RALEIGH, N.C. – A movement to help North Carolina learn more about thousands of people who were sterilized under a state program in the mid-20th century is getting another chance to be heard.

A House committee scheduled debate Tuesday on legislation that would order the public schools to teach about the eugenics program. Students at University of North Carolina campuses also would be directed to interview program victims so future generations know what happened.

About one-third of the 7,600 people sterilized by choice or coercion are still alive. The program ended in the 1970s.

The state unveiled a roadside marker in downtown Raleigh two weeks ago recalling the program.

It’s unclear whether a separate effort to pay survivors will wind up in the state budget.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – The legal knot that has delayed North Carolina executions could be unraveled in legislation tentatively approved by the Senate. The bill is designed to weed out racial bias in capital punishment.

Senators agreed 35-13 on legislation that attempts to ensure race isn’t a factor in a death penalty case. They also added language that seeks to remove obstacles to carrying out executions.

No death-row prisoner has been executed since August 2006.

A final Senate vote is expected Thursday. If it passes, the measure would go to the House where a version of the bill passed in 2007.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The Legislature appears close to completing a bailout of the North Carolina state employee health insurance plan.

Rep. Hugh Holliman said Wednesday the House and Senate have reached a tentative compromise bill that could receive final votes later in the day. If approved, it would be sent to Gov. Beverly Perdue.

Under the proposal, the health plan would receive $675 million from operating revenues and highway funds through mid-2011.

The plan’s 667,000 members would face higher deductibles and copays, and dependent coverage premiums would go up by 8.9 percent annually. Benefits would decrease for people who smoke or considered significantly obese.

Health plan officials said if additional funding didn’t come this week, there would be dramatic payment delays to doctors.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina House narrowed the sample but approved a test of how much voters want to see the influence of money in local elections diluted by taxpayer subsidies.

The House voted 60-56 on Tuesday to let cities choose whether to use taxpayer money in some local elections. The cities would join Chapel Hill, which will allow public financing in local elections this year.

Changes adopted on Tuesday limited the experiment running through 2016 to cities larger than 50,000 residents. Cities must seek permission from the State Board of Elections to test using tax money for local candidates.

Statewide candidates for appellate judges and three other posts now get public funding.

The bill next moves to the Senate.

Winston-Salem Journal

For many North Carolinians seeking access to government documents, the state’s public-records law is meaningless. A bureaucrat or elected official can refuse to release a public document, and the citizen cannot afford the legal costs associated with suing for its release.

That obstruction of open government would change significantly if legislation before the N.C. House of Representatives becomes law. House Bill 1134 would make it almost certain that citizens who successfully sue for records would get reimbursed for a reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees. The bill would also establish an “open government unit” within the N.C. Department of Justice that would mediate disputes over both public records and open meetings long before the case ever goes before a judge.

North Carolina’s public-records law guarantees access to the vast amount of information that state and local governments control. The underlying philosophy is that open government promotes democracy. The government belongs to each of us. Our government creates records using our tax money. Therefore, the records belong to every citizen, and access to those records should be assured unless there is a legitimate, statutory reason for keeping the record from public view.

Many North Carolinians learn the hard way that public philosophy and government practice are often two very different things. Agencies regularly deny access to records that are, by law, public. The only recourse citizens – or in many cases, the press – have is a lawsuit.

Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, recently told the Journal that the beauty of the new legislation is the possibility that it will keep most disputes out of court. The new unit in the Justice Department will not only help settle disputes between citizens and government agencies, it will also work to better educate government workers about the public-records and open-meetings laws. That effort, alone, could go a long way toward solving the problem.

It won’t solve it entirely, however. Mediation won’t solve every dispute, either. For those cases not resolved through mediation, citizens can go to court. If they win, they’ll get their attorney fees reimbursed. If they lose, they won’t.

As North Carolina law stands now, government agencies face no consequences for failing to provide access to public records. If this bill becomes law, bureaucrats and public officials will have something to explain to taxpayers. We hope that possibility will help change agency attitudes toward public-records requests.
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By James Romoser
Journal Raleigh bureau
RALEIGH, N.C. — Several bills in the General Assembly that would legally recognize unborn victims of violent crimes appear unlikely to get a hearing because they are being blocked by powerful Democratic legislators.

For years, Republicans have been pushing for the legislation without success. The legislation would cause defendants who kill or assault pregnant women to be charged with two crimes – one for the mother and one for the fetus.

Most states, and the federal government, have unborn-victims laws, but in North Carolina, Democratic leaders who control the General Assembly have never allowed hearings on any of the bills.

This year that appears to be the case again, even though some prominent Democrats have joined with Republicans in support of the bills.

“There have been enough pregnant women killed that we don’t need to kill this bill,” said state Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth.

Folwell and Rep. Marvin Lucas, D-Cumberland, are the chief sponsors of one of several unborn-victims bills that have been filed this year. Folwell and Lucas’ bill is the most moderate of the group – it applies only after the 20th week of pregnancy, and it applies only if the person who committed the crime knew that the woman was pregnant.

But Joe Hackney, the speaker of the N.C. House, used a procedural maneuver last week that will likely kill the bill.

Hackney has the power to refer bills to legislative committees, and in this case, it would have been customary for him to refer the bill to the House Judiciary II committee, because Folwell sits on that committee.

Rep. Dan Blue, D-Wake, is the chairman of Judiciary II, and he was ready to give the bill a hearing. He said he agrees with the concept of the bill.

“Absolutely I’d give it a hearing,” Blue said. “We could have handled it and done a good job with it.”

But Hackney, D-Orange, referred Folwell’s bill to the Judiciary I committee. The chairwoman of that committee, Rep. Deborah Ross, is opposed to the bill and is unlikely to allow it to come up for a hearing.

Ross, D-Wake, said that her committee has a backlog of bills waiting to be heard, and she said she would not hear the unborn-victims bill unless a number of interest groups can form a consensus to support it. The bill is opposed by various groups, and it has become wrapped up in polarized abortion politics.

“Am I supposed to take up a bill that doesn’t have consensus before 50 bills that do have consensus?” Ross said.

Hackney did not answer questions about whether he was using the committee system to kill a controversial bill.

“I don’t know that there’s any need to respond to that,” he said.

Over in the Senate, unborn-victims bills have not fared much better. They, too, have been referred to a judiciary committee, and the committee’s chairman, Sen. Martin Nesbitt, said he does not know if they will get a hearing.

Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said his committee has many bills that it needs to consider, and he said he has not had a chance to look closely at the unborn-victims bills.

Like in the House, the Senate legislation has support from some rank-and-file Democrats as well as Republicans. But the Democratic leadership has shown no desire to take up the issue.

All of the bills are motivated by a series of highly publicized murders of pregnant women in North Carolina over the last 10 years.

Some of the woman were killed by husbands or boyfriends who were angry that the women had chosen to keep their child.

The bills vary in their intensity. For instance, a bill filed by Sen. Pete Brunstetter, R-Forsyth, would apply during the entire length of a woman’s pregnancy, not just after 20 weeks, as in Folwell’s bill.

Pro-choice groups and women’s rights groups oppose the bills because they believe that the bills would take the focus off the woman as the primary victim and move the focus to the fetus. They also worry that the bills could chip away at abortion rights.

The bills’ supporters insist that the bills have nothing to do with abortion and that the bills themselves contain language ensuring that they could not affect legal abortions.

Current North Carolina law allows for higher penalties for defendants who commit crimes against pregnant women, but prosecutors rarely use the law, and the law does not recognize a fetus as a separate victim.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A North Carolina lawmaker says the state could have more authority over what goes on at a Navy practice landing field if his bill becomes law.

The House unanimously agreed Thursday to decline to give the federal government permission to acquire land in some areas of the state for a proposed outlying landing field.

The Navy wants the field in North Carolina or Virginia so jets can practice carrier takeoffs and landings. Gates or Camden counties are among the five proposed sites.

Rep. Bill Owens of Pasquotank County said the bill can’t prevent the federal government from taking land and building the field despite local opposition. But he said it could give the state more influence over what is regulated or taxed there.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Gov. David Paterson and opponents of gay marriage square off for another round tomorrow.

Patterson is making another push to legalize gay marriage in New York by introducing the same bill that died in 2007 and which opponents vow to kill again.

Patterson seeks to tap into the momentum of other states that have recently allowed same-sex couples to wed, but the measure will face stiff opposition in the Legislature.

The Democrat-controlled Assembly passed the bill 85-61 in 2007, but it died in the Senate, where the Republican majority kept it from going to a vote.

The Democrats gained a 32-30 majority in last November’s elections. Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith says he still doesn’t believe there are enough votes to pass it.

Paterson says gays and lesbians in civil unions are denied a host of protections such as health care and pension rights.

RALEIGH, N.C. – An effort to regulate mo-peds in North Carolina got diverted after senators rejected an effort to require riders to carry liability insurance.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand on Thursday pulled his bill to require a mo-ped to get a license plate and riders to wear a helmet. Rand said insurance ensures scooter riders take responsibility for accidents.

Senators voted for an amendment by Sen. Jim Jacumin of Burke County to remove the insurance requirement. Jacumin said mo-ped accidents aren’t a big problem and premiums would place a burden on people who ride them because they are barred from driving a car.

Rand said premiums would range from $80 to $300 per year, but Jacumin and others said it could be much higher in some cases.