News-Record.com

North Carolina's Pro-Life Democrats sent word that North Carolina Right to Life, Inc. is holding its 35th annual anniversary banquet in Greensboro. The event, on April 26, will honor U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Republican, which makes it a bit weird for a Democratic group to be promoting, but that has more to do with the issue than the personality.

More interesting was a two-page letter (page one / page two) the group sent to Speaker Joe Hackney. It makes the case for two things: a right-to-life state license plate and a fetal homicide law.

The fetal homicide law is particularly interesting because I know that several legislators are making a big push on it this year. In fact, I ran into (Rep. Dale Folwell on my way home yesterday and he allowed as how he has been talking it up.

Now, no one is going to argue that the killing of a pregnant woman and/or her unborn child isn't reprehensible. But - you knew there was a but right - folks see this kind of law as a gateway to outlawing abortion. Background here and here.

Generally, the General Assembly under Democratic control has stayed away from these hot button topics. You may remember it was Hackney who unabashedly killed a bill aimed at a constitution ban on gay marriage, one of the few times he has stepped in like that. A bill that's a gateway to the abortion debate may be in that same category.

I don't see Hackney or President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight letting this kind of issue take over the short session. If this debate was truly engaged, it would dominate legislative business for a time. But I can see proponents of the legislation pushing it hard as a run-on bill, as in something to run-on this fall. With the economy in the tank, the War in Iraq dragging on, a budget that will be no fun to put together and the presidential circus in town, I'm not sure how effective of a tactic that might be. Still, it might mobilize some segment of voters.

The N.C. Center for Public Policy Research has its annual legislative effectiveness rankings out. The rankings are based on surveys of legislators, lobbyists and we scruffy media types.

Here's the thing to keep in mind about the rankings. A few of them are blazingly obvious and beyond dispute. Of course Sen. Marc Basnight is #1 in the Senate, he runs the joint. Is anyone going argue with Rep. Thomas Wright of Wilmington being ranked dead last in effectiveness? Probably not, considering the Speaker took away all his power during the session and the House ended up booting him this spring.

The bulk of the rankings I look at and think to myself, "Yeah, that makes sense." I would have put Rep. Hugh Holliman of Davidson County in the Top 10 somewhere, so his rank at #3 makes sense to me. And I first balked at Rep. Nelson Cole of Rockingham ranking as high as #15, but checking back on his bill list and status, I'm willing to go along.

There are a few rankings that I would quibble with, and a couple are in the Guilford Delegation. So here's are the Center's rankings and my comments for the folks who represent the paper's circulation area:

Senate: ranked out of 50

Phil Berger, #14. Berger is the Republican minority leader in the Senate. He's the second-highest ranking Republican on the survey. (The highest ranking is Fletcher Hartsell at #9, who has a judiciary chairmanship to his name.) I might have ranked Berger a few notches higher, but he probably lost some points for being forced to be the spokesman for some of his party's ideological (and ultimately loosing) stands on the floor.

Stan Bingham, #26. Bingham has gotten along with Democratic majority, shown up on a budget conference committee and gotten some mid-level pieces of legislation done. No quibbles here.

Katie Dorsett, #24. Dorsett is the minority whip in the Senate but has not pursued the most aggressive personal legislative agenda.

Kay Hagan, #7. Hagan is an appropriations co-chairman and is ranked right along side of her two colleagues who lead the panel. Once you get past the top two rankings in the Senate (Basnight and Rules Chairman Tony Rand) spots three through 8 are pretty interchangeable.

House: ranked out of 119

Alma Adams, #44. Really? A Co-chairman of the appropriations committee and leader of the Legislative Black Caucus ranks lower than the chairman of committees that handle lower profile legislation? She is up 17 spots from last year. And you probably could make an argument that she was bogged down with having to answer questions about her caucus' activities and some of her members' legal problems (paging Thomas Wright.) But for her to be 18 spots behind Maggie Jeffus, who has the same kind of committee profile, seems to be a bit off.

John Blust, #111. Blust should not be in the bottom 10. Not only has he gotten some of his legislative moving this year, but he frequently make contributions in committee meeting to make important, but unheralded, tweaks in legislation. Blust probably gets docked points because he's given to passionately defending his ideological positing, even if that position is a looser on a particular vote. But he is ranked below some folks (Republicans and Democrats) who make far less by way of tangible contributions to the legislative process.

Pricey Harrison, #38. She's up 34 points from last year. Harrison's gotten a reputation as a leading environmental spokesperson in the legislature and as a committee chairman had a pretty high profile during the fight over S3, the renewable energy bill. Like other progressives, she's done better under the Speakership of Joe Hackney than they did under former Speaker Jim Black.

Maggie Jeffus, #26. She's up 20 spots. She now has rank as an appropriations cochair and a fair bit of seniority. 'Nuff said.

Earl Jones, #60. He's up 26 spots. Okay, he's got two chairmanships: Local Government II and Science and Technology. Also, he's got a few bills enrolled into state law this year. However, he probably got moved up on the strength of his mouth: Jones talks a lot of the floor and does not shy away from controversial positions so he's pretty well known.

Laura Wiley, #86. She's up 10 points but I would have made the case she should be in the top two-thirds - #80 or above. Wiley has worked well with the Democratic majority and even as a Republican has helped shepherd some bills through the General Assembly. But she's not a big talker on the floor and a lot of her issues aren't high on the news radar.

Congressman Howard Coble sent word that a bill he's supported for a while was signed by President Bush today.

The Second Chance Act basically focuses on ways to ensure that once folks leave prison, they stay out. This current version funds $165 million in "prisoner reentry" programs. Coble has been talking this up since I've been talking to him on a regular basis. (White House Press Release.)

Here's a picture of Coble at the bill signing:

Credit: The Associated Press

With cities like Greensboro and Raleigh standing down from the most severe water restrictions, residents might be feeling pretty cocky.

"The drought is over," I've heard more than one person say. Well, no, really it isn't. Local reservoirs are replenished thanks to a freakish amount of spring rain. But the U.S. Drought Monitory still puts most of Guilford County and all of Wake County in the category of "Extreme Drought."

More importantly, there are still all the long term issues that people identified when we were all contemplating whether we'd have to skip the daily showers: development, a growing population, finite water resources, increasing demands of irrigation and industry, etc... Those haven't gone away.

Gov. Mike Easley makes this point after a fashion in a news release / letter he sent out today:

"As of this morning, all 100 counties are still in some form of drought, with 45 in extreme and 36 in severe. However, even though reservoir levels have risen, our groundwater resources, which help keep our streams flowing, are still extremely low. This makes North Carolina very vulnerable as summer approaches.

"In short, there is the potential for exceptional and extreme drought conditions to return this summer and fall, especially with a long-range weather forecast for drier-than-normal conditions through the end of May. Communities that have previously identified alternative water sources or are working on interconnections to backup systems need to move forward with those efforts.

"The drought of 2007-08 has taught all of us that we need to do a better job of managing our water resources year round. We are currently putting together a package of legislative proposals which I announced in March to help us modernize North Carolina's public water systems, mandate water conservation and efficiency, and upgrade the response to water emergencies. My goal is to make our state drought proof."

Click here to read the whole thing.

When reporting on local beats over the past 10 years here and in Pennsylvania, I've seen water management issues get a lot of attention during the heat of a crisis and then when things get back to normal, folks kind of let them slip from the agenda. It'll be interesting to see whether our new found religion when it comes to water conservation sticks, or whether we'll be back to our heathen ways by the time we're reseeding all those suburban lawns this fall.

Less than a month after Rep. Thomas Wright was booted from the General Assembly by his peers, the Associate Press reports:

A jury found former Rep. Thomas Wright guilty of fraud Monday after deciding he mishandled thousands of dollars in charitable contributions and fraudulently obtained a $150,000 loan.

The Wake County jury convicted Wright on three felony fraud charges. He had been charged with four counts, but jurors decided he did not mishandle a $1,500 donation from AT&T; Corp. Jurors found that Wright misused or mishandled donations from two other companies, totaling $7,400.

The Barkeep over at Isaac Hunter's Tavern has been keeping up with the weirdness over at Thomas Wright's criminal trial. Thursday's edition is well worth the listen because, as Laura said: "If I told you what all was said today, you probably wouldn’t believe me. Seriously."

Closing arguments are today.

Okay, so I do a fair bit of my work at night after the kids go to bed, plunked down on my sofa with the television box blathering in the background. That means I half hear a lot of commercials, promos and snipits that don't quite penetrate my thick noggin.

One of those half-heard snipits came up a couple nights ago, and seemed to have something to do with tobacco regulation. I missed the punch line and couldn't figure it out until this story showed up in my e-mail box courtesy of a Google alert:

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping regulatory authority over the tobacco industry, clearing the way for a House floor vote on the legislation, which has long been sought by anti-tobacco activists.

The reason it pinged my Google alert comes further down in the story:

Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, has reportedly threatened to filibuster against the legislation. In a statement Wednesday, shortly after the committee vote, Mr. Burr said he remained opposed to the legislation. A spokesman for Mr. McConnell said that the senator has said he would review the legislation.

Here's the ad in question:

Note that it is paid for by Reynolds American and would send people to this site.

The pro-regulation argument is here.

The U.S. House voted on a bill that would spend $50 billion over five years to expand AIDS prevention programs around the world particularly in Africa. Click here for the early AP story.

The White House backs the bill and a similar measure is on track toward passage in the Senate.

The North Carolina vote: All seven Democrats Yes, All six Republicans No.

Nationally, 230 Democrats voted for the bill along with 78 Republicans; 116 Republicans voted against.

The N.C. Voters for Clean Elections group did a presser by the old state capitol today to talk up North Carolina's Council of State pilot.

For the uninitiated: the Council of State is made up of 10 officials elected statewide, including the governor and lt. governor, treasurer, agriculture commissioner and others. This year, candidates in three of those offices - Insurance Commissioner, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Auditor - can opt into a public financing system.

Those who participate need to collect 750 small dollar donations, defined as contributions between $10 and $200. In exchange, they get a minimum of $300,000 in taxpayer funding to wage their campaign.

"I want to say I'm sorry to anyone out there that I'm using their tax dollars and they don't want me to really win this race," said State Auditor Les Merritt, the Republican incumbent in the office.

He points out one of the big objections to publicly financed elections, which is that public money - your money - can go to finance a candidate who you find objectionable or who says objectionable things.

The JWP Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank, argued against the act when it was coming through the legislature last year and you can find their objections here. More here.

A major upside is that candidates who otherwise couldn't run are getting in the race. Both Fred Aikens and Beth Wood, the two Democrats running for Auditor, said they would not be in the race if it weren't for the public financing program.

The most interesting moments from today's newser revolved around the Superintendent of Public Instruction race. Democrats June Atkinson, the incumbent, and Eddie Davis have opted into the program, as has Republican Eric Smith, of Reidsville. Republicans Richard Morgan, former co-speaker of the House, and Joe Johnson have not opted in yet and aren't expected to.

"Voter owned elections means it will be harder for special interests to impact this election," Smith said. "In the past, the special interest group in my race was the North Carolina Association of Educators. I'm glad that these labor bosses now support voter owned elections and I call on them not to defeat the spirit of the law by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent expenditures."

Scott Mooneyham of The Insider asked all three superintendent candidates to talk about the potential for independent expenditures.

"I would encourage anyone who is looking at that to recognize the importance of this program and decide not to do that," Davis said.

Atkins also said the independent 527s would undermine the public financing.

Why does this come up in this particular context.

Well, one reason could be that Davis heads the N.C. Association of Educators, an affiliate of the NEA. The NEA is running independent ads that stop a half-step short of being campaign ads but sure do talk up Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, who they have endorsed.

Morgan, another Republican in the race, also used a 527 during his time as co-speaker.

So if a 527 or like organization were to engage in this race, it might be contrary to the spirit of public financing, but no one would count it as a surprise.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat who represents parts of Rockingham and Guilford counties has a spiffy new website.