RALEIGH, N.C.  – Gov. Beverly Perdue has officially told North Carolina lawmakers they won’t have to return to the state capital to consider overriding her first veto.

Perdue signed Wednesday a proclamation rescinding her earlier call for the General Assembly to reconvene in Raleigh this Friday for a veto session.

Legislative leaders decided last week they wouldn’t challenge Perdue’s veto of a bill that would have expanded the list of requests and documents General Assembly members could keep confidential. They said the issue wasn’t urgent and could be handled when the Legislature reconvenes next May.

A majority of lawmakers in the House and Senate had signed petitions asking Perdue to cancel the session.

RALEIGH, N.C. –  The Cumberland County NC State Legislative Delegation will travel to six locations in Cumberland County to discuss the recently completed long session of the North Carolina General Assembly.

“Legislative Year in Review,” is a series of neighborhood forums to talk about what really happened in Raleigh this session and how it will affect everyone over the next year.

Legislators scheduled to appear for the forums are: Sen. Tony Rand (D-Bladen/Cumberland), Rep. Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland); Rep. Margaret Dickson (D-Cumberland), Rep. Marvin Lucas (D-Cumberland), Rep. Elmer Floyd (D-Cumberland), Rep. William Brisson (D-Bladen/Cumberland).

The schedule for “Legislative Year in Review” is as follows:

Tuesday, September 8

10:00-11:30 am Eastover Community Center (4008 School St., Eastover)
1:00-2:30 pm                 John D. Fuller Recreation Center (6627 Old Bunce Rd., Fayetteville)

5:30-7:00 pm                 Terry Sanford High School (2301 Ft. Bragg Rd, Fayetteville)

Wednesday, September 9

10:00-11:30 am              Simon Temple AME Zion Church (5760 Yadkin Rd., Fayetteville)
1:00-2:30 pm                 Grays Creek Recreation Center (2964 School Rd. Fayetteville)

5:30-7:00 pm                 South View High School (4184 Elk Rd., Hope Mills)

“Legislative Year in Review” forums are free and open to the public.

Sen. Tony Rand represents District 19, Rep. Rick Glazier represents District 45,

Rep. Margaret Dickson represents District 44, Rep. Marvin Luca represents District 42,

Rep. Elmer Floyd represents District 43, and Rep. William Brisson represents District 22.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina lawmakers passed nearly 500 new laws before shutting down for this year, but plenty of updates and reforms were left pending until next year.

Terry Shook of Claremont said Thursday he wants the General Assembly to look again next year at legislation clarifying state law on using deadly force in self-defense. Lawmakers returning to Raleigh next May will consider whether illegal and forced entry into a home allows the resident to shoot without fear of potential prosecution.

State Sen. John Snow said the deadly force legislation was overwhelmed by all the time lawmakers spent finding a compromise on how much to raise taxes and which programs to cut. The Cherokee County Democrat said legislators will try to pass it next year.

RALEIGH, N.C. – As the General Assembly ended its session yesterday and adjourned for the year, Gov. Bev Perdue signed into law one of the year’s most significant pieces of legislation.

The legislation, known as the “Racial Justice Act,” allows death-row inmates to use statistics to try to prove that racial bias played a part in the imposition of capital punishment. Perdue signed the bill amid fanfare – she was flanked by supporters at a public signing ceremony at the state capitol.

It was in stark contrast to the signing of another major bill, the $19 billion state budget that legislators passed last week. Perdue signed the budget on Friday afternoon, with no public ceremony and no formal press release.

The difference in the handling of the two bills provides a good summation to the 2009 legislative session. The six-month session was largely defined by a fiscal crisis that caused legislators to cut spending and raise taxes by $1 billion. When they finally settled on the budget – more than one month into the fiscal year – few legislators, even Democrats who supported it, believed it was anything to brag about.

But at the same time that they were trying to shovel the state out of its worst budget hole in a generation, legislators found the time and the political will to pass several other momentous bills that represent major shifts in state policy.

Democrat Joe Hackney, the speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, said that the 2009 session “will be looked back upon as a session which was hard for all of us, but perhaps historic.”

That’s because Democrats succeeded in passing major bills that had been unsuccessful in previous years. They include the Racial Justice Act and a statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.

The Racial Justice Act was heavily pushed by two Winston-Salem Democrats, Rep. Larry Womble and Rep. Earline Parmon. With its passage, North Carolina becomes just the second state, after Kentucky, to allow defendants to use statistics from other cases to argue that there is racial bias in the administration of the death penalty.

If a judge finds significant racial bias, a death sentence can be converted to a sentence of life in prison.

The North Carolina NAACP hailed the law yesterday as a landmark step toward ending what the group said is a pervasive pattern of racism in the criminal-justice system.

Perdue, a Democrat who supports capital punishment, agreed.

“While our criminal-justice system will continue to have the death penalty, racial disparities have no place, no place whatsoever, in North Carolina’s criminal-justice system,” she said.

GOP legislators and district attorneys in the state opposed the law, saying that it will become much more difficult to obtain death sentences for the worst criminals.

Similarly, most Republicans protested the new smoking ban, which Rep. Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, had been trying to pass in various forms for the past five years. He narrowly succeeded this year, and when the law takes effect on Jan. 2, 2010, smoking will be illegal inside nearly all bars and restaurants.

It’s a once-unthinkable policy shift for a state that continues to lead the nation in tobacco production.

The only exemptions in the smoking ban are for cigar bars, country clubs and nonprofit fraternal groups. Near the end of the legislative session, some legislators briefly tried to carve out an exemption for hookah bars, but they withdrew their effort before it ever reached a vote.

Republicans criticized Democrats in the House and Senate for using their majorities to block bills supported by Republicans, including proposed constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage and limit the power of government to condemn property using eminent domain.

Overall, 470 new laws have been enacted in 2009, and as of yesterday evening, another 108 bills were on Perdue’s desk awaiting her signature.

The legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until May of next year for its so-called short session. That session is devoted mainly to adjusting the state budget and considering bills that were approved by one out of two chambers in 2009.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina’s General Assembly has closed down for the year after more than six months of work dominated by the recession, a tight state budget and tax increases.

The House and Senate each held brief sessions Tuesday to adjourn the General Assembly’s legislative work.

Lawmakers spent most of their energy this year balancing service cuts against tax increases in one of the worst recessions in generations. The tough economic times didn’t stop lawmakers from banning cigarette smoke from restaurants and bars, extending tax breaks to Apple Inc. and other businesses promising to create jobs, and bailing out the state-funded health insurance plan for its employees, retirees and teachers.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The General Assembly gave final approval Wednesday to making North Carolina the second state in the country that allows statistical evidence to establish racial bias as behind prosecutors seeking or jurors rendering the death penalty.

The Senate voted 25-18 for a measure the NAACP and other advocates said was needed in a state that in less than three years has released three black men from prison who had been on death row. If Gov. Beverly Perdue signs the bill into law, North Carolina would join Kentucky with legislation supporters called the Racial Justice Act.

“The need for this is critical and self-evident,” Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, the bill’s primary sponsor.

In one case cited by supporters, then-Gov. Mike Easley commuted the death sentence of Robert Bacon Jr. to life in prison in 2001. An all-white jury had sentenced him to death for stabbing his lover’s husband to death. The woman, who is white and who lured her husband to the spot where he was killed, avoided a death sentence and has since been paroled.

The measure would allow judges to consider whether statistical data show race was a key factor in putting a defendant on trial for his life or receiving a death penalty. A judge who agrees with the evidence could limit a sentence to life in prison without parole.

District attorneys, sheriffs and victims advocates said the measure would make death penalty prosecutions too difficult. North Carolina has not had an execution in nearly three years.

For murder victims and their families, the bill “represents something … that will end up reopening a lot of old wounds that were still waiting for complete closure,” said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. “This also represents a significant departure from the jurisprudence that we have seen in
North Carolina and the United States that says cases are to be decided by the facts of the case.”

Since the state’s last execution in August 2006, the number of prosecutors winning death penalty convictions has nearly come to a halt and public support for executions has waned.

Just one convict was sent to death row last year and five people have been acquitted of the charges that initially placed them on death row since 2000. Of the 59 capital convicts who had their cases retried this decade, only two were again sentenced to death.

A November 2005 poll from Elon University found that 64 percent of the state’s adults supported capital punishment. The same poll found this March that 58 percent supported the death penalty while 28 percent opposed it. Less than half said this year that the death penalty was the most appropriate punishment for first-degree murder.

The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys opposed the legislation. Forsyth County District Attorney Thomas Keith said lawmakers did not discuss that any local Superior Count judge’s ruling finding a history of racial discrimination could lead other judges to apply the precedent statewide.

“The ultimate goal is to give an additional protection,” for convicted murderers, Keith said.

Death row defendants would have one year to file a claim of racial bias in their death sentence. Keith said he feared some convicted killers could go from death row to being released on parole.

Almost half of the 163 killers on death row were sentenced for murders committed before October 1994, when the current sentencing system was put into place and mandatory life sentences became an option. If their sentences were reduced to life, those sentenced under the previous sentencing scheme could be considered for parole after serving 20 years, Keith said.

He cited the case of Bonnie Sue Clark, Bacon’s accomplice in the slaying of Clark’s husband. She was paroled last week after serving nearly 22 years of her life sentence.

HEADLINES:

- House gives initial OK for multimillion dollar tax break for Apple, computer data center
- House Majority Leader Holliman, who spearheaded new smoking ban, has lung surgery

- Anti-bullying bill debates Senate measure that requires detailed local policies
- NC House education committee removes proposed requirement to reduce school days
- Tougher penalty OK’d on motorists passing NC school buses and cause death
- NC labor advocates renew push to end collective bargaining ban on public workers
- State employees group roll out first ads targeting lawmakers on health plan
- House reads roll of NC troops fallen since last year, all killed since wars began in 2001

THE BRIEF:

ECONOMIC FRUIT: The state House tentatively approved changing how the state’s corporate taxes are calculated to welcome a company’s $1 billion investment for its East Coast data center. The House voted 81-31 in favor of a bill designed to benefit a single company. The Associated Press reported last week that the company targeted by state business recruiters is Apple Inc. Some bill opponents worried they were being dazzled by a corporation dangling a huge project at a time unemployment levels are at historic highs. The tax changes would affect the way corporate income taxes are calculated by giving breaks to companies making a $1 billion that have a relatively small share of U.S. sales in North Carolina but large shares of their nationwide property and payroll in the state. Companies could qualify only if they located in one of North Carolina’s poorest counties, provided health insurance, met a wage standard, and bypassed other state grants or tax breaks.

MAJORITY LEADER: House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman was in stable condition after undergoing surgery to remove part of his lung. Holliman was already a lung cancer survivor who just last week celebrated a legislative victory when Gov. Beverly Perdue passed Holliman’s bill that bans smoking inside bars and restaurants next January. Holliman’s legislative assistant said he was recovering in the intenstive care unit at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the removed section of his lung was cancerous. Holliman, a former smoker, previously had a cancerous tumor removed from his lung in September 2007. He also was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1999, but declared himself cured in 2005.

BULLYING BILL: The House Education Committee debated – but did not vote – on a Senate bill that would require local school districts to approve more detailed policies designed to discourage bullying. The bill narrowly passed the Senate three weeks ago but would appear to have a more favorable response in the House because it approved something similar two years ago. The most contentious part of the bill requires local policies to contain a list of perceived characteristics of a person susceptible to bullying, which include sexual orientation and gender identity. Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, said requiring the characteristics ensure that all children are protected from intolerance. But Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, calls the bill ambiguous and told the committee a list doesn’t protect all children by singling out certain groups. The committee ran out of time and will revisit the issue Thursday.

EDUCATION BUDGET: House budget writers have dropped a requirement that North Carolina public schools be open fewer days next year. A budget plan last week would have reduced the public school calendar from 180 days to 175 in the next school year and to 170 days the following year. Education supporters criticized the idea as a step backward. Subcommittee co-chairman Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Madison, said lawmakers decided they didn’t want to reduce the school calendar when other countries already have longer school years than North Carolina. The top Democrats leading the full Appropriations Committee are still considering whether to require teacher furloughs for several days. Rapp said local districts could close school for some of those furlough days.

SCHOOL BUS SAFETY: Motorists could soon face a tougher penalty if the driver passes a stopped school bus on the road and strikes a passenger who dies after getting off the vehicle. A Senate judiciary committee approved a measure designed to let school districts use cameras and recording devices to collect evidence designed to prove that someone broke the law passing a stopped school bus. The committee approved the bill and an amendment making a motorist guilty of a felony for striking a passenger who dies. The offender could now receive active jail time if the discharged passenger dies. The measure now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: Labor advocates and the state NAACP president have urged lawmakers to end a ban on collective bargaining for public workers that they say is a holdover from segregation times. The Rev. William Barber of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said at a rally that lawmakers passed the ban 50 years ago to keep Northern unions from organizing black workers. A Senate committee discussed the repeal Tuesday but took no action. Business groups oppose the change, saying limiting unions holds down the size and cost of government.

STATE EMPLOYEES: The State Employees Association of North Carolina has rolled out its first two ads critical of lawmakers who voted for a bailout of the health insurance plan for state workers last month. The association said it will begin running radio ads in the districts of Reps. Pryor Gibson, D-Anson, and Bruce Goforth, D-Buncombe. The association blames lawmakers for what it calls burdening workers with higher health care costs while failing to force plan adminsitrator Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina to feel some of the financial pain. Association leaders want to target two lawmakers each week.

STILL REMEMBERED: A day after Memorial Day, the House honored all the U.S. service members from North Carolina killed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. The bill honoring the
fallen troops named about 140 service men and women, but the measure had to be amended to include last Thursday’s death of Army 1st Lt. Leevi Barnard, 28, of Mount Airy. He was killed while on patrol near Baghdad. Nineteen who were either from North Carolina or had family ties to the state died since last year’s Memorial Day. Family members of some of the fallen attended the House session. One of the fallen servicemen listed – Lance Cpl. Jeriad Jacobs of Clayton – was the nephew of Rep. Ronnie Sutton, D-Robeson.

TUESDAY’S SCORECARD:

In the House:
- H291, to license people who practice natural hair braiding and have completed a curriculum at an approved cosmetic art school. Final House approval 73-39. Next: To the Senate.
- H746, to increase fees for licensed professional counselors. Final House approval 88-24. Next: To the Senate.

In the Senate:
- H1508, to switch construction of the Biomedical Research Imaging Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from pay-as-you-go funding to bonds by authorizing through mid-2011 up to $240 million in new loans based on a portion of general obligation bonds that recently have been paid off. Tentatively approved 41-8. Next: Final Senate vote.

In committees:
- H85, to permit nonprofits to give away in raffles up to $125,000 in cash and merchandise in a calendar year, compared to the current $50,000 maximum, as well as make clear that real property with appraised values of up to $500,000 can be offered as prizes. Recommended for approval, Senate Judiciary II Committee. Next: To the full Senate.

AROUND THE STATEHOUSE:

This year’s Miss USA visited her home state’s Legislature. Kristen Dalton of Wilmington was honored with a visit to the state House and Senate on Tuesday. Her victory last month has been
largely overshadowed by a debate about gay marriage surrounding the pageant’s first runner-up. Miss California Carrie Prejean said during the pageant she believed marriage should be between a man and a woman. Dalton will represent the U.S. in the Miss Universe pageant in August. The East Carolina University graduate said she would spend her year as Miss USA working to raise awareness of breast and ovarian cancer and to advocate for early detection and treatment.

ON THE AGENDA:

Lawmakers sympathetic to providers of personal care services will participate in a news conference Wednesday as part of efforts to restore spending cuts. The Senate approved a budget proposal last month that reduced by $55 million state funding for personal care services for Medicaid patients living at home. Workers assist patients with bathing and other tasks. The chief executive officer of the Association for Home and Hospice Care of North Carolina also is expected to speak.

QUOTABLE:

“Isn’t this fun? We ran for these jobs. I have to keep reminding myself.” – Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Madison, co-chairman of the House education appropriations subcommittee, joking about the difficult job he and other budget-writers are having this year assembling a budget given that next year’s budget gap is more than $4 billion.

HEADLINES:

- Allred says he plans to leave GOP; Daves wants him to resign from House
- Senate Republican leader wants Democrats to be more aggressive in Easley probes
- Legislature remembers late Insurance Commissioner, former House member Jim Long

THE BRIEF:

ALLRED LEAVING GOP: Alamance County Rep. Cary Allred plans to leave the Republican Party after he said fellow House GOP members told an investigator they were disturbed when he hugged a female page last month. Allred said he would switch his voter registration next week to unaffiliated. Several Republicans were quoted as saying or wrote in letters that Allred’s action was inappropriate. The comments were contained in a preliminary review of Allred by the House sergeant-at-arms for Speaker Joe Hackney. That report is now in the hands of the Legislative Ethics Committee. Allred said he’s done nothing wrong and that GOP members stabbed him in the back with their statements. Later Thursday, state Republican Party Chairwoman Linda Daves called on Allred to resign from the House.

MORE ON EASLEY: Republican leaders remain unhappy about how Democrats in the Legislature and at the Executive Mansion are responding to flaps over former Gov. Mike Easley and first lady Mary Easley. Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, wrote to Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue, Senate leader Marc Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney to investigate more aggressively why the Highway Patrol doesn’t have Easley’s travel records in 2005 and the hiring of Mary Easley and N.C. State University. Democrats in charged of a Senate appropriations subcommittee rejected a request by Berger to hold hearing into the missing records, saying a federal grand jury and the State Board of Elections already are examining private aircraft flights by Easley’s family.

FREQUENT HONORS: The House and Senate passed several resolutions honoring late North Carolina residents, including former Insurance Commissioner Jim Long, who died in February, a month after leaving office. Long previously served in the state House and also served as the general counsel to then-House Speaker Liston Ramsey before being elected insurance commissioner in 1984. The Senate honored late state Rep. Ted Kinney of Cumberland County, who died in November, while the House remembered Medal of Honor winner Jack Lucas, who died last June.

THURSDAY’S SCORECARD:

In the House:
- H291, to license people who practice natural hair braiding and have completed a curriculum at an approved cosmetic art school. Tentatively approved 78-34. Next: Final House vote.
- H746, to increase fees for licensed professional counselors. Tentatively approved 81-30. Next: Final House vote.

In the Senate:
- H65, to reauthorize a law that allows intellectually gifted students under age 16 to attend community college. Approved 47-0. Next: To Gov. Beverly Perdue’s desk.
- H170, to require the Secretary of State to contact political parties and potential electors to remind them about a state law prohibiting a person from serving in two elected offices at once. Approved 47-0. Next: Return to House for concurrence motion.
- H316, to authorize charter schools to give admissions priority to twins and other multiple siblings. Tentatively approved 44-0. Next: Final Senate vote.

AROUND THE STATEHOUSE:

The head of state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said lawmakers should take steps to keep prosecutors and juries from disproportionately imposing death sentences on black defendants. The Rev. William Barber said at a news conference there’s proof that evidence that racial prejudice plays a role in sending innocent black men to death row. Legislation that passed the state Senate last week would allow an accused killer to challenge his conviction or death sentence if he can show that race played an inappropriate role. An amendment to the bill would allow executions to restart after a two-year halt.

ON THE AGENDA:

The General Assembly is essentially taking another long weekend, this time for Memorial Day. The Senate won’t have a regular session Monday, while the House will convene but hold neither committee meetings nor recorded votes. The Legislature didn’t vote on any legislation last Monday night either after working long hours the week before to pass hundreds of bills before a self-imposed deadline. House budget subcommittees also will resume working early next week.

House Speaker Joe Hackney says Miss USA Kristen Dalton will visit the Legislative Building on Tuesday. Dalton is from Wilmington and has a degree from East Carolina University. She won the pageant competition April 19 in Las Vegas.

QUOTABLE:

“The harsh reality is that the state of North Carolina has killed innocent black men and placed black men on death row because of their race or because of the race of their victim.” – the Rev. William Barber, state NAACP chapter president, at a news conference seeking support for the Racial Justice Act, which would allow capital murder defendants to ask a judge to stop the death penalty from being considered in a case if race played a significant factor in a prosecutor seeking a death sentence.

HEADLINES:

- House sergeant-at-arms completes preliminary report on actions of House member Allred
- NC Senate delays vote on taxpayer campaign funding
- NC Association of Educators president criticize potential House budget proposal

THE BRIEF:

ALLRED INVESTIGATION: House Speaker Joe Hackney said a preliminary review of accusations that a state House member embraced a teenage female page and had been drinking before speeding to work has been sent to a legislative ethics panel. The report was assembled by House Sergeant-at-Arms Bob Samuels and presented to Hackney. It makes neither conclusions nor recommendations about what, if anything, should happen to Rep. Cary Allred, R-Alamance. Allred repeated in an interview he’s done nothing wrong. Hackney, D-Orange, said the report was given to the Legislative Ethics Committee, which will decide whether further scrutiny is needed if ethics laws may have been violated. Several House members wrote they were uneasy when they say they saw Allred in the back of the House floor, give a page a lengthy hug and kissed her. Pages are volunteers from members’ districts. Allred said the teenager was a longtime family friend. She and her parents did not want to file a complaint and were OK with what happened.

PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS: The North Carolina Senate debated a measure allowing big cities to use taxpayer money for local election campaigns, then postponed a vote until next week. The Senate saw the Democratic majority jockey against Republicans opposing the bid to start voluntary public campaign financing programs in the state’s 15 largest cities. The measure was then set aside and rescheduled for a vote next Wednesday. Candidates in nonpartisan elections would have to agree to accept fundraising restrictions in exchange for public dollars. Statewide candidates for appellate judges, the state auditor, insurance commissioner and schools superintendent already can receive public funding. Chapel Hill will test taxpayer-assisted local elections this fall.

EDUCATION CUTS?: The North Carolina Association of Educators says a potential House budget proposal for public education released in a committee contains “dangerous and draconian” cuts that would put more than 10,000 educators out of a job. The proposal seeks nearly $1.2 billion in additional cuts in the public schools and university and community college systems than what the Senate made last month. The plan is weeks from being considered by the full House. Reductions may be eased or changed if Democrats consider raising taxes to help pay for them. The proposal would increase the average class size by two students, eliminate some third-grade teaching assistants and shorten the school year by five days starting this fall. NCAE President Sheri Strickland said the proposal would jeopardize the state’s economy by throwing so many people out of work.

WEDNESDAY’S SCORECARD:

In the Senate:
- H616, to make it a misdemeanor for someone to steal, destroy or vandalize a portable toilet or pumper truck. Approved. Next: To Gov. Beverly Perdue’s desk.
- H186, to prevent a local Alcoholic Beverage Control board from opening a store at a location that is opposed by the public and the governing body of the municipality. Approved. Next: To Gov. Beverly Perdue’s desk.

AROUND THE STATEHOUSE:

Advocates for the mentally ill want lawmakers to avoid what they call devastating cuts to services in next year’s state budget. More than 1,000 people – including patients and their families – visited the Legislature for their annual rally. They want to protect and improve treatment for people with mental illness, the developmentally disabled and substance abusers. The event came the same day House members discussed options to reduce mental health funding to help narrow a $4 billion-plus state budget gap for next year. One option would reduce service funds by more than $50 million.

ON THE AGENDA:

A House judiciary panel is slated to consider legislation Thursday that would ban the execution of death row inmates who suffer from severe mental illness. The original filed bill would permit a judge to declare a capital murder suspect as having a severe mental disability. If convicted, the person would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

QUOTABLE:

“There has been a problem about people taking a non-serious attitude about this product.” Sen. Doug Berger, D-Franklin. He was urging support for a bill criminalizing the vandalism of portable toilets.