.

Whatever she does when she finally lifts the curtain tomorrow, prepare for much rending of clothing, beating of chests and gnashing of teeth.

From today's paper:

WHITSETT — A brewing fight over North Carolina’s beer distribution laws has its roots in Guilford County, with executives from two local businesses duking it out behind the scenes at the General Assembly.

Red Oak Brewery has stepped up its lobbying efforts to convince legislators that beer makers should be able to distribute up to 60,000 31-gallon barrels without being required to go through a wholesale distributor.

But wholesalers such as Greensboro’s R.H. Barringer Distributing say the General Assembly should hold fast to the current 25,000-barrel limit or lower it to avoid possible conflicts with federal laws.

“Our concern is that someone who has a Red Oak could have a poor Red Oak experience,” said Eric Hice, vice president of operations with the company. Red Oak’s beer is neither filtered nor pasteurized, processes that help brews last longer whether in a bottle or a keg.

“If it’s not handled right, we have real taste problems,” said Bill Sherrill, Red Oak’s owner. In particular, Sherrill said, it’s critical the beer is refrigerated from the time it’s brewed until it reaches a customer.

Beer distributors, Sherrill argues, send usually unrefrigerated trucks out with dozens of kegs from different brands and can’t ensure beer from small brewers is handled or marketed properly.

But as Mark Craig, president of R.H. Barringer, walks between walls of beer cases stacked 18 feet high in the company’s warehouse, he points to brands from around the country and overseas that his company sells in North Carolina.

“Longboard comes from Hawaii,” Craig said, pointing out a few cases shipped from the Kona Brewing Co. “It’s fine; it’s taken care of.”

Click here for the whole thing.

More than two years ago, I wrote a story on the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, a nonprofit closely tied with the legislative black caucus at the General Assembly.

It became one of several stories, posts, updates, etc... written by myself and others.

The central question in all of those stories was this: was it okay for a group of influential lawmakers to run a nonprofit that could solicit donations in unlimited amounts from folks who had business before the General Assembly.

Both of their own volition - and probably with a bit of prodding from us scruff media types - the caucus changed its practices.

One of the things we've been told repeatedly is that the caucus foundation and its legislative board members were given the all clear by the Legislative Ethics Commission. I've been waiting for that opinion to be released since it was supposedly issued in 2007.

Well, finally, here it is. It has been redacted but even a casual reader can see it involves the circumstances surrounding the black caucus foundation.

It's pretty clear from the opinion that in order to be ethically in the clear, the makeup of the board needed to change from being mostly legislators to being controlled by non-legislators. And it was pretty clear that the Legislative Ethics Committee was concerned about the appearance of something being hinky. From the report:

In addition to the issues related to direct and indirect gifts discussed above, under its duty to advise legislators on suggested standards of conduct under Chapter 120 of the General Statutes, the Committee suggests that there are circumstances where a legislator's solicitation and acceptance of a donation to the Organization from a lobbyist or lobbyist's principal could be inappropriate and could be perceived as an improper use of one's legislative position for the private benefit of either the legislator or another, namely the Organization.

For example, it would be inappropriate for a legislator who serves on the board of a 501(c)(3) organization that is controlled by the legislator or a group of legislators, such as the Organization, to solicit or accept donations on behalf of the 501(c)(3) organization from lobbyists or lobbyist's principals. It would also be inappropriate for a legislator serving on the board or executive committee of a 501(c)(3) organization, such as the Organization, where either the board or the executive committee is controlled by the legislator or a group of legislators, to participate as a member of the board or executive committee in any action that authorizes the solicitation or acceptance of donations by the 501(c)(3) organization from lobbyists or lobbyist's principals.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Four members of Guilford County's legislative delegation filed H 519: Greensboro/Energy-Related Development Incentives yesterday at the request of the city. It would add Greensboro to a list of municipalities that can offer developers incentives for energy efficient construction that includes Cabarrus County, Asheville, Charlotte, Concord, Durham, Kannapolis, Locust, Wilmington, Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Harrisburg, Midland, Mount Pleasant and Stanfield.

Legislators up here were a bit, um, fuzzy on how the thing might work in practice, but Greensboro Planning Director Dick Hails was happy to fill in the blanks.

Developers who wanted to take advantage of the incentives would have to show they are building an environmentally friendly process, such as applying for LEED certification.

In exchange, the city could offer things like:

• * A discount on plan review and other fees.
• * Expedited processing of a plan.
• * Increased density for a particular project.

On that last one, Hails said that Greensboro was less likely to offer something like that because city zoning law already allows for pretty high density.

But offering a break of fees, which can run into thousands of dollars on a large project, is definitely an option, as is offering an expedited review.

"I know a lot of developers would probably be as interested in saving review time as getting a break on fees," Hails said.

The request for the new authority came as part of the city's legislative agenda, which said the city would "seek legislation to enhance the ability of municipalities to implement energy-efficient practices and programs, and to remove obstacles to doing so through incentives, funding and research."

Hails said that some cities have struck out on their own to offer these kinds of incentives without specific authority from the state. But, he said, the current law was unclear so Greensboro wanted to have the ability spelled out in writing.

The bill has a pair of pretty friendly House referrals, going to House Local Government I (chaired by Rep. Earl Jones, one of it's sponsors) and the House Energy and Energy Efficiency Committee, where Rep. Pricey Harrison is a Vice Chair. It's also a local bill, which means it's less likely to draw flack from ideological opponents, if there are any.

For those interested in H 88, a bill that would let public schools teach comprehensive sex education classes, it passed the House Health Committee today on a 32-21 vote.

Click here for a story I wrote back when it was introduced.

Among the yes votes was Greensboro Democrat Alma Adams.
Among the no votes: Rep. Laura Wiley, a High Point Republican, and Rep. Pat Hurley, a Randolph County Republican.

The bill next goes to the House Health Committee. If it passes there, it would then go to the floor of the House.

Fred G., a reader from Greensboro who drops me an e-mail from time-to-time, called earlier this week to chat about a couple things, including his car insurance rate going up. He had gotten a letter from his company saying that a new state law was partly to blame.

That law requires drivers to carry coverage in case of an accident with a motorist who was uninsured or under-insured. Before Jan. 1, you could opt out of such coverage or have a lower than recommended coverage. Now all drivers are required to carry coverage equal to the amount they have for other parts of their coverage.

For Fred, it meant a bump of more than $100 in his premium.

This struck me as odd since back in January, when the new law took effect, the Department of Insurance estimated that the average driver would see their rates go up $17.

"The intent is to add another layer of protection for consumers," said Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin.

Up to 12 percent of drivers are on the roads without insurance. That's illegal and those folks can't get their tags renewed, but those folks are out there. It makes sense, Goodwin said, to make sure everyone has enough coverage so they're not left with a big bill should they have an accident with one of those folks.

And, he said, the number of uninsured drivers could go up as the economy worsens and people try to cut down on expenses or simply can't pay their bills.

But, Goodwin allowed, the law "has lead to some unintended consequences."

There's already an ongoing fight between insurers and the state over insurance rates, and this question of uninsured motorist coverage has gotten sucked into that, Goodwin said.

My friend Mark Johnson, who writes for the Charlotte paper, beat me to the punch reporting this out fully. Click here for his story from today's paper that outlines the issue pretty well and includes this:

It's unclear how many car owners saw a rate increase because of the requirement for equal levels of coverage. About 70,000 customers of Nationwide, the largest auto insurer in the state, got bigger insurance bills because of the law, said Susan Valauri, director of government relations for Nationwide in North Carolina. The average increase was approximately $22 for the year, with the largest jump being about $120 for the year.

Glasgow likely saw such a sharp price increase because he had a high level of coverage on his liability insurance and the minimum level of coverage on his uninsured motorists provision.

Valauri said more than 99 percent of the company's N.C. customers already had uninsured motorist coverage, and 91 percent maintained an equal level of coverage with their liability insurance.

“It's not a big deal for the vast majority of drivers,” Valauri said. “For those other customers ... it may have been a very big deal for them.”

According to Johnson, Mecklenburg Sen. Dan Clodfelter is working on a fix to the law.

Has your car insurance rate gone up? If so, drop me a line in the comment links or at mark.binker@news-record.com.

Update: Click here for the newspaper story.

The Greensboro protest petition bill passed the Senate Wednesday afternoon. There are no more legislative hurdles it has to get through, so it will be sent to the Secretary of State’s office and become law.

Because the protest petition bill is a local bill, one that affects fewer than 15 counties, the governor does not have to sign it.

House members are looking at H 120, which would create a pilot program for public financing of city council elections.

Chapel Hill currently has such a pilot and this measure, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison, would allow cities such as Greensboro to create their own public financing systems.

Two Greensboro residents, Nick Divitci and Eric Eno, came to Raleigh to lobby on the bill's behalf.

Divitci said that the bill would help cure "lopsidedness" in the makeup of City Council.

"The lopsidedness is mostly toward the development interests," Divitci said. He emphasized that Greensboro would not be required to participate if the bill passed. Instead, the city council would have to apply to the State Board of Elections to participate.

The House Election Law and Campaign Finance Committee passed the bill today. (It now goes to Judiciary II before heading to the House floor.)

Here's what Divitci told the committee:

Eno, a Lindley Park resident, said his neighborhood has been involved in fighting a lot of rezoning cases.

"I think there's been a disproportionate influence on the council by developers," he said.

The bill has the support of Common Cause, a good government group that has organized a lobbying effort on behalf of the legislation.

Jessica Hayes, a lobbyist for the N.C. Home Builders Association spoke against the bill during its committee hearing. She said if it passed, her member's participation through their political action committee would be curtailed.

"There is a finite amount of money we can contribute to each candidate," she said.

Dallas Woodhouse, who heads the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, also spoke against the bill.

"There is only so much the taxpayers can absorb in this state," he said. Cities are already struggling to cope with the sour economy and decreased tax collections.

He added that taxpayers, he said, should not be forced to fund the campaigns of those with whom they disagreed.

Gov. Bev Perdue signed her first bill into law today. Senate Bill 198 allows the same person to hold the post of North Carolina School Board Chairman and Executive Director of the state's public schools.

Perdue's pick for the job is former Cumberland County Schools Superintendent Bill Harrison.

Perdue announced the merger of the two positions back in January as part of an effort to clarify lines of authority within the school system.

"We are putting a system together so we all talk one talk and walk one walk," Perdue told reporters, legislators and a passel of school children gathered in the Old House Chamber at the Capitol Wednesday morning.

Click here to listen to more from the news conference.

The Greensboro protest petition bill passed the House 116-0 Tuesday afternoon. I now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Update: Click here to listen to the two minutes that it took the House to pass the protest petitions bill.

This was noted in the legislative press room by a few folks, including the Barkeep, but I haven't seen it shared yet.

A bill filed in the House this week would put a referendum before voters on a having a state constitution ban on gay marriage.

I wrote last week about the Senate version of the bill and how the legislative leadership won't let them get to fruition. In the Senate, such measures have been sent to the Ways and Means Committee, which hasn't met since George W. Bush's first term.

Speaker Joe Hackney was a little more subtle in his handling of the bill. He gave it four serial referrals.

"So?" I hear you ask. Here's what that means.

Since Hackney took over as Speaker, bills usually get a hearing in two committees. That can be a pretty tall order, particularly and the end of session, when committee time is short. But the idea is that if two committees sign off on something, it's been given a thorough going over.

On rare occasions, a bill will get three referrals, especially if it has a tax component. The bill to ban smoking, which was written by the House majority leader, may end up with three referrals before it hits the House floor.

Four referrals is just, well, it's a long road to walk. Even if all the committee chairmen were enthusiastic about passing such a bill, it would take the measure at least a month to clear out of committee were it to move at a quick but normal pace. And since committee chairmen serve at the please of the Speaker, perhaps their enthusiasm for this measure is less than ardent.

The bill, H 361, has been assigned to the Rules committee, then on to Election Law and Campaign Finance Reform and then to Judiciary I and finally to Appropriations.

Even if proponents were to push the bill by means of parliamentary maneuvers that let recall the bill from committee, the time involved would be immense. Every time such a vote got near, the bill could be passed on a voice vote and shuffled off to the next committee where a series of legislative clocks would be reset.

While nothing the legislature ever does is permanent or intractable, it seems this bill is unlikely to find its way to a floor vote.

Groups who support adding a gay marriage ban to the state constitution -- or, more precisely, want to define marriage as one man and one woman: plural marriages and barnyard nuptials would be banned as well -- rallied behind the legislative building today.

North Carolina already has a law that defines marriages as one-man-and-one-woman, but that definition is not constitutional. Folks who are concerned about this worry that a judge could overturn state law.

Temperatures are cold today and there's snow on the ground, so it's not a surprise that there appears to be fewer people here today than when the same groups rallied two years ago. Still, it's a sizable crowd - WRAL's estimate of more than 1,000 may be low-ish, but I didn't get up on the roof and count heads.

But for all the sound and fury, I don't think the political situation has changed much from last week (or last year).

Still, it does look like at least a few protesters have gotten the message that it is the legislative leadership standing in their way:

I just liked this picture:

The General Assembly is in the process of inviting Gov. Bev Perdue to give her annual State of the State address on March 9 at 7 p.m. (The governor cannot just show up in the General Assembly and start yacking. There are rules and tradition that govern these sorts of things.)

A governor delivers the State of the State once every legislative session - that's every two years to normal folks. Typically, the governor uses the speech to talk about their budget priorities and what other legislation she would like the General Assembly to work on.

When I saw her after the Council of State meeting this morning, I asked Perdue what she might tell the honorables.

"Would you like to help write the speech? We don't have one yet," Perdue joked. She added that meetings on the state budget, both the current year and the proposal for the budget that will take effect July 1, have consumed most of her time.

Click here to listen to her full answer.

Yesterday, I wrote a post linking to the several bills that have been filed at the N.C. General Assembly regarding whether the state's community colleges should admit illegal immigrants and/or their children.

In that post I had Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, explain why she filed legislation that would require the community college system to admit the children of illegal immigrants.

Today, here's Sen. Phil Berger explaining why he filed a bill to do the opposite and direct the community college system keep those with questionable immigration status out:

Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, has filed H 362, which would require the community college system to admit the children of illegal aliens.

The N.C. Community College System is studying the issue of admitting the children of undocumented workers per a directive by the State Board of Community Colleges. That study is due to be out this spring, although folks on both sides of the issue seem to think the system will largely defer to the General Assembly.

Harrison's is the first bill to allow children of illegal immigrants in as far as I know. Legislation to the opposite effect (keeping children of illegal immigrants out) has been filed by Republicans in the House and by Republican Sen. Phil Berger of Rockingham County in the Senate.

Harrison said she wanted to send a signal to the community college system and others that there were people in the legislature who felt differently from the sponsors of the other bills.

Here is a short (less than three minutes) video of Harrison explaining her bill and talking about some of the push-back that will come with it.

The bill to restore protest petition rights in zoning cases to Greensboro residents has had its vote in the House delayed a day. Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, pulled the bill back from consideration just before it was to be heard. The measure is now scheduled for Tuesday's calendar.

Rep. Earl Jones did not brave the ice, sleet and snow to get down to the General Assembly Monday night as the five other House members from Guilford County did. Jones, I'm told, wanted to make sure he got to cast a vote on the bill, so it was held as a courtesy to him.

The Senate version of the measure is on the Senate State and Local Government committee agenda for tomorrow. However, both bills do not need to pass and in fact it is rare (although not unheard of) for the House and Senate to do their own versions of legislation. Typically, the first chamber to pass a bill gets to have its version passed into law.

There are two items from me in this Sunday's paper.

The first idea came when I heard President Barack Obama mention charter schools in his speech to Congress last week. North Carolina has charter schools but the legislature seems kind of conflicted about them. From that story:

State law limits to 100 the number of charter schools, which are funded by tax dollars but are run by private boards. That reflects a certain legislative ambivalence toward the schools, which were created under a 1996 law but never fully embraced by the General Assembly's top voices on education.

Despite Obama's call to increase funding and "help create new, high-quality charter schools," N.C. lawmakers remain cautious.

"I don't, at this point in time, support raising the cap on the number of charter schools," said Rep. Maggie Jeffus , a Guilford County Democrat and former teacher who is involved in education policy in the General Assembly. She said some charters she had visited had excellent programs, but others struggled to keep pace with expectations in academics and management.

Click here for the whole thing.

-=-=-=

Next up is an update on the Jordan Lake rules. (Background.) This is one of those subjects we get to write about every so often because it's important, but not one that moves at a terribly fast clip. The real news from the story was that the parties trying to reach some resolution on the rules were on the precipice of negotiation. Or as I used a lot more words to say::

Lawmakers now will have to decide whether rules put forward by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will achieve their goals or merely cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars during a time they can least afford it.

"I expect it will be contentious because it has already been contentious," said Rep. Lucy Allen, a Franklin County Democrat who chairs the House environment committee. "We hear all of the objections coming from the communities up that way."

Although state law gives opponents of regulations a clear path to appeal to the General Assembly, it gives lawmakers little guidance on how to settle disputes. Allen has filed one of a handful of bills that would wipe the Jordan Lake rules from the books, although few expect that could pass as it is.

Lawmakers like Allen are looking for parties on all sides to come to some accord. At least some of various groups say they're ready to start talking, even if they're not sure when or in what format.

"I'm optimistic," said Steven Levitas , a lawyer and former deputy secretary in the Department of Environment. He has been hired by Durham to help negotiate a compromise and is one of the point people for all the groups opposing the rules.

As described by Levitas and others involved, there have been discussions between various parties one-on-one. The trick now is to get representatives for all concerned in the same room.

Click here if you're trying to cure some sort of sleep disorder.

-=-=-=-=-

And believe it or not, there was even more news in the state last week than President Barack Obama coming to visit. A sampling:

• * Winston-Salem's James Romoser writes about the unborn victims bill and why it has a hard time passing in North Carolina. Some of the reasons will be familiar if you've read up on the gay marriage law recently: both are politically volatile and could lead places counter to the interest of the folks who lead the General Assembly.

• * The federal stimulus money was on people's minds this week, whether those folks are running zoo's that my current N+R colleague Ryan Seals says won't get any help, or the home energy efficient efforts that my one-time News & Record colleague Paul Garber (now of the Winston-Salem Journal) wrote about or the high speed rail lines that the N+O wrote about.

• * Charlotte's Jim Morrill say Gov. Bev Perdue may raid lottery funds to balance the budget.

• * Raleigh's Dan Kane says in his Saturday story that the fees Blue Cross Blue Shield is charging the state for health plan transactions are getting people's attention, and not in a good way.

• * From last week, WUNC's Laura Leslie writes up a news conference with Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison on her proposal to ban the use of mountain-top removal coal.

Enjoy your Sunday.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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:

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.

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.

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.

Update: Click here for Friday's newspaper story.

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Rep. Hugh Holliman has introduced HR 2 - Prohibit Smoking in Public & Work Places.

As the bill says, it would ban smoking in virtually all workplaces, including bars and restaurants. It also would repeal a prohibition on cities and counties passing their own smoking bans.

This is his third go-round with the measure, and he threw a news conference this morning to announce the bill's presence.

Here's a short video clip of Holliman introducing the bill:

Click here for audio of the whole news conference. It included several lawmakers as well as state health director Leah Devlin. Here's a short video of her making the case for a ban:

A similar bill by Holliman failed on a 55-61 vote last session. I'm off to talk to the opponents. Some of them are sure to be from Greensboro and Winston-Salem, the home of cigarette makers.

I asked Holliman about the impact on those companies.

"The health concerns far outweigh the impact on any economics," he said. He and others also argued that whatever the state lost in industry and taxes, North Carolina would more than make up in savings from lower health care costs.

The first day of session Wednesday brought the first few bill filings of the year. Among them:

• * SB 12- Ban Mobile Phone Use While Driving. This is an oldie but goodie that has been tried the past couple of sessions. It usually gets talked to death in some committee before it whimpers away.

  Objections center around two arguments. First, opponents say there are far more distracting things people do in their automobiles (eating, applying make-up, shaving, etc. ...) and singling out one behavior doesn’t make sense. Two, there’s an exception for hands-free devices, which allows you to continue talking while driving. Studies show that it’s the fact someone has their brain engaged in conversation rather than focused on the road - not the mere fact they’re handling a phone - that is the problem.

• * HB 2 - Prohibit Smoking in Public & Work Places. This is the Big Kahuna smoking ban bill and would basically ban smoking in restaurants, bus stations, office buildings or pretty much anywhere you can think of that isn't a private residence. There are a few exceptions for things like tobacco shops.

  The smoking bill died on a House vote last year, but Rep. Hugh Holliman is more confident of passing it this go-round.

  There's a news conference Thursday at which Holliman will pitch his bill again.

• * HB 3 - Disapprove Jordan Lake Rules. This has to do with the ongoing saga on cleaning up Jordan Lake by imposing runoff rules and other regulations on communities in the Triad.

  This is the brief I wrote for Thursday's paper on it:

  RALEIGH — Rep. Cary Allred, an Alamance County Republican, filed a bill that would derail environmental rules meant to protect Jordan Lake by curbing the runoff of certain chemicals.

  Local governments in the Piedmont Triad, including Greensboro and towns in Rockingham County, say the rules would force them to spend hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading sewer plants and other public utilities, while at the same time making development more difficult and costly.
  Under some scenarios, cities could be forced to condemn land in older communities in order to build rainwater runoff control features.

  “If we allow those Jordan Lake rules to go into effect, it will cause the loss of jobs in Alamance, Rockingham and Guilford counties,” Allred said.

  Rule opponents also questioned whether they would have the desired effect.

  Although the Department of Environment and Natural Resources wrote the new regulations in response to state and federal laws, opponents have appealed to the General Assembly to stop them from going into effect.

  “I do think I’ll be the only legislator in the watershed who won’t be a co-sponsor of the bill,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat.

  Backers of the rules such as Harrison say they are needed to prevent the lake from being overrun by chemicals that cause certain types of undesirable plant life to flourish. Those outbreaks make it hard to use the lake for recreation or draw from it for drinking water.

  More background here.

House Speaker Joe Hackney will take a second tour as the House's top leader. There was a total lack of drama around the selection, since the Democratic caucus had made its pick weeks ago.

But that doesn't mean there wasn't speechifying to be done.

"We have weathered the economic downturns of the past and we have, with carefully planning, nurtured deficits into surpluses over time. I believe that this crisis will be no different, but for the numbers," Hackney told his colleagues on opening day.

Click here to listen to the whole thing. (16 minutes)

State agencies have sent Gov. Bev Perdue a list of things they could cut in order to close North Carolina's $1.1 billion $1.8 billion $2 billion $3 billion really big budget deficit.

Click here to peruse the list.

A spokeswoman for the governor stresses "these are only options, not recommendations, promises or anything like that."

There's not enough detail to tell much about what might specifically impact Greensboro or the surrounding area.

Update: After speaking with Chrissy Pearson in Perdue's press office, she says the governor is unhappy with the cuts suggested.

"She wants to get a little bit deeper. ... We're talking about making government work more efficiently," Pearson said.

Most of the cuts, she added, were compiled by folks working for Gov. Mike Easley's administration. Perdue has asked her own cabinet secretaries to go back and take a look at what might be cut.

"Some of these options look like they might be reasonable; there are some other things that may not be so reasonable," Pearson said.

I would think some of the public safety or HHS items on the list might go in the unreasonable, or at least likely to cause a ruckus, pile, including:

• * Closing: McCain Correctional Hospital
• * Cutting the DOT funding of the Highway Patrol by $5.8 million
• * Freezing health choice (the state's CHIP program) enrollment to save $4.8 million

It's a foggy, rainy morning here in Raleigh as the General Assembly prepares to fire up the session.

For the uninitiated: Elections were held in November. The General Assembly that convenes today is a brand-spanking new one. The honorables will have to elect officers, rearrange the deck chairs, swap offices and chairmanships, etc.

As for meeting the bosses, they're pretty much the same as the old bosses. House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tempore are widely expected to be re-elected. Of course, Gov. Bev Perdue is less than a month into her first term, and her relationship with the legislature will be closely watched.

From Guilford County: There's only one new player. Sen. Don Vaughan has taken U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's place. Otherwise, your scorecard is the same as last year.

Issues? Yeah, the honorables have got some issues to deal with - complicated policy problems to solve, as well. There's:

• * the budget
• * environmental issues
• * the budget
• * or say ...the budget
• * and did we mention the budget?

The honorables swear to protect, defend and obey at noon today. You can find an audio stream of the pomp and circumstance here.

For those marking their calendars: The session is expected to run through sometime this summer, probably adjourning in late July or August. Then they should go home and return in May 2010. That doesn't account for special session or veto sessions. It's what would happen if everything goes as expected, which may be a bit much to ask this year. Budget problems have a history of making things drag out in unexpected ways.

Everyone buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Following on the N+O's probation work, my N+R colleague Ryan Seals writes:

GREENSBORO - Overwhelmingly big case loads and low pay are overburdening Guilford County's probation system, leaving many offenders without direction or supervision and putting the public at risk.

Of the county's 6,185 probationers, 1,219 of them could not be found as of Wednesday, probation officials said.

Just do the math: Each of the 90 probation officers assigned to Guilford County must keep tabs on nearly 70 probationers.

Good probation officers are leaving, tired of juggling heavy case loads and long hours for little pay. Offenders keep committing crimes in a system meant to help them become productive citizens.

And it costs taxpayers when criminals return to an expensive and crowded prison system. And when innocent people are put in danger.

Also from the story:

"The ultimate question will be with the worsening economy and the deficit we find ourselves in: How are we going to find the resources to tackle the (probation) problem?" said newly elected state Sen. Don Vaughan. "We need to find a way to stretch our resources to make probation effective."

Vaughan, a local attorney with 25 years of experience, plans to make the probation system one of his priorities in the General Assembly. The state also needs to look at how probation cases are handled in the courts, he said.

"On Monday morning, you can wait an hour to an hour and a half just to get inside the courtroom door because of the volume of (probation) cases in Guilford County," Vaughan said.

"It's overwhelming right now, and I think the Eve Carson case in Chapel Hill was the awakening of the state legislature that the system needs attention."

Click here for the whole thing.

From today's paper: the grim news about the state budget.

One of the questions that's pretty common for legislative leaders this time of year is whether they think a tax increase is likely, and if so, what kind.

Senate leader Marc Basnight says he think taxes are a non-starter, with the exception of alcohol and tobacco taxes.(Audio link.) In that same clip, he defends the recent rise in government spending, saying the new construction on university campuses particularly was worth it.

That's one man's opinion, and it is not shared by all.

House Speaker Joe Hackney said, in effect, "maybe" to the idea of new sin taxes but didn't sound real enthusiastic about the idea. (Audio link.) But he did agree that the growth in spending over the past decade was worth the investments made in education. Click here for that clip.

Rep. Hugh Holliman, the Democratic leader in the House, took exception as well. (Audio link.)

Sen. Phil Berger, the Republican leader in the Senate, also has his doubts. From my story:

"North Carolina has one of the highest beer taxes in the nation," said Sen. Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican and his party's leader in the Senate.

"In my district, raising the beer tax could cost jobs," Berger said, alluding to the Miller brewery in Eden.

Berger also had more to say about the budget. In essence, he said, that the state has been able to cut its budget to cope with the recent shortfalls and keep going is proof we're not running as lean as could be.

Among the local issues Greensboro residents will bring to the General Assembly this year is the restoration of protest petition rights. Citizens in every other city in North Carolina has them; Greensboro does not.

For a more thorough explanation of how the issue relates to Greensboro, you can read Amanda Lehmert's story from today's paper.

The short, generic explanation of a protest petition is this: A protest petition signed by five percent of a property's neighbors forces a city council to pass zoning changes with a super majority. It is a tool used by neighbors to sometimes get concessions from developers, or at least a more thorough consideration of a development project.

You can find additional posts on the topic from the Inside Scoop blog as well as editorial writer Allen Johnson's blog.

This line set off an alarm in the back of my head when I read it in Allen's post:

In a fuzzy motion following a lively debate, the council endorsed restoring the tool -- provided representatives of the real estate and building industry and the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress can come to terms on the particulars.

That's not really a clean request from the council. Legislators are simple critters, and the first thing they're going to ask is, "Did the city council endorse this idea?" A straightforward yes goes a long way to winning the argument.

So when I ran into Sen. Phil Berger today, he asked, "What did the council do?" And I had to take a minute to explain they endorsed the idea but wanted the builders and neighborhood advocates to hold hands on a proposal. He just chuckled.

Berger, remember, blocked the protest petition bill last year.

In the legislative long session, which starts next week, unanimity among the delegation isn't required to get a local bill done. That said, if Berger were to kick up a fuss, the bill's path gets harder. Berger will be the senate minority leader, and pro-business arguments are well received in the chamber.

I asked how he might vote on the issue, and Berger said that he hasn't made up his mind. He acknowledged that it does seem odd Greensboro is the only city in the state without protest petitions.

"On the other side you have the developers and the real estate folks saying that it will further harm the economic activity - the slight economic activity that's currently going on. I don't know how much merit to put into that part of the argument, and I'm interested in hearing more about that," Berger said.

And he noted that plenty of counties make zoning decisions and none of them have protest petitions as a recourse for residents. Update: Neither Berger or I knew this at the time of our conversation, but I'm reliably informed by a commenter that Durham County has protest petitions.

"If it’s so critical to (have) citizen input ... why don't we have it in the counties, and why has that not been a problem for the counties?" Berger asked.

If the General Assembly were to go down the path of creating protest petitions for every county that has zoning (not all counties regulate development in that way), there would be quite the stir down here. My guess is the county commissioners group, home builders and about a dozen other groups would come out of the woodwork to do battle over that. And really, I think Berger was posing that as a rhetorical counterpoint than a serious proposal.

Click here to listen to more of my conversation with Berger.

Former state Sen. (and current U.S. Sen.) Kay Hagan has donated the papers from her state office to UNCG. From a news release:

GREENSBORO – U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan has donated the papers from the decade she spent in the North Carolina Senate to The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The Greensboro Democrat was elected to the state Senate in 1998 and served as co-chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee for four years starting in 2003. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in November and took the oath of office in Washington Jan. 6.

University Libraries received the papers in more than a dozen boxes on Jan. 12. A single stack of the correspondence, schedules and other documents would be about 15 feet tall.

“Senator Hagan’s generous gift further enhances the university’s impressive collections related to women’s history and the history of the Piedmont Triad,” said Dean of University Libraries Rosann Bazirjian. “We’re extremely grateful she chose to keep these important papers in her hometown by giving them to UNCG.”

I dropped in on the N.C. Ethics Commission for their meeting today.

One item of note was up for discussion: the commission is getting ready to send a package of requests to the legislature, either for increases in resources or tweaks to their law.

Some make good sense, no matter who you are. For example, they're talking about storing and distributing financial disclosure forms signed by legislators, board members and the like in electronic form. As anyone who has ever made the pilgrimage to the basement of the administration building on Jones Street can tell you, electronic distribution makes a whole lot more sense than having banks and banks of file cabinets.

Some are a little iffy. One example: Currently, "covered persons" - anyone required by law to submit a disclosure form - must report if they own $10,000 or more worth of an individual stock. They don't have to report the amount or number of shares, just that they own it.

William Pope, a board member from Iredell County, said that threshold ought to be raised to $100,000.

Jane Pinsky, director of the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform, was in the audience and suggested that $100,000 might be a tad high.

"For many people in North Carolina, having $10,000 in stock is a lot of money," Pinsky said.

Pope later backed off his thought.

"I don't think there's anything magic about raising it to $100,000," he said. "My personal view is that people are basically honest ... I just think the threshold is too low."

The ethics commission staff said they would look at what other state ethics boards use as a threshold and report back. It seemed like there was general consensus for raising the bar, though. That would mean the public would know of fewer cases where there is a conflict of interest.

Will someone sell their good name for the impact an action may have on $10,000 worth of stock? Who knows? Where's the threshold? Michael Decker sought a $50,000 bribe to keep Jim Black in power, so maybe $50,000 should be the threshold?

Being a reporter, I'm always in the more sunshine is better camp, but could be wrong.

The legislature's Environmental Review Commission heard from Steven Smith, chairman of the EMC, today.

In particular, he gave a summary of the Jordan Lake Rules, which have caused a great deal of consternation in Greensboro and throughout the Triad.

You can click here to listen to his summary of the rules, which basically told the honorables why it is they'll probably be dealing with them during the coming legislative session.

More interesting to me was question from Sen. Stan Bingham, who asked about the impact of agriculture on the nutrients flowing into the lake.

This has been one of the major sore points with city officials, like those in Greensboro, who say they're being required to clean up their act, but that farms are getting off with very little by way of regulation.

"On the Jordan Lake, do you have a feel for these nutrients what portion of that would be agriculture versus residential run-off?" Bingham asked.

Smith's reply: "Not off the top of my head. ... I'm pretty sure that breakdown was done early on in the process."

Bingham replied, "I was just curious if the agriculture side of this contributed quite a bit - I just wondered what steps were being taken to maybe mitigate some of this ..."

Smith said, "One of the things we found was that in this water basin, there is existing agriculture, there's no doubt about it. (But) there is a fairly substantial amount of property that is classified as agriculture but what it really is, is land awaiting development that has been taken out of active agriculture, but I don't mean to say there is not active agriculture in this watershed."

The discussion continued on for a little while after than. You can click here to listen to the full conversation.

Lanier Cansler, the the new DHHS Secretary, (more here) introduced himself to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee for MH-DD-SAS today.

Click here to listen to his seven and a half minutes.

Cansler said he regretted not being able to stay for the whole meeting.

"There's budget cuts that we're trying to decide upon and get over to the state budget office," he said.

In general, Cansler offered a promise to work hard, focus on mental health, issues, etc...

"The mental health thing is important and we are working to make sure we have a new focus, maybe I should say an enhanced focus ... on making sure we develop the community capacity that we need across the state to try to serve folks as appropriately in their communities," he said.

He said state hospitals needed to hone their focus on longer-term and more dangerous patients, which is an old idea but one that hasn't come off in recent years.

"I'm in my third day in this position ... but the one thing that I know that I know the governor wants to do is make sure our hospitals ... make sure that when people come to those facilities for help that they get the quality care they deserve and we meet their needs and that they're safe and they can depend upon having the right kind of care. So one thing I want to make sure we do is we develop a very clear policy of zero tolerance for any kind of abuse or neglect of patients."

He emphasized training and ramping up accountability for those who work in mental hospitals.

"There will be some things we need your help with," Cansler told the legislators.

I put out the audio earlier, but click here for my Q+A with Gov. Easley. Commentary on the interview has come already from Doug Clark on our editorial page and James at BlueNC.

My other story this weekend is something all us scruffy media types tend to write a dozen times over: what's coming up next year during the General Assembly session. This year's story, no matter who has been writing it, pretty much focuses on the gap between what the state wants to pay for and the money it can raise.

Elsewhere in the big wide media world, the N+O's Rob Christensen demonstrates the perils of political prognostication, but goes ahead and forecasts for 2009 anyway.

Winston Salem's James Romoser explores the fact that only one NC inmate was sentenced to death in 2008.

Charlotte's Lew Powell offers his year in review, worth clicking on if only for the graphic.

And by way of confession, seeing this cover from Vanity Fair in the local Target prompted me to surf to the site for the first time in a while:

If you go, this profile of Tina Fey is worth reading, even if it was written by Maureen Dowd.

Now, as I've said to my oldest child this morning, go play outside - it looks like a nice day out.

(Headline cultural reference for the humor impaired.)

Listening to legislators may not be enough. A House panel says you should see how the sausage is made.

From our friends at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A state House panel says the chamber should broadcast live video on the Internet of its daily sessions and some committee meetings.

A House committee approved the idea Thursday, sending the findings to House Speaker Joe Hackney for consideration.

Democratic Rep. Cullie Tarleton of Watauga County, the committee's chairman, said all the equipment should produce broadcast-quality video.

He wants television stations to be able to use the footage, and said someday the equipment may be used to broadcast sessions on television.

The Legislature currently provides only audio from the House and Senate floor and two committee rooms. Setting up video coverage could cost the state more than $1 million in upfront costs, and hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

After they were given unofficial nods to head their chambers again next year, House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight stopped to chat with reporters yesterday.

Basnight talked about cutting back and looking for efficiencies and making sure government programs aren't redundant. But come on, don't we hear that every year?

"When you are forced into situations, you make different kinds of decisions," he said. Basically, he said, yes we always talk about cutting back, but this year we really have to do it.

Click here for more of that answer.

And he offered some thoughts on all the government programs that have gone amuck in this clip.

Hackney was more circumspect, saying "We need to look to programs with a careful eye."

Click here for more of that answer.

Both Hackney and Basnight said there were big problems that needed to be fix in the executive branch agencies but gave Gov. Mike Easley high marks as he prepares to leave office after eight years. I asked Hackney to square those two thoughts.

Click here to listen to that. (No, he really didn't answer the question.)

And click here for more of Hackney's thoughts on the session.

House Democrats once again chose Rep. Joe Hackney as their nominee for Speaker. Like Basnight, he'll have to wait until the first day of session before the choice will be official. Given that Democrats hold a majority of seats in the House and there's little dissension in the ranks, Hackney will almost certainly win a second term as the House's top dog.

Rep. Hugh Holliman of Davidson County will once again serve as majority leader.

After the caucus meeting this afternoon, Hackney said he was looking forward to working with Republicans, the new governor, the Senate, etc... to tackle the problems that need tackling. Like Basnight, he put the ailing probation system and mental health at the top of his list, adding that education classroom spending needed to be held harmless.

Asked about the budget gap Hackney observed that we really don't know what the budget numbers are. The folks predicting a $1.3 billion current year deficit and those predicting a $3 billion deficit can both make a case.

But both numbers are "pretty raw speculation" Hackney said.

While Basnight talked about the need to find new revenue - even if only through closing tax loopholes - Hackney was much more circumspect about looking for new money to spend.

The House and Senate Democrats are getting together today to choose their leaders.

First up have been Senate Democrats, who just a few minutes ago finished choosing Sen. Marc Basnight as their candidate for President Pro Tempore. He won't be officially chosen until the opening day of session. The whole body has a say in that vote, but Democrats hold 30 of the 50 seats so their choice is pretty much guaranteed election.

This would be Basinght's ninth term.

Sen. R.C. Soles will once again server as caucus chairman. Word is today is Soles' birthday and they were supposed to have cake to celebrate. But sources inside the meeting say there was no cake - maybe a reflection of the economic times.

Sen. Katie Dorsett, of Greensboro, will once again serve as whip.

When some scruffy reporter types caught up to Basnight after the meeting, he talked about the next year and things the General Assembly has to get into. He cited problems with the probation system along with ongoing problems like mental health reform.

"We're seeing a mismanaged government, that has to be corrected," Basnight said.

He also talked about finding efficiency in government and cutting costs where costs can be cut - sounded darn near like some Republicans I've talked to recently.

House Democrats are meeting as I type. They are expected to chose Hackney as Speaker.

From today's papers:

PED staff ponders ways to make ABC system more profitable.

The Division of Mental Health takes a hard look at the Alamance, Caswell, Rockingham LME. Wake and Orange County are in the same boat the N+O says.

Related reports.

The General Assembly has a research arm called the Program Evaluation Division that looks into various aspects of state government and suggests places where there might be some improvement.

Two reports of interest came along today.

First up, the PED concludes North Carolina's alcohol control laws are antiquated and in need of an update.

What, just because there are 158 different local ABC boards, some of which compete directly with one another and at least a few of which lose money every year?

One of the more clearly understood recommendations of the PED was to give the state ABC Board more latitude to regulate the local boards. That way, stores that barely turn a profit can get some help or be consolidated in ways that make sense.

The report is at this link.

Related only in a tangential sort of way, the PED issued the second of three planned reports on the state's mental health system.

The bullet out of the meeting for me was that five mental health systems, including the one that operates in Rockingham County, have been told they need to improve or the state will take a major set of functions away.

Patients coming home from state mental hospitals only get seen by providers in their communities about 54 percent of the time on average. That's not good.

But the Rockingham, Alamance, Caswell system was among five systems where that performance was even worse that the state average.

According to Leza Wainwright, on the co-directors of the division, the state has told them they need to shape up or follow-up care responsibilities will be moved elsewhere.

The PED report itself talks about the need for better follow-up and tracking of patients coming out of state hospitals and the need for more critical care mental health beds in communities. If you've been following the ongoing problems with the state mental health system, neither recommendation will come as much of a surprise.

Click here for the report.

From my contribution to today's paper:

Even as issues of energy supplies and conservation have gained national and international importance, a legislative oversight committee responsible for keeping watch over the state’s utility regulators and power companies has met just once during the past six years.

The Joint Legislative Utility Review Committee has been dormant even as the state has enacted new and sometimes controversial laws to encourage conservation and new energy technologies.

Although the committee’s mission may be more important now than when it was formed in 1985, advocates and other legislators complain its co-chairmen have passed on exercising their oversight powers. And, they note, both chairmen are beneficiaries of campaign donations from the power industry and one of them now works for a power cooperative.

"There's never been a more important time to be thoughtful about energy policy," said Rep. Pricey Harrison , a Greensboro Democrat and one of the panel’s 10 members. "This committee is precisely situated to engage in that kind of discussion and oversight, and it’s very frustrating to me we’re not engaging in that."

Click here for the story.

Other good stuff:

• * My colleague (and fantasy football commissioner) Jason Hardin writes about the life of undocumented immigrants here in North Carolina. One anecdote:

  Moises Campos Palencia was on his way to realizing the American dream — a wife, a young daughter, a business he started from scratch.

  Until it all fell apart at a traffic light in High Point a few months ago.

  A police officer pulled him over, saying he’d turned left on red. The next thing Palencia knew, he was in a detention center in Georgia, awaiting deportation.

  Although he had lived in the United States since he was a boy, brought here by his parents, Palencia hadn’t been able to attain citizenship, despite his efforts.

• * The N+O revisits the probation and parole office in force:

  Since the start of 2000, 580 people have killed in North Carolina while under the watch of state probation officers -- 17 percent of all convictions for intentional killings.

  The high profile killing of UNC student Eve Carson is part of this story, as are hundreds of other cases. The killer line in the story is the quote from Corrections Secretary Theodis Beck:

  "This is not something we would have expected to deal with," Beck said. "We're here because of the failure of two cases out of 117,000."

  Granted this is something that three reporters and a team of others at the N+O spent a year on. But if a group of outsiders can figure out this stuff, surely the people who own the data and actually manage the system can...right?

  The N+O has two more parts to this series coming, and I wouldn't expect them to be warm and fuzzy follow-ups.

That's the early take this morning. Let me know what you're reading.

Update: This came to me by way of a Facebook link posted by an acquaintance of mine at the Inky: Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA. It's worth a read and listen.

President George W. Bush (remember him!) was in Greensboro today. My friend and colleague Gerald Witt has the story here.

(Credit: Jerry Wolford / News & Record)

Meanwhile, Gov. Mike Easley (remember him!) and governor-elect Bev Perdue were up in Pennsylvania today talking about federal aid for states.

(Credit: The Associated Press)

The Associated Press reported:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ North Carolina Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue says Barack Obama is speaking her kind of language when it comes to an economic recovery plan.

Perdue was on hand Tuesday as the president-elect spoke to current and soon-to-be governors in Philadelphia. Obama pledged to make quick work on an economic stimulus package that would include tax cuts and federal spending.

Perdue told The Associated Press in a phone interview she liked that Obama is interested in giving states money for water and sewer upgrades and other improvements - and not just road repairs. She also appreciated Obama saying that state leaders aren't to blame for the bad economy.

Perdue said she talked with Obama on Monday night during an event for Democratic governors.

Outgoing Gov. Mike Easley also was in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, important people in the legislature will be running to stay important this month.

Legislative Republicans are due to meet in Greensboro this Sunday to choose leaders.

Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam is running again for minority leader in the House, and there's no mention of a challenger in the rumor mill.

Meanwhile, Rockingham County Republican Phil Berger will have competition for his seat. Sens. Bob Rucho of Mecklenburg and Pete Brunstetter of Forsyth are running for the right to lead the 20-seat Republican minority in the Senate.

I don't know either Brunstetter or Rucho well. I will say that Berger and Stam are cut somewhat of the same cloth. They don't play angry, take their victories where they can get them, are confrontational with the majority when it suits their purposes but not overly so. Brunstetter seems like he may be from that same mold but those that know him say Rucho may be a bit more inclined to get in Basnight's face a bit.

Democrats will hold a similar leadership election exercises later this month (Dec. 17) and House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight are expected to hold onto their posts.

(Editor's note: I've deleted a final sentence that was in an earlier version of the post that was copied and pasted into the post out of context and, in fact, made no darned sense as written.)

Believe it or not, the North Carolina Zoo has its very own legislative study committee.

And that committee is getting ready to make some recommendations that could help the zoo go from a day-trip attraction to a destination for over-night travelers.

Of course, it could also lead to taxpayers plowing more dollars into the attraction.

First a little background.

Earlier this year, there was a big referendum down in Asheboro on allowing alcohol sales within the Asheboro city limits. As mentioned by my colleague Joe Killian at the time, this is in part expected to help the zoo's expansion plans.

Those plans, as laid out for the study committee last week, include a third "continent," what the zoo calls its major exhibit areas. Already there are North America and Africa. Asia would be the third group of animal habitats.

As one who has hoofed it through the entire zoo, a good bit of that way carrying a sleepy four-year-old on his shoulders, the zoo is already a full day. Adding a third area would definitely put it beyond the see-it-all-in-one-day threshold.

Of course, Zoo Director David Jones made the case to Killian back in August that the zoo was already a multi-day affair:

"To do the zoo properly, you really need to be here for at least a day and a half," Jones said. "If you can encourage people to stay the night, their spending goes to about $145 a day."

Jones said the zoo has been looking to expand, add a new continent exhibit and draw in multiday visitors for years -- but the alcohol ban made things more difficult with potential investors and visitors.

The Asia continent is on the long-range capitol planning spreadsheet he gave committee members last week.

However, to meet existing renovation needs (for example: the zoo is in the process of improving its polar bear tanks and replacing its African Pavilion already) and build for the future, it needs a source of income.

One idea the study committee just might endorse is allowing the zoo to use more of the money it gets from ticket sales to go toward a special capitol fund. That money could be used to repay bonds that pay for repairs, renovations and expansions.

The upside is the zoo would not have to come to the General Assembly every year to ask for money for individual capitol projects. (No more legislative debates about polar bears and large animal barns.)

The downside is the zoo uses ticket sales to pay for staff and other operational costs now. If that money were shifted away, it would need to be replaced with tax dollars - probably to the tune of $4 million.

It's not a crazy idea - the Zoo is a state agency operating under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. But with big old budget deficits staring the state in the face, now isn't exactly the best time to go prospecting for tax dollars.

DENR Sec. William Ross endorsed that idea in a letter to the committee last week. (You'll note, he didn't endorse the idea of making the zoo a free-standing agency or its own nonprofit.)

Rep. Harold Brubaker, a Randolph County Republican who manages to get things done despite his affiliation with the minority party, said that 2009 may not be the year to get a change in zoo funding done. But he said that 2010 or 2011 might be.

The upshot of the expansion would be the zoo could then attract an up-scale hotel on-site or nearby. (And yes, if it were on-site there would need to be a fix to the Umstead Act.) Jones also mentioned an additional attraction, like a theater.

If more folks started staying over night, that generates more business for local businesses and, of course, more government revenue from taxes on things like hotel nights and restaurant meals.

More coming in a story due to be published later this week.

I'm back at the day job after hosting Capitolbeat 2008 with the Barkeep and able assists from Jordan, Eszter and James.

Speaking of Capitolbeat, locals may be interested in former N+O reporter Pat Stith's reflections on investigative journalism. Stith was our keynoter Saturday night and we were honored to have him.

In the mean time, Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue is getting ready to become Gov. Perdue early next month.

The Junior League here in Raleigh is hosting a series of inaugural events, including a big shindig the night before the actual swearing in.

NOTED: the sponsors of the events include AT&T, Duke Energy, McGuire Woods, GlaxoSmithKline, University of Phoenix and BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina. In every case, I can think of one or two things they might be asking various organs of state government over the next four years. (And full disclosure, my Capitolbeat conference had quite a few sponsors, including Pew and the national Wine and Spirit's Wholesalers.)

In other newly elected governor news:

• * Perdue has put up a "suggestion box" on the internet. "During this transition period I believe it's important for citizens to be engaged in their government and to have input – this is a way for them to do that," Perdue said in a press release.

• * Zach Ambrose will be Perdue's chief of staff when the new administration takes hold. According to the news release, "Ambrose served as Lt. Governor Perdue’s Chief of Staff from 2005 – 2007 and managed her gubernatorial campaign. A North Carolina native, Ambrose has degrees in Electrical Engineering and Russian from MIT and served five years in the US Navy."

Looking toward the General Assembly, the legislative calendar is filling up with a bunch of study and oversight committees in advance of the honorables scheduled return on Jan. 28.

Recommendations from the study committee don't have a whole lot more procedural oomph at this point than bills filed cold, but you can get a sense of what leadership considers critical issues for the upcoming session. Consider there are the following:

• * Municipal Incorporations, Joint Legislative Commission on
• * Dropout Prevention and High School Graduation, Joint Legislative Commission
• * N.C. Zoological Park Funding and Organization Study Committee
• * House Select Committee on the Legal Aspects of Using Lottery Proceeds for Charter School Funding
• * Potential Impact of Major Hurricanes on the NC Insurance Industry, Joint Select Committee on the

That's in addition to the regular litany of oversight and study committees.

And just to round this out to the third branch of government, the N.C. Supreme Court is due to take up Dept. of Correction v Medical Board, which is the case involving the issues that have the state's death penalty in a virtual deadlock. I found the AMA brief useful in understanding both sides of the discussion.

With all that going on, what's on your mind? What corner of state government ought to get a check-up in the coming months? Drop me a line via the comment link below.

From today's paper:

RALEIGH - Governor-elect Bev Perdue says O. Max Gardner, a governor and Democratic power broker in the first half of the 20th century, is one of her favorite political figures in Tar Heel history. Gardner was in office at the beginning of the Great Depression, and Perdue said he set an example relevant to the current economic crisis.

"He used the time as a transformational period for the state of North Carolina," Perdue said. Instead of simply cutting the state's budget, Gardner invested in roads and universities so the state would be positioned to prosper when the economy turned around.

And even as North Carolina faces a budget shortfall that could be as large as $1.6 billion this year, according to state economists, Perdue says the state needs to invest in education, transportation and other pillars of economic development.

"The day I take office, I'm going to be prepared to deal with a global economic crisis," Perdue said.

Gov. Mike Easley, whose term ends in January, has ordered state agencies to cut as much as 5 percent from their budgets. The goal, according to officials who briefed legislative leaders last week, is to have $1.2 billion extra on hand to plug shortfalls in the $21 billion budget the General Assembly passed last year. That doesn't account for extra cuts that would be needed if problems worsen, or another $300 million shortfall faced by the state-funded employee health plan.

Click here for the whole thing.

Related.

The Joint Legislative Commission on Government Operations is just about as much fun as the name implies. Basically, it's the legislature's way of keeping tabs on things even when the General Assembly is not in session.

Today the members got some reports that may make them wonder why they bothered running for re-election.

In particular, Economist Barry Boardman of the Fiscal Research Division and Charles Perusse, Director of the Office of State Management and Budget, dropped these little nuggets:

• * The government is managing what looks to be a $1.2 billion hole in the budget, give or take $400 million or so. If you want a quick overview of what is going on with the economy, check out this presentation. I would point especially to page 15, where collections of real estate transfer taxes fall off the edge of the Earth.

• * That shortfall doesn't include what's likely to be a needed $300 million fix to the state health pan.

• * As a result, the governor has upped the ante on budget cuts. Agencies originally asked for 2 percent trims are now being asked for upwards of 5 percent cuts.

According to Perusse, savings will come from several places. The Medicaid program is not sucking up as much money as was budgeted, due in part to lower costs in the mental health programs. He warned, however, that could and most likely will change.

The state is putting off some pay-as-you-go construction projects, although bond-funded projects are still on track. Agencies that are being asked for 5 percent cuts in several areas, including most general government functions, Environment and Natural Resources and the Commerce Department. DJJDP, the juvenile justice agency with in DOJ, is also being asked for 5 percent. There is some flexibility, Perusse said, for "hardship agencies" that would not be able to make cuts without cutting critical services.

Still, to completely balance out the $1.2 billion hole, if it gets that big, the governor's staff relies on $287 million from the state's rainy day fund. That wouldn't wipe out the fund, but the idea didn't sit well with some legislators.

Rep. Mickey Michaux of Durham, for example, said that the rainy day money might be better spent on the health plan's problems rather than plugging holes in revenues.

The good news is that officials are aware of the problem and are making cuts and otherwise addressing the problems so the state's books will remain in the black. That means Bev Perdue won't have a big old deficit to manage when she walks into office.

"He (Gov. Mike Easley) was adamant in his direction to me that he wanted a management plan in place that would allow the next government to inherit a balanced budget," Perusse told the committee today. Also in the relatively good news column is the fact North Carolina is not as bad off as some other states where cuts have been more immediate and Draconian.

The bad news, of course, is constructing the next state budget is going to be absolutely no fun at all. Boardman projected that the downturn in the economy (which creates a downturn in tax collections) will last well into 2010. That means right as demand for government services (unemployment benefits, Medicaid, education, etc...) goes up, the state is going to have less money to put into all that stuff.

Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue has brought the somewhat volatile topic of stem cell research into the gubernatorial campaign, both through a policy statement on the topic and a recent ad:

When asked about the ad last night, McCrory said, "I've never heard her bring up this subject in her eight years as Lt. Governor."

However, the topic has come up.

Greensboro Rep. Earl Jones, a Democrat, ran this bill, which was a tamer version of earlier proposals. The latest draft of the bill, which passed the House but died in the Senate, would only have led to research guidelines for stem cell research. Earlier proposals would have put state funding into embryonic stem cell research.

State funding is now something that Perdue says she favors.

More background on that legislative discussion here, here, here and here.

I asked Jones about the issue coming up in the campaign, and he said that Perdue was supportive when the bill crossed over from the House to the Senate.

"She called me directly," Jones said. "Perdue was very supportive; she was the first person in the Senate to call me."

Jones rightly said his bill got bogged down by the political debate surrounding embryonic stem cells. In particular, some people who oppose abortion tend to oppose embryonic stem cell research and bring intense and vocal pressure to bear.

You can find more on the topic from the National Academy of Sciences and the Boston Globe, which has a whole page dedicated to the topic. (It's a bit out of date now, but worth a read anyway.) Also, the topic seems to be bubbling up in the presidential campaign.

The Decision 2008 blog and related election work has been keeping me hopping lately, but the wheels of government continue to turn here in Raleigh.

Some of those wheels can be found at the North Carolina Supreme Court, which has the lawsuit seeking to end the lottery on its docket for Monday.

The case was brought by the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, a conservative legal think tank based in Raleigh, on behalf of several plaintiffs, including Rep. Paul Stam, the Republican minority leader in the House.

Click here for the institute's document library on the case, which includes filings from both sides.

The lawsuit doesn't allege that North Carolina can't have a lottery. Rather, it makes the case that the lottery is tax and a pledge of the full faith and credit of the taxpayers, and therefore needed to be passed as a "revenue bill," essentially requiring votes on two separate days in each chamber of the legislature.

For those who care to get in the way-back machine and head back to the 2005, the North Carolina legislature was a bit more rough and tumble than it is today. Rep. Jim Black, a Democrat now doing time in the federal pokey following conviction on corruption charges, was Speaker of the House. It passed the House on a 61-59 vote and was confirmed on a voice vote, rather than being voted on two separate days.

Months later, the Senate approved the bill after being deadlocked over the measure. Here's what I wrote at the time:

RALEIGH - North Carolina is about to join the lottery club thanks to a hastily called legislative session and a rare tie-breaking vote cast by the lieutenant governor.

Supporters of the game sounded more relieved than elated that Tar Heels would relinquish their status as the only state on the East Coast without a government-run game.

"I'm glad we passed it," said Sen. Katie Dorsett, a Democrat from Greensboro. "I wanted it to end. If people all around us are having the lottery , we might as well bring that money to our state."

[snip]

The House approved the lottery legislation in April, after which the issue cast a shadow over the Senate. As other business chugged through the chamber, speculation about lottery prospects and how it might come to pass has consumed staff members, lobbyists and senators themselves.

A coalition of five Democrats and all 21 Republican senators had blocked the bill.

Last week, that coalition held and Senate leaders sent their colleagues home and promised no more votes for the year.

But Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, a Dare County Democrat, reversed that decision late Friday, recalling all 50 senators to meet this week.

Two lottery opponents - both Republicans - could not make the session Tuesday. Sen. Harry Brown of Jacksonville is on his honeymoon; Sen. John Garwood from Wilkes County was too ill to attend.

Neither took advantage of a Senate rule that would allow their votes to be counted in their absence. Although some lottery opponents complained leaders didn't give proper notice of the session or ample opportunity for Brown and Garwood to record their wishes, Basnight and Berger said that was not the case.

The two opponents' absences left the measure deadlocked at 24-24.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the lottery . It was the first time since 1996 that a North Carolina lieutenant governor had played such a role in the Senate.

Lottery opponents still grumble about the way the Senate vote went down. So far, the courts haven’t sided with lottery opponents, but the Supreme Court oral arguments should be fascinating anyway.

Courts generally seem reluctant to tell other branches of government how to carry out their business, mindful of the separation of powers. But the Supreme Court took the case, so you have to figure there is some chance they'd rule against the lottery. Such a ruling would put official Raleigh in a tizzy, if for no other reason that outlawing the thing would throw the budget completely out of whack - not to mention all those lottery players who would be holding lottery tickets of dubious value.

...it took the House all of seven minutes to vote 92-7 93-7 (one member changed her vote after the fact) to override the governor's veto. The big boats bill now goes to Senate, which is expected to give it a similar vote approval.

This would be the first time Gov. Mike Easley (or any governor) has been over-ridden on a veto.

Update: The Senate voted 39-0 with one pair to over-ride the veto.

For those scoring at home, that means Easley's veto has been thoroughly ignored.

Is that a quack I hear?

Here is how the Associate Press wrote it up:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ For the first time in state history, North Carolina lawmakers have voted to override a governor's veto.

Members of the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to override Gov. Mike Easley's rejection of a new law easing the restrictions on the towing of boats.

Easley rejected a measure approved last month that allows boats up to 10 feet wide to be towed without a permit. The new law also allows boats up to 9 1/2 feet wide to be towed at night.

House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman said lawmakers tried to work out a compromise with Easley before Wednesday's vote, but were unsuccessful.

North Carolina lawmakers have never overridden a veto since the state's governors were given the power in 1996.

Update: Three more members have been allowed to vote after they showed up to the House session late. But their votes don't change the outcome.

Update: An hour and nine minutes after coming in, the General Assembly is out of here.

As I mentioned, Gov. Mike Easley has vetoed a bill that would allow people to transport wide boats on state roads without a permit.

And apparently some readers picked up a bit or sarcasm when I said the honorables would be “delighted” to head back to Raleigh to reconsider this thing. A bit.

Here’s why: The constitution does require the honorables to be brought back into session if there’s a veto by the governor, unless they turn down the opportunity in writing. That’s been done before.

And while a special session isn’t unprecedented or all that uncommon in recent history, it’s still kind of a big deal. The fact that a big deal is being made over the boat bill might be a little less noxious if there weren’t other things that might actually might warrant a special session in some folks’ estimation lurking about, like say:

• * An under-funded state health plan.
• * Continuing problems in the state mental health system.
• * Shortfalls in road construction funding.

So is running back to Raleigh so people who schlep around 9.5-foot boats can tow them at night, over narrow two-lane roads while moderately beered up a good idea? You tell me.

On the flip side, it doesn’t seem like the honorables are planning on taking a whole lot of time redrafting the legislation or otherwise messing about.

The bill first goes to the House and Rep. Hugh Holliman, the Democratic leader there, said this morning “I don’t anticipate spending a lot of time with it.”

He said that barring some breakthrough, folks should expect to see an up-or-down veto over-ride vote. And, he said, this is unlikely to be a caucus decision, which means each individual member will be free to vote their conscience.

“I don’t think you’ll see any arm twisting,” Holliman said.

Three-fifths of those who show up tomorrow will get a vote on the bill. If everyone who voted for it the first time votes for the bill this time around, the veto should be easily overridden. There were only five “no” votes on its final passage in the House, including Reps. Bordsen, Fisher, Insko, Luebke and Wess. The final senate vote was 43-0.

Two updates: A couple of folks have passed on thoughts regarding the boat bill. The first (actually, the first couple) suggested that maybe Easley should get a dart for calling the General Assembly back the session when it looks like he could be massively voted down on a relatively minor bill.

Point taken. This doesn't really strike one as a case of choosing one battle's wisely. And if Easley does suffer his first veto over-ride, that could be a reason: legislators hacked off about the bad timing and the odd thing to pick a fight about.

Secondly, a friend in the Senate President Pro Tempore's office sent along some "stats for your enjoyment." So I thought you'd enjoy too. This is the pro-side of the boat bill argument. (Just to be really clear, I don't give a rats behind much about what the law is, but it seems to me there are issues with bigger constituencies that might be addressed.)

Safety issues

* Current law forces wide boats to travel during daytime hours when traffic is more congested. This bill allows boaters to travel early in the morning or at night, or on weekends and holidays, when school buses are not on the road and traffic is not as heavy.

* This bill requires new safety measures for boats and trailers – boats and trailers wider than 8 ½ feet must be equipped with amber lights at their widest point to ensure greater visibility.

* Existing law already requires someone pulling a boat/trailer in excess of 10,000 pounds to be 18 or older.

* Of 230,000 total vehicle accidents statewide (yearly average), an average of about 7 accidents per year involve boats greater than 8 feet wide.

* From 2005-2007, fewer than 5% of boat trailers involved in accidents were wider than 8 ½ feet.

* For accidents that were directly due to boat width (sideswipes and hitting parked vehicles), on average, there were only 2 accidents per year involving boats wider than 8 ½ feet.

Economic issues

* NC is home to more than 3,000 boatbuilding or boating-related companies, employing more than 25,000 workers.

* More than $500 million in sales of boats, motors, and boating equipment is generated annually in NC – fifth in the country.

* NC has 370,000 registered boats, ranking 11th in the US in boat registrations.

* NC is 4th in the nation in the number of outboard (trailerable) boats.

* NC saw more than $662 million in total boating trip spending in 2007.

* Boating and fishing are important sectors of NC’s tourism economy.

* Since 2007, boat sales in NC have dropped by more than 20 percent.

* More than 14% of the boatbuilding workforce has been laid off within the past year.

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

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

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

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

The Barkeep has