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Vajda: Eszter Vajda
Henry: Johanna Henry
McHenry: Kelley McHenry
Lucas: Sen. Jeanne Lucas, [D] Durham County
Apodaca: Sen. Tom Apodaca, [R] Henderson County
Rand: Sen. Tony Rand, Chair, Senate Select Committee
Boseman: Sen. Julia Boseman, [D] New Hanover County
Heneghan: Jerry Heneghan, Virtual Heroes
Sawyer: Ben Sawyer, Co-Founder, DigitalMill
Dear: Robert Dear, Video game store employee
Ellen: Andy Ellen, NC Retail Merchant's Association
Jurovics: Steve Jurovics, Founder, LimiTV.org
Morris: Peter Morris, President, Pediatric Society
Van Kleech: Kathy Van Kleech, Specialty Vehicle Institute
Ponder: Karen Ponder, President, N.C. Partnership for Children
Groelle: Tabitha Groelle, Parent
Goldstein: Larry Goldstein, MD, American Stroke Association
Rosen: Lee Rosen, Divorce Attorney
Bayer: Perry Bayer, Shell Fisherman
Tursi: Frank Tursi, Coastal Federation
Pate: Preston Pate, Director, Division of Marine Fisheries
Purcell: Sen. Bill Purcell, [D] Scotland County
Nesbitt: Sen. Martin Nesbitt, [D] Buncombe County
O'Connor: Paul O'Connor, Winston-Salem Journal
Bonner: Lynn Bonner, News and Observer
Mooneyham: Scott Mooneyham, Capitol Press Association
Vajda: Coming up, a select Senate committee starts discussing the lottery. Plus, would you let your child buy this game? Some lawmakers want to restrict violent and obscene video games. And these young lobbyists have a very important agenda; we will tell you why they visited the capitol. Don't go away. That and much more coming up next.
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Voiceover: This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank you.
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Vajda: Good evening, everyone. I'm Eszter Vajda.
Henry: And I'm Johanna Henry. Tim Crowley has the night off. Thanks for joining us. A state lottery bill is being tossed around by senators. We will have highlights from a select committee on the lottery bill.
Vajda: A measure that would restrict access to cold medication clears another hurdle. And if you are thinking of getting married, your license fee could be waived. We will tell you why. But first, the lottery.
[BEGIN SEGMENT - LOTTERY]
Vajda: A Senate select committee met this week to discuss a bill that would enact a state lottery. No vote was taken, but there were plenty of questions about the proposed measure. Senators peppered a legislative lawyer about the bill this week. Senator Tony Rand chairs a 20-member committee which was appointed by President Pro-Tem Marc Basnight. Under the measure, 50% of the revenues from the lottery would be given out as prizes, 16% used for the game's overhead, and 34% on education. Of that 34%, half would be used for school construction, 25% for college scholarships, and the rest would go to other educational programs as the General Assembly sees fit. Lawmakers estimate the lottery would bring in an estimated $400 million. Proponents of the measure say the state is losing too much money because people are going across the border to buy lottery tickets in other states.
Lucas: Eighty to ninety percent of the population want the lottery, and I represent the people. And the people want the lottery. And they have wanted it for a long time. They go out of this state to play the lottery and therefore I support them. And you know that money is leaving this state. Common sense tells me to bring it back.
Vajda: But opponents say the bill is too vague. Concerns include a provision that would allow online games. The Senate is trying to ban video poker and some fear wording in this bill would allow just that.
Apodaca: I am very concerned in the wording of the bill dealing with computer terminals and what could be done with that. It sounds very similar to me to video poker, which we are in a constant argument about in this state. And I think this would be a way to, you know, put it in stone.
Vajda: Others question whether the state should be involved in running a lottery and suggest a private enterprise is a more suitable choice. While the chair of the committee, Senator Tony Rand, says he does not have a preference, he does have other issues with the bill.
Rand: We want to look really at where the money for school construction would go and what, some concern of mine is would you let school units pay bonded indebtedness that they already have or would you make them build new schools?
Vajda: Many agree the bill will be tweaked before sending it back to the House, but House Speaker Jim Black warned senators not to make too many changes on the bill because it was such a close call in the House. Two weeks ago the bill squeezed through the House by a vote of 61 to 59. The select committee on the lottery will meet again next week.
[BEGIN SEGMENT - VIDEO GAMES]
Vajda: The Senate unanimously approved the bill to stop the sale and distribution of violent and obscene video games to minors. The bill sets new criteria for determining what is considered violent and appropriate for kids. The retailers and video game industry don't like that. They say the current rating system works and the bill is unfeasible.
Boseman: This bill is certainly not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. The children of North Carolina are entitled to a greater protection than you or I from the evils of society. And it is our duty to protect the children of North Carolina and give parents the resources they need to make good, informed decisions.
Vajda: Several other states have passed similar legislation but it was struck down by the courts as being unconstitutional. The courts cited violations of the first amendment. Johanna, you've been following this story; why is this getting so much opposition?
Henry: Well, Eszter, ask anyone if they think keeping violent and obscene video games out of the hands of children and they will probably say yes, but it is not that simple. Opponents of Senate Bill 2 say there is a system already in place that works. A note to viewers, the following story has images from video games that some may find disturbing.
This game is called America's Army. It is a strategic communications tool used by the United States military to attract young men and women to the Army. Millions of players download the free game and try the Army on to see if it is a virtual fit. The game is rated "T" for teenagers 13 and up. It does contain killing and some violence. Authors say they don't sugarcoat reality.
Heneghan: Death is depicted in other media forms. I mean, death is depicted in the movie Bambi. You know, it is depicted in TV shows every night.
Henry: Jerry Heneghan and his team at Virtual Heroes contract with the Department of Defense to publish America's Army. He says they don't show gratuitous violence and use the game to teach values. The federal government says the game is appropriate for kids 13 and up. But if Senate Bill 2 passes, the North Carolina General Assembly could say it isn't.
Heneghan: We are getting paid by the federal government to perform this service and create this content for them for the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army and that is why we have a problem with this particular bill.
Henry: The video game industry has a voluntary rating system. The Entertainment Software Rating Board assigns a letter to each game based on content, "C" for early childhood, "E" for everyone 6 and up, "T" for teens 13 and up, or "M" for mature 17 and older.
Sawyer: It takes a while for these things to take hold. I don't think the industry has been slacking on that.
Henry: Ben Sawyer is co-founder of DigitalMill, a consulting firm for the video gaming industry. He says unlike the movie industry, video games voluntary rating system is only a few years old. Sawyer says the system is already working without legislation.
Sawyer: What the industry will say is that one, we don't think it is needed; we are working towards this, you know, it is not going to happen overnight. You can't just immediately get a very diverse retail environment to get every worker trained in every Wal-Mart. It takes time. Eventually I don't think within the, you know, next couple of years, I don't think this is going to be an issue, the enforcement issue.
Henry: Nineteen-year-old Robert Dear is a video game connoisseur. He works at EB Games in Raleigh. They voluntarily card minors and won't sell "M" or mature rated games to kids under 17. Not because they don't ask.
Dear: Kids as young as 5 and 6, all they can say is "Grand Theft Auto."
Henry: Grand Theft Auto, a popular mature-rated game for blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, strong sexual content and use of drugs. Dear says he supports a law that would keep this kind of game away from children. He says even though kids see violence on the news or prime time TV, playing the bad guy is different.
Dear: On the games you are causing what you see on the news. The kids are causing what is happening there, they are causing the blood in the streets and the buildings being bombed and collapsing and stuff like that.
Henry: Andy Ellen represents retailers that sell video games and say his stores are voluntarily restricting the sale of violent games. He says just because a game has violence doesn't mean it is bad.
Ellen: You know, we grew up on Three Stooges and Wiley Coyote and Looney Tunes where there was violence involved in those, and old-time Westerns and The Godfather. And if you think about violence, again it is in the eye of the beholder. If you take a video game like Harry Potter, the book is what encourages kids to read. They can go to the movie, they can be the Halloween character, but they can't buy the video game possibly because it contains violence.
Jurovics: I think that is a silly argument. I do. I mean, I don't think that there is any way that you would put, you know, the Harry Potter movies in the same camp as some of these just extraordinary violent video games. They are not rated that way now and if the criteria were based upon the "M" rating, they certainly wouldn't be included.
Henry: Steve Jurovics, founder of LimiTV.org supports Senate Bill 2 but agrees with the industry that the current rating system shouldn't be thrown out. Under Senate Bill 2, a new standard would apply to violence and video games. It would be illegal to distribute to minors any game that, "The average adult applying contemporary community standards would find that the depiction has a predominant tendency to appeal to a morbid interest of minors in violence and would find that the depiction is patently offensive to prevailing standards of what is suitable for minors and the game must lack serious literacy, artistic, political or scientific value for minors." Since the bill throws out the current rating system, store clerks would have to know the content of each and every game.
Jurovics: The correlation or the relationship between media violence and aggressive behavior is actually stronger, okay, than the relationship between smoking and lung cancer.
Henry: Jurovics says while opponents might point to a study or two concluding virtual violence doesn't lead to real-life aggression, the preponderance of evidence supports a link. On his website, Jurovics cites a statement from the 2000 Congressional Public Health Summit. "At this time, well over one thousand studies point overwhelmingly to a casual connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some students."
Jurovics: If we were trying to raise gladiators, this thing would be really fine. You are desensitizing children to the pain that they inflict upon others. You are teaching them to shoot through these first-person games. You are giving them incentives to maim, kill, shoot, injure, inflict pain on others.
Henry: Senate Bill 2 also requires retailers to create a separate area for graphically violent video games that is not open to minors. And the bill makes it illegal to distribute sexually explicit games to minors. Members of the video gaming industry we spoke with say they don't have a problem with that part of the bill.
Vajda: Thanks, Johanna. Kids riding all-terrain vehicles in North Carolina are not required to wear a helmet [Senate 189]. In fact, the state is one of five in the country without laws regulating ATVs. But while many agree there should be some regulation, there is disagreement as to what age the restrictions should start. A bill being considered by a Senate committee would make it illegal for kids under the age of 12 to ride ATVs and children 12 to 15 would be required to drive ATVs with smaller engines.
Morris: Children under 12 should not be allowed to ride ATVs. We will remind you that the data that Mr. Pataglione reported on deaths in North Carolina showed that half of the deaths of children in North Carolina have occurred to children under age 12.
Van Kleech: I wish we had better statistics on the North Carolina deaths of kids under 12. My guess is, based on national statistics, that those kids were not riding on appropriately sized youth model ATVs.
Vajda: Kleech cites a study by the Consumer Products Safety Commission that she says found using appropriately sized models is not dangerous. No vote was taken on the measure.
Henry: Some students can now add medication to their list of school supplies. Both chambers approved a measure [House 496] that would allow students with asthma or severe allergies to have and administer their medication at school. The child must have written permission from a parent or guardian and a note from a healthcare practitioner about their condition. The bill now heads to the governor.
House members voted unanimously to give schools in the western part of the state more flexibility to make up instruction days lost during flooding. Hurricanes Frances and Ivan swept over the state last fall; the bill [House 415] would allow local school boards to designate when students make up time lost from bad weather. Students must complete a minimum of 180 school days or one thousand hours of instruction. The bill now heads to the Senate.
Vajda: More than one hundred kids descended on the legislative building this week. They joined education leaders and parents in asking lawmakers to fund several early childhood programs such as Pre-K and Smart Start. They say the legislature has cut funds for Smart Start by $50 million over the past four years. Two separate bills in the House and Senate aim to restore funds for the early education programs. Advocates say investing in a child's education is an investment in the future.
Ponder: Childhood is when the foundation for future education is built. If kids don't have that opportunity in the early years, not only do we not benefit fully from their ability to get off to a good beginning, but we pay the costs of that in much higher rates later on.
Vajda: Some point out that many kids are being raised by a single parent or both a mom and dad that work. Those families really rely heavily on early childhood programs to help raise their kids.
Groelle: Our children are our future and you know, for parents that work like my husband and I, we both work, and we had to find some place where our son was going to learn.
Vajda: Early childhood programs are aimed for children birth to age 5. Johanna?
Henry: North Carolinians have the fourth highest death rate from stroke in the country, and nearly 700,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each year. But the good news, new technology and treatments are helping more stroke victims recover. House Bill 1396, along with the American Stroke Association, help set up primary stroke centers in North Carolina, hospitals with special accreditation and resources to treat stroke patients.
Goldstein: So that once you get to the hospital, everything is greased. We usually, when patients arrive, they arrive if we are lucky within one to two hours after the onset of symptoms. On the current FDA-approved therapy, it has to be given within three hours, which means that everything that we need to do to evaluate that patient has to be done in an hour or less. Then within that three hours, the sooner you get treated the better.
Henry: Experts say currently only three to five percent of victims get to the hospital in time to take advantage of the new treatments. The bill also calls for the development of policies and procedures for first responders treating stroke victims.
Vajda: New conditions for vehicle emissions. Senate Bill 1006, now in the agriculture committee, gives the department of motor vehicles power to refuse certificates of title or registration to vehicles that do not meet the new lower standards. The lower emission requirements would mirror those in California, they would apply to 2007 light duty cars and trucks and all motor vehicles starting in 2008.
Cold remedies containing ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamines are one step closer to moving back behind the counter of your local drug store [Senate 686]. A Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately passed the measure on to the full Senate even after some lawmakers complain the bill puts needed cold medications out of reach for parents and patients after business hours. If it becomes law, only pharmacists could hand out the drugs.
Henry: Some divorce lawyers are asking the legislature to help clear up confusion over lawsuits concerning alienation of affection and criminal conversation cases. Those are legal terms for cheating and sex. Under current law, a person can sue a third party up to three years after they find out about the cheating. But a recent state court of appeals ruling redefined the statute of limitations from three years from when a person finds out to three years from the actual cheating. One divorce lawyer says the court is stomping on people's right to sue because finding out about an affair often takes a long time. A bill to abolish such suits never made it to a vote in 2003.
Rosen: There has been all this talk for years about abolishing these claims and the legislature needs to do it if it is going to happen. Or make it clear that they are not going to do it. But what we've got now is a situation where the court of appeals keeps trying to take away rights that the legislature has granted. And so we are in a state of confusion.
Henry: There is no limit on how much money a person can sue for in such cases.
Vajda: Diamond ring? Thousands of dollars. Honeymoon? Thousands more. Marriage license? Priceless. And soon maybe free. A bill [House 1367] introduced in the House this week would waive the $50 marriage license fee for couples getting pre-marital counseling. To get the waiver, couples must show documentation of their counseling 15 days before applying for the license. The state would reimburse counties for the waiver.
[BEGIN SEGMENT - OYSTER INDUSTRY]
Henry: North Carolina oyster farmers will get a boost if state lawmakers pass four bills aimed at keeping the industry afloat. There is more than $1 million in proposed funds on the line for shellfish. A destructive parasite recently devastated the shellfish harvest. State officials say oysters are too important to North Carolina's estuaries to sit back and do nothing. Kelley McHenry went to Morehead City for details.
McHenry: North Carolina shell fishermen hauled in about 70,000 bushels of oysters during the 2004-2005 season according to state figures. That is up from years past when only 40,000 bushels were brought in. But experts say if you compare that number to harvests at the turn of the century, when more than a million bushels were netted, the North Carolina oyster industry is getting shelled.
Bayer: If you look at the trends, oyster trends, over a hundred years, it is very clear it is a downward trend.
Tursi: Everything died. There weren't enough live oysters, little oysters like that. Now we are getting oysters, average oysters eight, ten, eleven inches long and stuff and just full of meat.
McHenry: So it's getting better?
Tursi: Yes, ma'am, it's getting a lot better. It is not to the point where you can go out there and just go crazy about it. You still have to regulate it every day.
McHenry: Compared to other catches, North Carolina's oyster harvest is small, generating only about a million dollars in sales. But environmental experts liken the oyster to a canary in a mineshaft, because so many other species depend on oyster reefs for survival. If oysters are in trouble, they say, so is the rest of North Carolina's estuary system.
Pate: They are such a keystone species in our water. There are probably 90 or more species of fish and shellfish that depend on oyster habitat at some point in their lives.
McHenry: As well, oysters continually filter the water, removing harmful algae and plankton. But over the past decade they have been hit hard by a parasite that prevents them from growing to normal size. Marine fisheries officials say oysters are like people, when they are stressed they are more vulnerable to disease.
Pate: When oysters are affected by increased sedimentation or less than optimal salinity conditions or poor oxygen conditions, they are more susceptible to attack from these parasites and the parasites are very aggressive, the ones that we are dealing with here in North Carolina.
McHenry: So what's causing all the stress? Experts say there are many factors but they point to water quality that is deteriorated because of runoff by nearby farms and development. They say most of the surrounding wetlands have also been destroyed.
Pate: Wetlands are a key component to the estuarine system. They remove nutrients, remove sedimentation, but they also serve as important buffers to upland runoff, to filter out or to mitigate the flow of fresh water into these salt water areas.
Tursi: Wetlands are nature's natural filter.
McHenry: Frank Tursi of the Coastal Federation, an environmental non-profit group, says his organization is heading up a massive effort to restore wetlands to the coast.
Tursi: It is the largest wetlands restoration project in state history. And so, it will probably take ten years, maybe longer.
McHenry: Using grant money, the federation purchased this farm just north of one of the area's prime oyster harvesting rivers. In two years they have turned a section of the land back into wetlands and plan to do the same to up to 6,000 acres.
Tursi: You can see here the water flows very slowly, it is taking up our plants, very little of the water actually runs into a stream. Ninety percent of it gets evaporated or taken up by plants.
McHenry: As well, state officials started a recycling program that returns empty oyster shells to their natural habitat. Baby oysters need something to attach themselves to in order to grow, and they prefer to attach themselves to other oyster shells. So instead of just throwing these away, the shells are collected and returned back to the estuaries. Bayer says he recycles about 6,500 pounds of shells a week. That kind of volunteer effort, say experts, along with re-stocking the rivers with heartier breeds of oysters, has breathed new life into North Carolina's oyster industry.
Bayer: It is working, and it is working even with the limited resources that we have now. Some of the best harvesting areas were off of our management sites where we've been planning material for a number of years.
McHenry: There is also new legislation to create oyster hatcheries at the three state aquariums as well as continued funding for the existing programs.
Bayer: I think for us to continue that momentum and improve our success, there has to be a realization that these are very costly programs, that the technology is fairly simple and low and inexpensive relative to a lot of other programs that we have. But it does take money to have boats on the water and have material to put in the water and monitor the results.
McHenry: State officials say they haven't heard from any organized opposition, just concern from fishermen about potential limits on fishing waters. But those involved in this effort say with continued hard work and commitment, this estuarine world can once again be our oyster.
Bayer: It is still a little early to say we are winning, but the great hope is that if you come back here ten years from now, you will be able to take a boat anywhere in North River and go oystering and not have to worry about bacteria, contamination.
Tursi: You never need to stop. You have always got to be working, because this is the only planet we have. Like I was telling you, when we destroy this it's all gone.
Henry: Some of the measures introduced include the Oyster Restoration and Protection Act, a tax credit for recycling oyster shells, and funds for oyster hatcheries. Some lawmakers say it will be tough to pass the legislation in a tight budget year.
Vajda: Most agree all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, should be regulated. But at what age should that start? Here is what two lawmakers had to say about the issue.
[BEGIN SEGMENT - ALL-TERRAIN VEHICLES]
Vajda: Senator Martin Nesbitt, Senator Bill Purcell, thanks so much for joining us today. Senator Purcell, you introduced a bill that would regulate all-terrain vehicles. Why does North Carolina need such a law?
Purcell: Let me say first of all it is a real pleasure to be here with my friend and colleague in the Senate, Martin Nesbitt. We work well together and generally agree on things and have worked a lot of bills together and I'm just pleased to be here with him. This bill really came from a North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force. This task force was formed by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1991 and really, if you look at the death rate of children from 0 to 18, since this task force was formed, it has been reduced by 26%. I think it is to a large part due to actions taken by the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force, such as seat belt bills and booster seat bills recently and also the graduated driver's license was one of the things they worked hard on. And the graduated driver's license has really reduced the death of 16-year-olds by a third since this thing was put in place, and the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force worked on that. This is just another part of that effort to continue to look where things they consider unsafe and try to do something about it and that's where it came from.
Vajda: Senator Nesbitt, you agree with this bill and you've said that in committee, but there are some provisions that you do not agree with. Can you talk a little bit about that, please?
Nesbitt: Well, yes, and I think Dr. Purcell said it all. We are usually on the same side of issues and I think we are on this. Any time you have a group like this whose job it is to bring to our attention a problem, they do good work and they serve a very good purpose in bringing that to us. But, from time to time you have to temper that a little bit with practical skills and figure out how to accommodate their recommendations so that it can be incorporated into people's lives and you don't just change the plan of salvation, if you will. And I think that's where we are on this bill. The approach generally was to just keep children and young people off of ATVs. It did allow some supervised riding from 12 to 16. And I think the approach that some of us want to take is to allow supervised riding of appropriate-sized vehicles so that kids can learn as they go how to protect themselves from these types of machines and allow families to enjoy ATVs and the other things that they enjoy in their lives and hopefully accomplish the same goal.
Vajda: Senator Purcell, why mandate that kids under 12 should not be riding ATVs? There was a proposal that it should be six and under.
Purcell: Well, I have a little different viewpoint on this as my background is in pediatrics and I've seen the injuries and the serious problems from ATV accidents. The North Carolina Pediatric Society, all of the physicians, anesthesiologists, surgeons, the neurosurgeons, the emergency room physicians, everybody sees these injuries on almost a day-to-day basis, really feel that children under 16 should not be allowed to operate ATVs and I use the analogy that there are not any golf courses that I know of that would allow children under 12 to drive golf carts. I think, although golf carts aren't ATVs, the operation of these is similar and a lot of us feel that it is dangerous even though they use a slow moving motorized vehicle, that young children just don't have the judgment if they are crossing a road to tell how long it is going to take that car down the road to get there, that they, even in the instructions that are given to the young children, they talk about how you have to lean when you turn curves. I think these things are very difficult to teach to six- and seven-year-old kids. I think there are other things that these kids could be doing rather than driving a motorized vehicle.
Vajda: But is it the government's job to regulate what, to tell parents what they should do?
Purcell: Well, I'll just tell you this. North Carolina is in about tenth place in the nation for ATV accidents and injuries and we have somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 ATVs in North Carolina and I think that it has been shown by a study done that in states that have safety regulations regarding ATVs, that we have none in North Carolina right now, that the death rate and serious injuries have been half what they are in states that have the regulation. So, if you have some regulations and guidelines, I think this helps parents sometimes in telling the kids that they, you know, what you can do and what you can't do. I mean, I don't think anybody wants to say the government is going to raise your kids for you. Somebody emailed me that God wants the parents to raise the children, not the government. And I emailed back that I think God also wants us adults to take some responsibility to make sure that they have a chance to grow up and live healthy lives, so, you know, there are all sorts of arguments.
Vajda: Senator Nesbitt, is the seven-year-old capable of riding all-terrain vehicles?
Nesbitt: Well, I certainly think they are and certainly appropriately-sized vehicles. The message we heard loud and clear is a lot of these injuries are caused when small children are on adult-sized all-terrain vehicles which they have absolutely no ability to control. But I think appropriate size vehicles are very controllable by children. They are very low horsepower vehicles and it is good to train people on it. I want to give you an analogy and I think the philosophical difference perhaps that we have is some of us think that you need to teach children about dangerous conditions so that when they experience them they will be better able to handle them. Some amongst us want to simply keep people away from dangerous instruments. I am of the opinion that they will get to them eventually and I will give you an example of what kids can learn. Jeff Gordon, who is about a four-time Winston Cup champion, came on and was a wonder kid; he was winning championships when he was 21 or 22-years-old, beating Dale Earnhardt, who had been there for 30 years. Nobody could understand it. He started racing when he was about five or six-years-old and won two Sprint car championships when he was 13-years-old, thousand horsepower vehicles. And that is what people are capable of learning and he has been safe, he has been protected, he has not been injured doing his sport. And yes, you can teach people, certainly minor things like riding bicycles, riding ATVs, etc.
Vajda: Senator Purcell?
Purcell: Well, you know, Senator Nesbitt has a different viewpoint. He is a racecar driver, I'm not and I don't understand some of that. I know something about the development of children and I've been practicing pediatrics for many years and most six-year-olds are not able to-I was riding in a golf cart recently with a kid who was driving the golf cart and he was looking out across the golf course and ran slam into a tree. Even though these vehicles are very, very slow and have low-powered engines, you can still drive them into a ditch and the thing can turn over on you. So there are still ways that you can get hurt on them and I don't-I think to teach kids when they are old enough with the coordination and the ability to operate handlebars and brakes on the handlebars and know how to lean when they turn curves and this type. But I just don't think little kids are quite ready for that. I think there is plenty of time they can learn that.
Vajda: The retailers, Senator Purcell, the retailers and some people in committee said the fact is that it's not that kids are driving these too quickly, in fact, the small ones, the small all-terrain vehicles are quite small and can only go about 10 miles an hour, it is that parents put their kids on bigger vehicles.
Purcell: I think, and Senator Nesbitt made that point, I think that's true, that most of the accidents have occurred on kids riding improperly-sized vehicles. That still is an issue there.
Vajda: So why not mandate the size of the all-terrain vehicle that these kids can ride on?
Purcell: Well, in this bill we do that and the facts say that kids from 12 to 16 can only ride, operate vehicles with cubic son meter displacement up to 90 cc, which is a smaller sized engine; have to be over 16 to do that. And there are some good things in this bill that we certainly would like that require us wearing helmets and face protection and requires that the children have training, that they have a vehicle that has proper brakes and lights and things like this. We don't have any laws right now about it, so regardless of how it comes out we are going to have a lot better than what we've got right now but I am not certain it can't support allowing six-year-olds to operate ATVs.
Vajda: Will you vote against-oh, go ahead, senator.
Nesbitt: Well, I think it is important to know that those of us who are working on an amendment to the bill now certainly endorse all the safety measures, the helmets, the training, and we certainly support the appropriate size of all ATVs. So our bill, right now there are no regulations. Our bill would regulate them to the point that children could only be on appropriately-sized vehicles and appropriately-powered vehicles, so I think that that will be a great step forward toward protecting these children. It doesn't go as far as the proponents of the bill would like for us to, but at the end of the day we will have a bill of some sort that I think protects, helps protect our children and hopefully we will have one that allows them to be children and to learn new things.
Vajda: Would you vote for the bill if it remained that 12 and under can't ride ATVs?
Nesbitt: I don't intend for the bill to remain like it is. I mean, we intend to try to amend the bill and I don't want to speculate on that because that is very difficult. That is one of the problems. That's a tough choice because you will be telling a lot of families out here that they could not teach their children and participate with their children like they do now on these vehicles. On the other hand, we have children who are being killed because they are not being properly matched. That's not a good choice. And the good news about the legislature is we are here to find compromise and consensus and to try to do things that make the world a better place and still allow our people to live a fairly open life.
Vajda: Senator Purcell, are you willing to compromise?
Purcell: Well, I think we've already compromised. The healthcare people wanted this to limit no child under 16 and the industry wanted it down to age 6 so we compromised at age 12 which I think was quite a compromise. But I am real pleased about the industry, though. Basically the things in the bill besides the age really came from the industry. I mean, the safety regulations, the safety training, and all of these things that are in there, they, I've been told that they support helmets. And so there are some really good things in that bill regardless of the age but I would hope that we would keep it at age 12 and that's what the Child Fatality Task Force asked me to support and that's what I'm supporting. I don't know where it's going; I know there is a lot of difference of opinion out there. But I think there, as I said before, you know we are one of five states in America right now that has no ATV regulations at all. So if we get anything we will be better off. I hope we can keep it at age 12, though.
Vajda: My final question and either one of you can answer this, why has it taken so long for North Carolina to regulate ATVs? Why is North Carolina one of five states that does not have such a bill?
Nesbitt: I think that the rapid growth and the number of ATVs in North Carolina has just been really astounding. In America there were over 800,000 sold last year and you are starting to see more and more people riding ATVs and as the popularity of ATVs has gone up the accident rate has gone up. So I think that has really brought it to our attention as we looked at the increased number of ATVs with an increased number of accidents. There were 125,000 accidents in 2003 in American, up from about 68,000 five years previously. So there is an increase number, increased accidents. I think now it has really come to our attention that we need to take a look at this.
Purcell: I think that's a good explanation and I know the folks back home sometimes don't believe this but we don't wander about this building looking for things to regulate. And unfortunately usually there is a tragedy and that brings it to our attention and you see the need. But we try to leave our folks alone as much as we can and let them live their lives and step in when we think something has got to be addressed.
Vajda: All right, Senator Nesbitt, Senator Purcell, thanks so much for joining us.
Nesbitt: Thank you.
Purcell: Thank you very much.
Henry: Now some analysis from members of the Capitol press corps.
[BEGIN ANALYSIS SEGMENT]
Vajda: Paul O'Connor with The Winston-Salem Journal, Lynn Bonner with The News and Observer, and Scott Mooneyham with The Capitol Press Association, thanks for joining us. And this week we had the select committee meeting on the lottery, lots of questions being raised. And Tony Rand, Senator Tony Rand, said there will be some changes made to the bill. Paul, does that mean it's going to die? Is the bill going to die?
O'Connor: Not necessarily, not at all. The changes that were discussed most openly in the Senate Lottery Committee were changes that I think that the 61 people who voted for the lottery in the House would endorse. Some of them are just cleaning up language, making sure that there aren't contradictions in the law. And then there are other things like banning video poker, banning slot machines, that probably will come along, making it very clear that you cannot have lottery gambling from your home computer so that the kids under 18 can't be doing it. These are the kinds of changes that should make it more appealing, make the bill more appealing. So I don't think that they necessarily killed the bill.
Vajda: Lynn?
Bonner: No, those changes won't. But there is always this lingering question about how much advertising should be allowed. And there is some pressure to lift that House limit on advertising. The House said only onsite advertising, nothing too extravagant. There are some people who say that, well, if there is no advertising it won't bring in enough money so why have a lottery? I mean, will the lottery be as effective as we think it will if we limit advertising so severely? So, if the Senate lifts the limited advertising section of it, that could jeopardize it in the House.
Vajda: Scott, what do you think are going to be some of the biggest changes?
Mooneyham: Well, I don't, I'm not sure. I think they've kind of covered the areas that were likely to see the biggest changes. One of the questions is whether, if the House bill were to come back to the House for a vote yet again whether there are even the votes to pass the original House bill a second time because some people who voted for it no doubt have probably heard from some constituents back home who don't like the lottery. So, when we heard Speaker Jim Black say, "I hope you don't change this," what he was saying was I don't know whether we could get this out of the House a second time, which has lead to the speculation that the Senate may well put a lottery bill into the budget. I thought an interesting thing about this last committee meeting the other day was that the Senate committee spoke an awful lot about the House bill. They spent a lot of time going through the House bill. Well, I think that is a great thing and we would all applaud it, at the same time that is normally not what we see around here. Usually if people have an idea of what they are going to do they just kind of plow ahead and do it. But the Senate committee offered no alternate proposals even though it was kind of clear some of the directions they are going in terms of making sure there is no video poker allowed and in some of these advertising issues that Lynn talked about.
O'Connor: Excuse me, but one of the strategies that was discussed this week would be for the Senate to go ahead and pass the House bill as is, get Easley, Governor Easley, to sign it and then for the Senate to come back with a bill that improves the lottery, the House lottery bill, the one that would pass almost immediately, to clean up some of this stuff. You would then put the pressure on the people in the House, "Look, we've passed the bad lottery bill that you've sent us, but let's clean up this mess."
Vajda: Why not just clean up this bill?
O'Connor: Well, because then it has to go back to the House. The problem with the strategy of passing a flawed bill in the Senate is they don't have the 26 votes in the Senate yet. It could very well fail in the Senate. So, that is the other strategy that you are hearing.
Vajda: I just want to know, why did they include online gaming knowing that the Senate has been trying to ban video poker, Lynn?
Bonner: Well, that's a good question. I have no idea why they did that.
Vajda: Any ideas?
O'Connor: You wonder, first of all you question, did they know they were doing that? Did the person who wrote the bill maybe consider that he just wanted to keep it wide enough, open wide enough, to allow the lottery commission the flexibility to go with the industry, where the industry is going. And then the third answer is, well, they put it in there because the speaker is allied with the video poker industry.
Mooneyham: Yeah, well and I think, that could be the case. But it could also be the case that they just grabbed some language that is in existing lottery legislation in another state, and in some other states there have been increasingly moving toward doing some of this kind of computer terminal lottery.
Vajda: Scott, you mentioned about including the lottery in the budget. We are waiting for the Senate's budget. Is it likely they will include it?
Mooneyham: Well, I don't know and I think clearly it is an option that they are discussing. The problem with that is do you make everything so much more complicated that you lose votes for a budget? You know, you want to gain votes for a lottery, but it is a very complex balancing act to do that. On the other hand, if you do that and you also, there is the cigarette tax is the other issue out there and if they include a cigarette tax in all this does that then bring along some votes who might be some of the liberals who were opposed to a lottery? I just find the timing of it all interesting in the fact that the Senate does not seem to be rushing headlong to get a lottery bill out now; they know they've still got some work to do on a budget. Is all of this coming together and at least giving them the option of doing that?
Bonner: Well, rolling it into the budget gains you some Senate Democrats and maybe, probably enough to get it out of the Senate. Figuring Republicans aren't going to vote for a lottery they aren't going to vote for the budget. But then when you get over to the House side that's where it is once again in jeopardy and you likely lose votes on the House side for a budget/lottery bill.
O'Connor: I think that the first thing the House does is that it votes the lottery out of the budget, and so then where are you? I mean, you are in this kind of parliamentary limbo. Both Houses have passed the lottery but we don't have a lottery.
Mooneyham: You are in conference then and you've got one side with it and one without it and you bring a bill out of conference and if it doesn't pass then you go back to conference again.
O'Connor: Well, that's with regard to the budget, but where are you with regard to the lottery?
Mooneyham: Well, either it passes if you put it in a conference budget bill either it passes, and if it doesn't then you go back to the drawing table.
O'Connor: I can't see how the House leadership can put that in the budget.
Vajda: Okay, let's switch topics. Let's talk about video gaming, violent, obscene videos. There is a bill that would regulate distribution to minors. Well, let's talk about the comment that was made in committee that kids have a right to violence.
Mooneyham: Well, no, that was a comment made by one of the lobbyists who was trying to kill the bill.
Vajda: Do they have a right?
Mooneyham: Well, I don't think they have any more right to that than they do to pornography or to smoking cigarettes and the question is does exposure to violence harm children? Well I think certainly at some levels it harms children. And that is the intent of the bill, to try and get to that issue and to try to regulate these videos that a lot of parents believe have just gone way beyond anything anybody has seen before.
Vajda: But should lawmakers be in the business of parenting, Paul?
O'Connor: Absolutely. I mean, this is, no, this is absolutely an appropriate field for the legislature to be looking. If these games, I have the experience of being in a house when one of these games is being played and it is outrageous how awful they are and I yell at my now-22-year-old-son, "Turn that darn thing down." I would not want a 12-year-old playing those games, or an 8-year-old. And so I think if society has decided that we are not going to let a 16-year-old into an "R" movie, or we are not going to let them drink or smoke cigarettes, or that we are not going to let the school newspaper have all of the First Amendment rights that The Winston-Salem Journal has, then I think we certainly can be looking as a matter of social policy and public policy that we go through our government trying to control these things. But the question is, how do you do it constitutionally? And I'm not, I don't know if this bill is constitutional. But there has got to be a way to do a constitutional bill.
Vajda: Now there is even talk about regulating ATVs, kids riding on ATVs, so how far do you go? Go ahead, Lynn.
Bonner: Well, some of these ideas take a while to turn through legislature, sometimes several sessions. People who advocated for kids safety for years tried to get legislation saying you needed a bicycle helmet and that took a long time; finally they got it a couple of years ago. This ATV thing might be more difficult because there is, there are a group of dealers out there who say they make safe vehicles for younger kids and there really wasn't an anti-bike helmet contingent out there. So, there is a history in the legislature, a very recent history, of limiting certain things for children and trying to impose some significance.
Vajda: Isn't that a parent's job?
Bonner: That's the argument, but sometimes the argument is that parents need reminders. And these laws, when we write about them, parents realize, "Hey, maybe my kid needs a helmet." I mean, how often is a no bike helmet law enforced? I am sure cops have much better things to do. But the idea that there is a law out there, that we write about it, that some of the safety organizations remind people, remind parents that kids need helmets or shouldn't ride. Five-year-olds shouldn't ride ATVs, maybe that helps.
O'Connor: Seems some parents are incompetent. I'm not saying that many are, but some are. I mean that's why we have laws against child abuse and child neglect. So I think it is totally appropriate for society to come along, for the government to come along, and get into democratically-elected assembly as this one is, is to decide that we are not going to let 12-year-old kids drive around an ATV. We don't let 12-year-old kids drive around in, on the streets in automobiles. And I almost think that it would be safer to have them in automobiles.
Mooneyham: Go back to the video game issue for a moment. Problem with that is that parents feel like they have very little control over, kids are exposed to so many media images. This, one of these games is Grand Theft Auto, they advertise it on TV and kids are seeing that. And how do parents, you know, their kids are going over to their friends' houses; as a parent you can't go through every house of every friend of your kids and figure out what they might be exposed to.
O'Connor: There is one important difference I think we need to look at with these games. A kid goes into a store and buys one of these games. Maybe the kid comes up with the $50 or $60 to buy one of these games and then can have it and the parents don't know about it. That ATV? There is no way a kid owns an ATV without his mother and father knowing about it or somebody's mother and father having control over that, because that's a lot more expensive. Kids just don't go down to the local ATV store. So, I think that is an important distinction to keep in mind in these two things.
Vajda: Good point, Paul. Go ahead, Lynn.
Bonner: The question about the videos is that if there is this question about constitutionality; why not work on a bill that is more likely to be constitutional? I mean, rather than glossing over the question and adopting language that has been overturned by the courts in other jurisdictions. Why not work on the bill to make it constitutional?
Vajda: Go ahead.
O'Connor: My cynical guess there is that somebody is locked into some language and, like a lot of things around here, it is much more important that they look like they are doing something than they actually accomplish something.
Mooneyham: Well, to speak on their behalf for a moment [LAUGHTER].
O'Connor: You don't have to speak on their behalf, Scott. Come on!
Mooneyham: The bill is a little bit different than some of these other laws and I think one of the things they are trying to do is to apply the same obscenity standards that have been applied to pornography to violence, to violent video games. And whether they are successful, who knows? But I think one of the things that the bill sponsored, Julia Boseman has said, and I think she is probably right, is that there are a lot of federal judges out there that are hoping some state comes up with some language because judges respond to public pressure, too.
Vajda: You know, some of the images we see on the media, on nightly news, are just as bad. I mean, we are showing daily images of the war.
O'Connor: Well, I agree with that.
Bonner: But the difference is that you are not telling kids that they accumulate points by killing people. I mean, the object is I think on TV to show the reality of war, not make it into a game.
Vajda: So, is it going to pass the House?
O'Connor: I don't know.
Vajda: No one is willing to take a bet on that?
Bonner: It was unanimous in the Senate.
O'Connor: Is it electronic betting that we are going to be having? We will all go home and file our guess.
Vajda: Okay.
O'Connor: But I would guess, yeah, actually, on the video games thing I would guess that yes, it will pass. Simply because it is very hard to vote against that.
Bonner: But you need a champion in the House to take it up and I haven't seen anybody emerge in the House to say, "Yeah, I'm going to carry this bill."
Vajda: Okay.
Bonner: And that makes it a lot harder.
Vajda: Paul O'Connor with The Winston-Salem Journal, Lynn Bonner with The News and Observer, and Scott Mooneyham with The Capitol Press Association. Thanks so much for being with us.
Mooneyham: Thank you.
Vajda: A number of you had comments about a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to receive tuition to universities at in-state rates. House Bill 1183 is called "Access to Higher Education and Better Economic Future." Here is part of one email.
"The kids and their parents should be turned over to the appropriate federal department. Why is this not being done? If those people want to come back into the U.S., they can do so legally."
Henry: And another viewer wrote: "Jim Hunt has even come out of retirement to speak in favor of it, and yet the right-wing, racist and fascist have mounted a huge counter-offensive via the net and talk radio and within a week they have sunk the bill." Thanks for expressing your opinion on this issue. If you have any comments on any of the issues we've covered, or have ideas for a story, call our comment line at 919-549-7830. That's 919-549-7830 or email us at legweek@unctv.org.
Vajda: And finally tonight, congratulations to the newest addition of the Crowley family. Co-host Tim had his second child; Elijah Meriwether Crowley was born last Saturday at 10:28 a.m. The little baby boy weighed in at 9 pounds 13 ounces and is 20 inches long! Eli joins two-and-a-half-year-old Carson. Congratulations to the Crowley family. That is going to do it for our show. What a cute baby.
Henry: He is. He is precious.
Vajda: I'm Eszter Vajda.
Henry: And I'm Johanna Henry. Goodbye.
Voiceover: Funding for this program is made possible by UNC-TV members.
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