Winston-Salem Journal Editorial

When an agency handles almost a billion dollars of public money, it must do so in the open and with both scrupulous adherence to the state ethics law and the fundamentals of good record-keeping.

None of that should come as news to Dan Gerlach, president of the Golden Leaf Foundation. So it is time for Gerlach, and the legislature, to make sure all of that happens.

State Auditor Beth Wood recently found disturbing violations of standard record-keeping at the foundation. Minutes for 29 of the foundation’s board meetings were not immediately available to auditors, and Wood reported that the foundation staff wasn’t fully cooperative.

In addition, auditors determined that the foundation approved a grant in 2005 while in closed session – a violation of the state’s Open Meetings Law.

The Golden LEAF Foundation operates under a special state law and is not a typical state agency. It runs on funds collected through the national tobacco settlement and its job has been, since its creation in 1999, to help hard-hit tobacco-dependent communities recover from their transition away from a leaf-based economy. It does so by issuing grants for a wide range of endeavors.
Special legislation or not, the foundation must not operate outside of the basic expectations of public agencies. The Open Meetings Law must be obeyed and staff members should immediately surrender minutes to anyone who requests them. Gerlach should make “cooperation” a foundation byword.

The worst of the transgressions appear to have occurred during the tenure of the previous president, and some corrections have been made. The grant issued during a 2005 closed meeting was rescinded 60 days later, for example. Gerlach, who has been in the job a year, promises to do better. He was a budget official for former Gov. Mike Easley and did outstanding work before that as an advocate for a nonprofit agency.

But one man’s assurances are not enough. Systemic issues here must be addressed. The foundation spends money independently of the legislature, and that practice must be reviewed and more oversight instituted. And foundation board members are not subject to the state’s ethics law, just to an internal ethics code.

There may be aspects of the ethics law that would not fit with the foundation board’s special status, but the legislature can make adjustments if necessary. Foundation officials should be covered by the law.

Having already spent $393 million of state money and with another $550 million on hand, the foundation is important to the economic development of tobacco-dependent areas. Its work should be held to the highest public standards.

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 House lawmakers again have narrowly approved legislation designed to prevent a murder suspect or death row prisoner with severe mental illness from facing capital punishment.

A House appropriations subcommittee voted 5-4 Wednesday in favor of creating a process whereby the death penalty would be removed as a sentencing option for a murder defendant with a severe mental disability. The maximum penalty would be life in prison without parole.

The measure passed a judiciary committee last week and now heads to the House floor.

Opponents said criminal procedure already allow jurors to take mental illness into account at sentencing. A state attorney says the bill creates a process that would cost millions of dollars to carry out if it became law.

Winston-Salem Journal Editorial

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me five times …

Gov. Bev Perdue and legislative leaders must think that North Carolinians have short memories when it comes to taxes. That’s not a smart assumption.

From the look of things in Raleigh, the General Assembly is likely to approve about a billion dollars in tax increases this month, all to help fill the $4 billion-plus budget hole created by the recession. As if new taxes in hard times aren’t hard enough to handle – even when they are necessary – Perdue and other state leaders are insulting taxpayers by calling some of the increases “temporary.”

In 2001, North Carolina faced a budget hole. Newly elected Gov. Mike Easley and legislative leaders promised that the sales and high-income tax increases they passed would be temporary. But each year, when it came time for those “temporary taxes” to expire, they would be extended, and the promise to let them die soon would be renewed.

At one point, some of the taxes were allowed to expire, but at least one quarter of one percent of sales tax became permanent. We still pay it today.

There’s no reason for taxpayers to think anything will be different when these latest so-called temporary taxes are set to expire. There’s no evidence the economy will come roaring back to life and that state revenues will balloon. To the contrary, it looks as if slow economic times are ahead for quite a time.
There’s a better way to raise the revenue North Carolina needs to educate our children and provide essential services. The governor and the legislature can follow the lead of senators who are saying that the sales tax should be expanded to cover more of the modern economy – mostly services.

With a broader sales-tax base, these senators propose to actually cut the overall sales-tax rate. That would mean that North Carolinians might pay a sales tax on a ballgame ticket, but they would pay less tax when they bought clothes for their children.

The Senate approach is the right one for a 21st-century economy. The current sales tax does not cover the broad range of consumer economic activity and is therefore a less reliable tax when the economy goes into a dive, as it has. By broadening the tax and lowering rates, legislators would make the tax structure more predictable during good times and bad.

And if revenues were more reliable, political leaders could drop all the talk about temporary tax increases. The public knows not to rely on such promises.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – The Legislature has narrowly voted to require all North Carolina public school districts to set forth bullying rules that identify potential targets, including gays and lesbians.

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s office also said Tuesday she’ll probably sign the bill approved earlier by the House by a vote of 58-57.

The bill would require schools to create policies by the end of the year that at a minimum list perceived characteristics of a person likely to be bullied. That list includes race, religion and physical appearance, as well as sexual orientation and gender identity.

There are 11 states that already have laws on the books designed to protect gay, lesbian and bisexual and transgender students from bullying.

The bill was passed after several amendments were rejected.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – One of the most polarizing political figures in North Carolina history remains that way for some almost a year after his death.

The state’s General Assembly honored the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms on Tuesday, with a joint resolution and speeches praising the conservative Republican’s integrity, honesty and patriotism.

But in a rare move for such occasions, more than two dozen lawmakers boycotted the vote to honor Helms. Most were black Democrats like Sen. Floyd McKissick of Durham County, who said Helms opposed civil rights for blacks too long and too hard for him to forget.

The only lawmaker voting against the Helms resolution was Sen. Julia Boseman. The New Hanover County Democrat is the Legislature’s first openly gay member.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina General Assembly is working overtime to clear out its files of hundreds of bills before a self-imposed deadline.

The House and Senate scheduled what are expected to be marathon floor sessions Wednesday so that lawmakers can get legislation considered. Legislative leaders require bills unrelated to spending or taxes to pass one chamber by Thursday. Otherwise, the ideas are probably dead until 2011.

Legislation still trying to get in under the wire include one to allow death-row inmates to challenge whether race was a factor in their punishment. Another would allow schools to start classes two weeks earlier than currently allowed. A third would back limits on scorned spouses suing and collecting damages for stolen affection and adultery.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Ending the 140-year-old ban on Sunday hunting with guns in North Carolina has one week to stay alive at the Legislature.

A Senate judiciary panel scheduled debate Tuesday on the proposed repeal. The bill is on a long list of bills up for consideration during the General Assembly’s so-called crossover week. Bills unrelated to spending or taxes that don’t pass one chamber by Thursday are unlikely to be heard again until 2011.

North Carolina is one of 11 states that restrict Sunday hunting.

Bill supporters argue it’s an archaic law that prevents hardworking citizens from being able to hunt on what may be their only day off. But a 2006 consultant’s report found that two-thirds of the state population opposed lifting the ban.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Hundreds of opponents of annexation converged on the Legislature to tell lawmakers they want changes in existing laws.

Those opponents complained on Wednesday that residents who live outside of cities or towns get no vote on whether they are included. Objections have mounted in recent years after some municipalities failed to deliver promised water and sewer services long after collecting property taxes.

Senate leader Marc Basnight scolded city leaders who didn’t deliver on their annexations promises. He told mayors also lobbying the Legislature Wednesday those failures made people demand changes to a law Basnight said has served the state well for 50 years.