News-Record.com

Don’t panic.

Really.

I know you heard about that debate on the House floor last week. You know, the one about the ethics bill.

Yes, that quote from Mecklenburg County Democrat Drew Saunders is pretty much all you need to know about it.

"Even baby Jesus accepted gifts and I don't believe it corrupted him," Saunders told the chamber. I’m not sure what kind of reaction that line got on the floor - I couldn't hear over the guffaws from my fellow scribes listening in the pressroom.

The honorables didn’t manage to slander any other major religious figures during the remainder of the debate, but you sort of got the feeling these boys and girls were missing the point.

But don’t panic.

Really. This could all turn out okay...sort of...maybe...I think.

RALEIGH – For those outside of Raleigh, it wasn’t much of a pronouncement. Sure, it could make sneaking last minute items into the state’s $18.8 billion budget harder by changing one of the longest held traditions in the legislature, but will it really mean anything?

“I’ll mention one of those changes that will occur whenever we negotiate with the House to work the difference the changes on our budget versus their budget, it will be open and will notify you as quickly as we know ourselves,” said Democratic Sen. Marc Basnight, the president pro tempore and the head honcho in his chamber. He was speaking to a group of reporters the day after the Senate rolled out its budget. “Any kind of discussion and the meeting of what’s occurring in that budget negotiation will be public.”

All that might seem like meaningless gobbly-gook. But here’s why it just may mean something to everyone.

For as long as anyone I’ve talked to can remember, the conference committees between the House and Senate that negotiate the final budget legislators send to the governor has been closed door affairs.

And they are, we scrubby media types have been lead to believe, one of the prime venues for strange little bits of pork (you like your teapot museum with one lump or two) and un-debated changes to state law.

Oh, and they are specifically exempted from the state’s open meetings laws.

Allowing the public to scrutinize the process would presumably discourage some of that last minute largess, or at least give folks a chance to weigh in before the final draft comes along.

It would also allow folks to see part of the real game. Sure, the governor puts out his plan; the honorables nod, and set off writing their own. We in the press slavishly follow the House and Senate budgets that are put out. But it’s really the compromise between those two positions where real governance happens. Here-to-fore, only those cutting the deals really knew how they were cut.

So will the House go for it? It seems so.

“I have nothing to hide, so it’s okay with me,” said House Speaker Jim Black. Like Basnight, Black lays down the law for budget negotiations on his side of the building.

Opening the conference committees up seem to be one more thing the honorables are willing to do in an attempt to restore public confidence in the General Assembly after nearly a year of stories about ethical lapses and lapses in judgment at the highest levels.

So this could really be something?

Yes, say advocates for government reform.

“The more eyes on a process the better, always,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of North Carolina Common Cause. Phillips has the unenviable job of convincing people with power, influence and all the rest of it to give up bits of their power, influence and what not.

“The way the current system is set up, it’s difficult to know – much less have any ability to shape – what’s coming out until the deal has been cut,” Phillips said. So a change in that system could be a good thing.

Could be.

“It will be interesting to see even with open conference committee meetings, whether that is true openness,” Phillips said.

Dang. It’s reality check time.

Basnight himself offered a few caveats on all this openness.

“Now there will be no open door when the Speaker (Black) and myself sit down,” Basnight said. As he describes it, those meetings are “only a small part of the process” and really geared toward “shutting down the session” rather than dealing in specifics.

And Basnight said there may be informal meetings among some of the chairman of various appropriation subcommittees and their counterparts that won’t be announced.

O-kay. Those aren’t big loopholes or anything. Curiously enough, they’re not ones Phillips begrudges.

“I even understand how there need to be some conversations on process that are closed,” Phillips said, quickly adding, “On those final decisions, you want to have that out there in the open.”

And it sounds like that’s what Basnight plans, and Black is willing to go along with.

“The actual negotiations between the differences, these chairs will open it up,” Basnight said.

There are problems, sure. Whether any of us scrubby press types will actually be able to scramble to all the last minute conference sessions is a big question. And I don’t think anyone really believes that all the behind closed door wheeling and dealing will go away – call me a cynic, everyone else does.

Still, the effort to make things more transparent seems to be there, in some part.

Whether that leads to a budget with fewer teapots and more respect from the public remains to be seen.

Rumors. You got to love 'em.

The General Assembly is about as fertile of a petri dish for baloney as one is likely to find. And we scrubby media types that hang there spend a lot of time chasing down the latest "have you heard...."

Yes, sure, a lot of that turns out to be mindless fluff or the debris at the end of a big game of "telephone."

But sometimes the latest rumor to waft your way has at least a kernel of truth to it. Case in point: the legend of the pork budget - and no, we're not talking about buying hog farms.

Sometimes, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, or pitch it all and go off to find a beer and gripe about the downfall of democracy. (Full column after the jump.)

A sure sign that someone writing a column is either getting lazy or hasn’t had time to fully develop an idea that week comes when they present readers with of those Odds and Ends sort of dispatches that touches on a few subjects, none of them very in depth.

To wit:

Jim Phillips

"Greensboro lawyer" Jim Phillips was elected chairman of the UNC Board of Governors. I use quotes around Greensboro lawyer, because that’s how pretty much all of scrubby media types referred to him.

It wasn't until I got to reading one of the snarky inside-baseball pubs that circulate here in Cap City that it fully hit me that we could should have been a bit more descriptive. (More after the jump.)

You might be one who thinks the influence of moneyed interest in politics is pernicious. You may be among those who say candidates shouldn’t have to scrounge for dollars in order to win.

And yes, an argument can be made that money’s influence on our political system has been corrosive to the public trust.

All that said, the lifeblood of a modern era political campaign, especially one with the size and scope of a Congressional contest, is money.

As of his last Federal Election Commission report, Sixth District Republican incumbent Howard Coble had about $824,501 in the bank. When the next reports are filed in July, bet on Coble having amassed more, not less.

His Democratic challenger Rory Blake has not as of yet filed a campaign finance report. Either Blake is blatantly flouting the law, or has not raised enough to trip the $5,000 threshold that makes filing organization papers for a campaign committee mandatory.

I ran into Blake at the Democratic convention High Point Saturday and he said the answer was the latter.

Blake said that he has switched his plan from self-financing the campaign to raising money over the internet.

“So far, it hasn’t come in yet,” he said, greeting various well wishers who passed by in the hallway of the High Point Theatre.

And so I poised the question to him: If you’re facing a long-time incumbent with a mammoth war chest, what are his fellow Democrats to think of someone who hasn’t raised enough to broach the most minimum of legal filing requirements.

“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “It does look like a competitive race and on paper it’s not.” He then paused and said, “I’ve got 19 weeks.”

That time frame might be generous. While it is 19 weeks to Election Day, North Carolina’s voters wake from their traditional summer political slumber when students return to school. Things really heat up in September and politicians need to be ready to reach their constituents.

Blake is unbowed, and said he has been walking door to door to make up for the lack of campaign cash. And he said plans were in the works for a fall push.

“We have a good plan, and I think when the plan come to fruition we’re going to surprise a lot of people,” Blake said. “I’ve had a wonderful reception, I’ve been very encouraged.”
Really?

Really, says Blake.

In part, he is counting on a strong national trend against Republicans. The war in Iraq, the president’s falling poll numbers and what he sees as miscues on domestic issues will hurt Republican incumbents like Coble.

“I’ve been in races before where you know you’re going to loose,” he said. “This is not one of those.”

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

Linkage:

• Click here for Rory Blake’s campaign web site.
• Click here for Howard Coble’s campaign web site.
• Click here for FEC reports on Howard Coble.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the push toward ending the legislative session is upon us. (My take, after the jump.)

One of my dirty little secrets is that I actually like and respect most of the elected officials I run into during an average day. Sure, there’s a few that hack me off from time to time, but by and large I respect the effort it takes to put aside one’s personal and professional life and try to do some good in the world.

There are, of course, days when the doings down here in Cap City are enough to drive me to the balcony of either chamber and start bellowing lines from famous plays, like Big Daddy’s line from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:

“Mendacity! You won't live with mendacity! Well, you're an expert at it. The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman you don't love any more. Truth is dreams that don't come true, and nobody prints your name in the paper till you die.”

The AP and N+O have reported that UNC-TV is cutting two public affairs programs, including the well-regarded Legislative Week in Review.

This here is bad news not only for policy wonks and government junkies, but is just the latest indicators of something that should be disturbing for voters and citizens in general.

Note: “Raleigh Dispatch” is usually a once-a-week deal, sort of meant as a column/test case/place holder for a slow day. But my high horse was at a gallop on Friday, so here’s a second one for the week.

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

There have been plenty of opportunities to write about the honorables making hash of ethics and campaign reform this year. Every time a lobbying or other similar bill hits the floor of the House or Senate, you can pretty much be sure someone is going to at least make you scratch your head and wonder where it is they’re coming from.

After a bruising legislative battle to get a $1 hike in the minimum wage passed, you’d think Rep. Alma Adams would be ready to take some time off before jumping into the soup again.

You’d be wrong.

The honorables have vacated Cap City in favor of whatever Tar Heel territory sent them here. And, before long, a good many of them are going to start trying to convince folks in that territory to send them back. You can expect one of the big campaign issues to be ethics reform.

Don't get too excited about what you hear, good or bad.

Around this time last year, pundits had started forecasting that a combination of Black’s troubles and a blue moon election would land Republicans in power in Raleigh.

And the voters said “Ha!”

There are few things in our democratic system that can be called truly immutable truths.

And as much as the 2006 elections answered questions we’ve been asking for a long time – can national Dems really ride a “tidal wave,” will Jim Black hurt his party here in N.C., etc… – we sit on the brink on the new year with a whole new set of questions.

Among the big ones, for me, are these:

In years past, I’d be writing a column right now either:

• Letting folks know that the legislators from the Triad/Guilford County don’t figure to be very powerful in the next legislative session; or
• Things are looking up, sort of, for local legislators in the next session.

Consider this down-in-the-mouth prose from a 1998 News & Record editorial, lamenting the fact that a lack of legislative horsepower has resulted in a lack of state dollars:

“Guilford County has learned that lesson the hard way. All too often, Guilford has come out on the losing end of legislative showdowns, trumped by counties with more effective and powerful delegations.”

Yeesh.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that the honorables from Guilford County or the broader area will run roughshod over the joint during the next two years. But during the past few years, the current team of local legislators has clawed their way up in terms of power and influence.

Right around the time the House Democrats were settling into hour number two last Wednesday of their meeting to choose their pick to replace Speaker Jim Black, this thought crossed my mind:

“What in the world are we all doing here?”

Economic development incentives have raised my professional hackles for a while now. There’s something noxious to our supposed open system of government about the agreements that state and local governments reach to give businesses taxpayer-funded goodies behind closed doors.

Well, the legislative building was chock full of representatives, senators, lobbyists, scruffy media types and others hangers-on this week. Something important must have been going down, huh?

Yes and no.

When Gov. Mike Easley spoke out forcefully for the first time on the Duke Lacrosse Case, he was a 500 mile drive up I-95.

Easley was talking to a group of NYU law students in New York, reported the News & Observer, when he blasted Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong.

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s roughly 500 miles from the 8.5 million citizens Easley governs, the people he represented when he appointed Nifong, the people who might rightfully have looked for him to intercede in what has become a hash of jurisprudence.

Should you be upset?

So the meaning of getting “Googled” has changed around here. No longer is it a mark of self-absorbed narcissism - “Dude, are you Googling yourself again?” – or online information finding – “I’ll just Google it.”

Nope. From here on out, the new usage seems to be more along the lines of, “Man, that stinks! We totally got Googled on that deal.”

And while the Google deal may win awards for hubris and outlandish expectations – expecting 170 legislators not to not talk about why they’re tweaking the state’s tax laws is beyond optimistic – it’s not the only time that state officials have been asked to clam up and fork over.

Just as everyone was getting all cranky about Google last week, honorables at every level of government were celebrating the arrival of Honda Jet. Compared to Google, the Honda deal is chump change: $6.68 million from the state plus some other goodies from local governments. It didn't even require a change to the state's existing tax law to pull off.

If Gov. Mike Easley ever needed to give a good speech, tonight is the night.

Sometime after 7 p.m., he will step to the podium in the House chamber and begin giving his fourth State of the State address. It will be his last, unless he should return to office after a constitutionally mandated break.

He will be speaking to an institution that has been worn and battered by the scandals surrounding former House Speaker Jim Black. Broadcast over the Internet and public television, Easley will be talking to more than 8 million citizens who wonder if government business is really typified by cash in a bathroom.

And he will be talking to a wider world that will listen very carefully what the chief executive has to say about how the ship of state should be steered for the next two years.