RALEIGH, N.C.  – The leader of the North Carolina Senate says he has no plans to leave the Legislature despite being diagnosed last year with a rare degenerative nerve disease.

Dare County Democratic Sen. Marc Basnight has trouble at times with coordination and balance with his disorder, which slowly destroys nerve cells.

But his doctors told The News & Observer of Raleigh it shouldn’t affect the legislative work he does now and that it will be 10 to 20 years before the disease disables him.

Basnight said he noticed symptoms of the disease two years ago when he lost his balance and fell.

Basnight is in a record ninth two-year term as Senate president pro tempore.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Leadership of the N.C. House and Senate are relatively unknown to North Carolina voters, according to a new poll released Monday by the Civitas Institute.

The 600 person live-caller poll of voters in North Carolina asked respondents if they had a favorable, unfavorable or no opinion of Marc Basnight, Tony Rand, Phil Berger, Joe Hackney and Paul Stam.

Senate President Pro-Tempore Marc Basnight had the highest name identification of the five tested, with 12 percent of voters having a favorable opinion and seven percent having an unfavorable opinion. Of the voters who responded, 81 percent of them said they either had no opinion of Basnight or were not aware of him. Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand had the second highest name identification with eight percent favorable, five percent unfavorable and 87 percent having no opinion or not aware.

Speaker of the House Joe Hackney was known by 12 percent of voters (nine percent favorable, three percent unfavorable) and 88 percent of voters were either not aware or had no opinion.

“Outside the world of government and inside the Raleigh Beltline, voters of North Carolina know very little about the people who run government,” said Francis De Luca, executive director of the Civitas Institute. “With only half of voters knowing which party is in charge of the General Assembly, it is not surprising that so few actually know the leadership.”

Republican leaders of the N.C. House and Senate faired equally poorly. House Republican leader Paul Stam was known by just nine percent of voters (six percent favorable, three percent unfavorable). While his counterpart in the Senate, Republican leader Phil Berger was known by 11 percent of voters (eight percent favorable, three percent unfavorable).

“The fact that the Republican leadership is similarly unknown shows that very few people are paying attention to government in Raleigh. Whether that is because of lack of interest or lack of coverage by the news media is up for debate,” added De Luca. “At a time when media companies are paring back reporting, these numbers suggest that there actually needs to be more coverage of North Carolina government, not less.”

Full text of questions:

“I am now going to read you a list of names. After I read each name, please tell me if you have heard of that person, and then if you have, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of that person.”

Opinion of Marc Basnight:

Very Favorable – 4%

Somewhat Favorable – 8%

Somewhat Unfavorable – 4%

Very Unfavorable – 3%

No Opinion – 18%

Not Aware – 63%

Opinion of Tony Rand:

Very Favorable – 3%

Somewhat Favorable – 5%

Somewhat Unfavorable – 3%

Very Unfavorable – 2%

No Opinion – 23%

Not Aware – 64%

Opinion of Phil Berger:

Very Favorable – 1%

Somewhat Favorable – 6%

Somewhat Unfavorable – 2%

Very Unfavorable – 1%

No Opinion – 22%

Not Aware – 68%

Opinion of Joe Hackney:

Very Favorable – 2%

Somewhat Favorable – 6%

Somewhat Unfavorable – 1%

Very Unfavorable – 2%

No Opinion – 21%

Not Aware – 67%

Opinion of Paul Stam:

Very Favorable – 2%

Somewhat Favorable – 4%

Somewhat Unfavorable – 2%

Very Unfavorable – 1%

No Opinion – 16%

Not Aware – 75%

The Civitas Poll is the only monthly live-caller poll of critical issues and policies facing North Carolina. The study of 600 registered voters was conducted March 16 to 19, 2009. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.”  True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – New faces have been added to lead the most powerful committees in the North Carolina Senate. Senate leader Marc Basnight released committee assignments in the chamber for the next two years on Wednesday.

Democratic Sen. A.B. Swindell of Nash County has been named a co-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He joins Democratic Sens. Linda Garrou, Charlie Albertson and Charlie Dannelly as leaders of the chief budget-writing panel.

Another Democrat, Sen. Clark Jenkins of Edgecombe County, is now a Finance Committee co-chairman. He replaces the retiring Sen. John Kerr.

Basnight retained a handful of Republican senators for leadership positions. Sen. Fletcher Hartsell of Cabarrus County is the only Republican to be the sole chairman of a panel – a judiciary committee.

The Dare County Democrat told reporters Thursday that lawmakers arriving next week for the start of the General Assembly also will try to cut waste and duplication in state services.

The difference between projected revenues and expenses could reach $3 billion as budget writers put together a spending plan for next year.

Basnight has backed raising alcohol and cigarette taxes in the past. The Legislature was cool to such an idea last year when then-Gov. Mike Easley proposed raising them.

Basnight declined to say which loopholes could closed, but said he doesn’t expect other tax increases to be considered.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Joe Hackney and Marc Basnight will again lead the Democratic majority in the state House and Senate when the General Assembey returns to Raleigh next year.

Democratic lawmakers met Wednesday to nominate leaders for the upcoming session. Hackney was selected for a second term as his party’s candidate for House Speaker, while Basnight was nominated for a record ninth term as Senate leader.

The entire General Assembly will formally elect the leaders when lawmakers return for the 2009 session on Jan. 28.
  
Also Wednesday, the party elected Hugh Holliman as House Majority Leader and Tony Rand as Senate Majority Leader.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Offshore drilling spilled into the national vocabulary in 2008, as political candidates and voters searched for concrete solutions to gas prices that hovered at $4 a gallon earlier this year.

It was a top issue in all of the major campaigns in North Carolina. But now that the election is over, state leaders want to sort out the myths from the facts.

They are already finding out how much they don’t know.

“The big push for offshore drilling was almost entirely political – based on politics, not on substance,” said Molly Diggins, the state director of the N.C. Sierra Club, which opposes drilling off the state’s coast.

“So I think a kind of top-to-bottom review of what the issues are would be a benefit to everyone.”

Marc Basnight, the president pro tem of the N.C. Senate, said he is planning just such a review. He and Joe Hackney, the speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, will appoint a committee as early as this week to study the implications of offshore drilling.

Even though drilling is mainly a federal decision, the state needs to be prepared in case areas off North Carolina’s coast are opened up for oil and natural-gas exploration, said Basnight and other experts on the issue.

“I believe we should be on a fact-finding mission, one that will provide the information that is now lacking,” Basnight said. “I believe we lack a lot of information.”

Because drilling has been seldom seriously proposed in North Carolina until recently, the state lacks a broad base of structural expertise. There is no state board specifically set up to regulate oil and gas drilling, and the state universities don’t have major departments studying petroleum science, as one might find in other states that have a history of oil drilling.

“To be informed about it would be wise,” said Lou Bartek, a professor of geology at UNC Chapel Hill who studies oil and gas exploration. “If it is something that potentially is inevitable, you would want to be as knowledgeable as possible so you can take advantage of the opportunities that are there and not be taken advantage of.”

Drilling off the coast of North Carolina is a growing possibility, though far from a reality. In September, Congress lifted a 27-year-old ban on drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Earlier this month, the federal government took initial steps toward drilling off the coast of Virginia, just north of the Outer Banks.
North Carolina has not undertaken a formal study of offshore drilling in decades. The fact that Basnight – a Democrat from coastal Dare County who strongly opposes drilling – is now promoting a study indicates the amount of political momentum behind the issue.

“It was during the elections that my interest grew,” Basnight said. “This study would allow us to look and spend a legitimate amount of time to see how this would change our coastline.”

An Elon University poll in September found that 69 percent of North Carolinians surveyed favored offshore drilling. Republican candidates jumped on the issue during the campaign, and chants of “Drill, baby, drill!” were common at Republican rallies this year.

In response, some Democratic candidates softened their prior opposition to offshore drilling. One notable example was Gov.-elect Bev Perdue, who had for years been staunchly opposed to drilling.

But at times during her run for governor, she expressed enthusiasm for offshore drilling, while adding the caveat that it must be done safely and without harming the state’s coastal tourism industry.
Perdue said that, as governor, she would appoint a committee of scientists to study the issue. It’s unclear if she will move forward with that plan now that legislative leaders are appointing their own study committee.

Basnight did not consult with Perdue about the legislative committee.

Perdue was on vacation last week. A spokeswoman said that Perdue remains concerned about the environmental impact, and also wants to make sure that North Carolina would get a share of royalties generated by drilling for oil and natural gas off its coast.

Complicating any discussion of offshore drilling is the problem that much of it is based on speculation. For instance, no one knows the quantity of oil or natural-gas reserves buried deep under the ocean off North Carolina. Most experts agree that there is more natural gas than oil, and not enough oil to have any significant impact on the nation’s gas prices, even in the long term.

According to estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, drilling in the mid-Atlantic could produce 1.56 billion barrels of oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – between 1 and 2 percent of the undiscovered U.S. oil and natural gas.

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina legislative leaders will form a committee to study whether offshore drilling is feasible off the coast.
 
Senate leader Marc Basnight said Thursday he remains opposed to drilling to explore for oil and natural gas reserves. Basnight is a powerful Democrat from coastal Dare County.

But Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney have agreed to create a legislative panel to look at environmental concerns and what the state can do proactively on the matter.

Congress has allowed a moratorium on drilling to expire. The federal government has since started taking public comment on drilling off Virginia’s coast.

Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue has been opposed to drilling. But her campaign said she would be open to the idea if a team of scientists said it was safe.