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LEGISLATIVE WEEK IN REVIEW
Vajda: Eszter Vajda, Host
McCullen: Kelly McCullen, Legislative Week in Review
Henry: Johanna Henry, Legislative Week in Review
Berger: Sen. Phil Berger, (R) Minority Leader
Rand: Sen. Tony Rand, (D) Majority Leader
Webster: Sen. Hugh Webster, (R) Alamance Co.
Dannelly: Sen. Charlie Dannelly, (D) Mecklenburg Co.
Hackney: Rep. Joe Hackney, (D) Majority Leader
Gibson: Rep. Pryor Gibson, (D) Anson Co.
Dollar: Rep. Nelson Dollar, (R) Wake Co.
Rhodes: Rep. John Rhodes, (R) Mecklenburg Co.
Black: Rep. Jim Black, (D) Speaker of the House
Basnight: Sen. Marc Basnight, (D) President Pro Tempore
Kiser: Rep. Joe Kiser, (R) Minority Leader
Apodaca: Sen. Tom Apodaca, (R) Deputy Minority Leader
Morgan: Rep. Richard Morgan, (R) Speaker Pro Tempore
Stam: Rep. Paul Stam, (R) Wake Co.
Glazier: Rep. Rick Glazier, (D) Cumberland Co.
Hartman: Joyce Hartman, Camden Co.
Harrison: Rep. Pricey Harrison, (D) Guilford Co.
Owens: Rep. Bill Owens, (D) Pasquotank Co.
Gillespie: Rep. Mitch Gillespie, (R) McDowell Co.
Sutton: Rep. Ronnie Sutton, (D) Robeson Co.
Starnes: Rep. Edgar Starnes, (R) Caldwell Co.
Jones: Rep. Edward Jones, (D) Halifax Co.
Crow: Dr. Jeffrey Crow, Deputy Sec., N.C. Office of Archives and History
Ross: Bill Ross, Sec., N.C. Dept. Environment and Natural Resources
Cleary: Dr. Brenda Cleary, Exec. Dir., N.C. Center for Nursing
[BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS]
McCullen: Lawmakers approve comprehensive ethics reforms, we will hear the debate. The House discusses driving privileges for people who have permanently lost their driver’s license. And we will examine a moratorium on new and so-called mega landfills, next.
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Vajda: Good evening everyone, I’m Eszter Vajda.
McCullen: I’m Kelly McCullen. Before lawmakers adjourned earlier this week they approved a moratorium on mega landfills, they managed to create an innocence commission, and passed eminent domain legislation. For these stories we will have all the details.
Vajda: Plus we will tell you about a side of state government you may not know about. But we begin tonight with ethics and lobbying reform.
ETHICS AND LOBBYING REFORM
Vajda: One item lawmakers wanted to get done before adjourning is ethics and lobbying reform. Nine pieces of legislation passed but perhaps the piece most watched by political observers is House Bill 1843, the State Government Ethics Act. The measure bans gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers but with some exemptions for food and drinks at public or educational events. The bill prohibits contributions to candidates and so-called bundling or in other words collecting and delivering money by lobbyists to candidates. It does not, however, ban fundraising for elected officials or contributions to elected officials from political action committees. It also establishes an ethics commission and although the commission is not open to the public the bill does give it more investigative powers than the current board. The bill also prohibits lawmakers from using their position for a personal or financial gain.
Now some say the measure has too many loopholes but others say it is a good first step.
Berger: But all in all we’ve done some good. I don’t think we’ve done as much as we could have or as much as we should have. And I will vote for the motion.
Rand: I think we’ve done a really good job of trying to make sure that we cover those areas that I think need to be covered and that we will offer to the public some sense of assurance that this is not a mockery.
Webster: It has been said here that voting against an ethics bill is suicide. I guess I am suicidal. I am not happy with this bill. I think we could have done a lot better. I am not one that is inclined to help somebody put a dress and lipstick on a pig.
Dannelly: It is true, the bill is here because of the negative action of a few that were caught or exposed. There were many in both chambers, did everything they could in the wrong way.
Hackney: The purpose of this bill is to increase public confidence in our government, all three branches, the executive branch, the legislative branch, and judicial branch. That is the purpose of it, that is where we have tried to keep our eye on this ball throughout the process.
Gibson: I think what you have before you is the most concise and direct answer to those that would claim that we are for sale and that we, those folks in the gallery that have quite frankly in my mind the lobbyists have the least culpability of anybody here because there wouldn’t be any problems unless we accepted those problems, but we have before us the best bill in the nation to address ethics, lobbying reform, campaign finance reform, that there can possibly be.
Dollar: Although I think this bill does a lot of very good things and I would certainly vote for it, what really got us in the swamp to begin with and I think with the media has really raised the most serious question about is the relationship between money and politics and policy. And we still have a long way to go in that regard and I hope that maybe in the future we will take a look at making some very serious, fundamental system changes to address those issues.
Rhodes: The issue before us is only going to be fixed when each individual on this House floor has the guts to be able to vote their convictions and put off all that stuff that you need to leave outside the brass doors and have the courage to be able to say and not be concerned about it because your first and foremost charge is to represent the people of North Carolina. And they deserve a clean and integrity-filled House of Representatives.
Vajda: Governor Easley must still sign the bill in order for it to become law
McCullen: Now to last week’s Question of the Week, “Should lobbyists be able to raise money for lawmakers?” In the ethics bill that passed lobbyists are still allowed to raise funds. Many of you, there is the number, do not agree with that. All respondents to our poll said, “No, lobbyists should not be able to raise money for lawmakers.” Thanks for everyone who contributed to last week’s poll.
HIGHLIGHTS OF SHORT SESSION
McCullen: As we mentioned lawmakers wrapped up the short session after just over two months of work. Well in a show of unity House Democrats spoke about their accomplishments at a press conference. They say those include passing a $19 billion adjustment budget with most of it going to education, pay raises, mental health and tax cuts. Lawmakers in both chambers also boasted about a minimum wage boost, tougher laws against sexual predators and DWI. Senate President Marc Basnight was proud of the way the surplus was spent while Speaker Black says he is especially proud of the ethics and lobbying reform bills that passed.
Black: Our goal is to improve the reception of members of the General Assembly, how government operates, because we do know that folks were losing confidence in the way we were doing so we made a major effort, we listened to your criticisms and their criticisms, and we made changes that we believe are going to make a difference in the lives of the people in North Carolina and the way this body operates.
Basnight: We did pretty good in relocating funds and saving some monies that we had generated with over $2 billion in excessive monies that we normally would have collected.
McCullen: Many Republicans say the Democrats didn’t let them take part in the political process during the short session. They say not all issues were addressed.
Kiser: The budget was much better but there were some things we should have done with the budget. One was to cap the Medicaid payments permanently for the counties. We are the only state that requires the counties to participate in Medicaid payments and we had that opportunity with the money we had and we didn’t do it.
Apodaca: It has been very interesting to watch the spending frenzy when you have a surplus. I remember listening to Rudolph Giuliani talk about the hardest time he had to govern in New York was when he had a surplus. So I guess if you judge it by how you are able to spend an extra $2 billion it has been a lot of fun for them.
McCullen: Many Republicans voted for the budget. Others say writers spent too much money and predict a deficit in the future.
Vajda: A bill to require more disclosure on what groups spend on media exposure of candidates during an election is on the way to the governor [House 966]. The bill requires committees or organizations to report any spending over $10,000 a year on broadcasting, calling or mailing information for or against a candidate. The State Board of Elections would keep those records. The measure is in response to the so-called 527’s activities in recent elections. Some say the group has helped inform the public about candidates. Others say they unfairly influenced elections.
Morgan: When the millionaires and the special interest groups spend hundreds of thousands of dollars without having to disclose the source it erodes public confidence.
Stam: If I might change jobs and I’m a graduate of UNC Law School and they might decide to put that in their little blurb in the alumni magazine and if it goes to 50,000 people and if I am a candidate statewide then they are going to have to disclose their contributors over $1,000, file with the State Board of Elections. This thing cannot possibly be Constitutional.
Vajda: The bill becomes law January 1st of next year so it does not impact this year’s election.
McCullen: The House agrees with Senate proposals easing ballot access requirements for third party candidates. It is House Bill 88 that allows candidates to remain on state and local ballots if their gubernatorial or presidential candidates receive 2% of the previous election vote [House 88]. The previous law set a 10% threshold. Third parties still must petition if they can’t achieve 2% support. They will need signatures equaling 2% of the previous gubernatorial election vote total.
North Carolina will launch the first innocence commission of any U.S. state. That commission will investigate wrongful convictions of inmates [House 1323]. The Innocence Commission would examine evidence not used in trials and consider an inmate’s argument that he or she is not guilty. Inmates who have pleaded guilty could not request an investigation the first two years of this and families of deceased inmates could not request investigations to clear a dead inmate’s name.
Glazier: The idea behind the commission which would be the first of its type in the country, premised on the same commission that exists in the United Kingdom, is that we recognize that on a rare occasion our system makes a mistake and we actually have incarcerated the wrong person for the crime and the guilty murder or guilty rapist or guilty burglar remains at-large.
Kiser: I believe in the court system that we have operating in North Carolina and I believe that there is actually a person who is innocent that there are grounds for him to be given a new trial and we see new trials granted all the time. This commission in my opinion is not needed.
McCullen: The commission’s investigations will be confidential unless it determines an innocence claim deserves a court review.
MEGA LANDFILLS
Vajda: Some activists fear North Carolina may soon become a dumping ground for out-of-state trash. Several new landfills are being planned throughout the state but a bill approved by lawmakers would freeze the creation of mega landfills for a year. Opponents say the move will cost jobs.
Opponents of mega landfills filled the halls of the General Assembly this week. Joyce Hartman grew up on a farm near one of the proposed sites in Camden County.
Hartman: I believe that the landfill that is slated for South Mills is entirely too large. First of all it is in the middle of a natural resource, it is in the middle of swampland and that type of soil is not good for trash.
Vajda: But it is not just Camden County. Waste companies are working on large landfills in Brunswick, Hyde, Columbus and others.
Vajda: Senate Leader Marc Basnight wants a moratorium so badly he inserted a provision in the state budget but when it was taken out by the House budget writers he introduced a stand-alone bill. It breezed through the Senate but hit a snag in the House. Proponents of the moratorium say the state should not be in the business of importing trash.
Harrison: We have no idea what importing eight million tons of trash is going to do to the North Carolina environment or to our public health and we’ve got these mega dumps proposed for six sites. We don’t have the infrastructure in place, the regulatory regime in place; we don’t know how the neighbors are going to be impacted so I am for a moratorium outright.
Vajda: Camden is one of the districts Representative Bill Owens represents. He supports bans on new landfills but he says the bill should exempt trash industries that have made a pact with the counties. Representative Owens claims his constituents need the industry for economic development.
Owens: They are against a wall. They are a poor county. They have entered into a franchise agreement. They have a way of getting revenue come in, some jobs, some tax base.
Vajda: Plus he warns waste companies have invested time and money into planning the proposed sites and the contracts should be honored or else the state will be sued.
Owens: We need to be very careful what we do. We don’t need to take the rights of people that follow the law and bought land, got franchises, applied for permits and then stop them.
Vajda: One way some want to stop the growth of large landfills is by completely capping the amount of trash in one site.
Gillespie: We can’t just go out here and put a moratorium on all the landfills in North Carolina because that stops counties from doing landfills that they are planning on building and actually what you are doing, you are actually driving up the cost on waste because then you have created monopolies on the existing landfills.
Vajda: The bill also creates a commission to study the financial and health impact of landfills on minority and low-income communities.
MORE LEGISLATION AND DWI LAWS
McCullen: Veterans get some state help against possible ID theft. Governor Easley signed a bill allowing military veterans to freeze their credit reports for free. The three major credit agencies normally charge $10 each for credit report freezes. A U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs computer was stolen earlier this year. That laptop contained personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans and sparked ID theft worries. This law is effective immediately. It expires July 1, 2007.
Vajda: Lawmakers also strengthened the state’s DWI laws this session. The comprehensive legislation follows the Governor’s DWI Task Force recommendations [House 1048]. Kegs will be regulated by a permit process. Prosecutors must publicly disclose why they drop or dismiss driving impaired charged. The law also creates new felonies for drivers who hurt or kill others while driving impaired. Police officers must conduct DWI road blocks in random locations and cannot establish checkpoints in the same locations repeatedly.
McCullen: The House discussed reinstating certain drivers who are under lifetime driving bans. The vote was close. This debate transcended party lines but the issue was raised on whether driving is an essential part of maintaining a basic lifestyle [Senate 1087]. The full House debated whether permanently-revoked driver’s licenses for non-impaired driving violations should really mean permanent without any exception at all. A Senate bill reached the full House this week offering ex-drivers who have lost their licenses forever a ray of hope.
Sutton: It allows those individuals after they have served two years of their permanent suspension, after two years of compliance they then can petition the court by motion for a limited driving permit and the permit, if granted, is somewhat almost identical to the permit that we allow drunk drivers, DWI’s, to have under certain circumstances, and then after a year of a clean driving record they then can petition, apply to DMV and the last year of their suspension is waived and they can if DMV agrees be given a license.
McCullen: The bill squeaked by its second of three required House votes Tuesday night. Supporters said people with revoked licenses still must work, they have family responsibilities, and they need some leeway to drive to the job, to the doctor, or to complete household errands. The bill says these family concerns should trump multiple driving convictions or unpaid fines which lead to the license being suspended then ultimately revoked.
Starnes: What we are talking about are the worst drivers on the roads in North Carolina and the public is demanding that we make the roads safer, not more dangerous. And you’ve got someone that is driving without a license, that has been permanently revoked; do you think they are going to follow the law if we give them a limited driving privilege so you can only drive between certain times of the day? They are already driving without a license so it is meaningless; let’s defeat this bill.
McCullen: Wednesday was a different day and the bill that passed by two votes Tuesday failed by twenty, killing it on the House floor. But the issue covered two days of debate and raised the issue of punishing drivers who permanently lose their licenses through convictions other than impaired driving or mental disability.
Gibson: There is an employer who has lost valuable employees because they have made mistakes and lost their driver’s license. Please give those people that need help the most the opportunity to earn a living.
McCullen: The issue is a matter of principle for others who believe our state law is the law, and permanent should mean permanent.
Jones: Now they are asking for us to make exceptions to what the general public wants out here. That is the wrong way to go with this. I am going to ask you to defeat the bill because it doesn’t make any sense for us to go out here and let someone drive while their license is revoked and say at the end of the day, “It is okay.”
McCullen: Senator John Kerr sponsored this bill in the Senate.
Vajda: Some drivers will have more time before renewing their licenses under a new measure approved this week. Drivers between 18 and 54-years-old would renew their driver’s licenses every eight years instead of the current five years [House 267]. Drivers over 54 would continue renewing their licenses every five years. Some drivers could renew licenses by mail if they are active duty military or have resided outside of North Carolina for 30 continuous days.
INSIDE STATE AGENCIES
Vajda: As the legislative short session winds down we wanted to take a few minutes to explore some other state agencies. Now just like the federal government, North Carolina has an executive and a judicial branch along with the legislative branch.
McCullen: Johanna Henry goes inside three departments you already pay for and may not know much about. Johanna?
Henry: Eszter and Kelly there are almost 30 departments in the executive branch of state government and we didn’t have time to talk about them all so I picked just three to tell you a little more about. Here they are.
So what does pirate’s treasure, the North Carolina Symphony, and a missing branch of your family tree have to do with one another? They and many other art and archive venues are all part of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.
Crow: North Carolina probably has the most comprehensive department of this nature in the country.
Henry: Dr. Jeffrey Crow is deputy secretary of archives and history at the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. The department has been around for 35 years. Dr. Crow has been there for 32 of them. Public libraries, art and history museums, the Arts Council and state archive collection all fall under the umbrella of the department. In this room citizens can search for missing links in their family history, answers to property disputes and millions of other queries in the state’s one hundred million documents. For a department that specializes in preserving the past, modern technology is changing how they operate.
Crow: And we are deeply involved in either maintaining records that are born digital, which is entirely different than what it was ten years ago, or in some cases actually converting older documents to digital formats so that people can research them online.
Henry: That is where Bill Owens comes in. It is his job to scan fragile documents and maps and put them back together in a digital format. Citizens can now look at this will from 1665 without making a trip to Raleigh. They only need to get online. Dr. Crow says the hard part about getting the documents online is that making them digital it is digitally keeping up with them.
Crow: Each document has to have a discrete number, if you will, to find it whereas in the old paper-based versions you could file records by box and by file number and so on and you had sort of a generic way of finding things.
Henry: From the Department of Cultural Resources its dusty treasures and pages from the past to an issue that isn’t always black and white, North Carolina’s natural resources and finding the best way of keeping them green.
Ross: We have signs that our different systems are declining in their overall health.
Henry: Bill Ross is the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It is his job to protect and preserve the state’s air, water, and public lands. Secretary Ross says the state’s population is projected to grow 50% in the next 25 years. But it is North Carolina’s popularity that can make the secretary’s job more difficult. That growth is brining for example 34,000 new homes to 20 coastal counties. Ross says it is North Carolina’s natural resources that bring growth, and it is that growth that strains its resources.
Ross: North Carolina is a desirable place. It is a desirable place because of the high quality environment. We’ve got to maintain that high quality environment as we grow.
Henry: To help do that the department is offering grant money, technical assistance, and education to land owners to help them conserve and preserve natural resources on their own property. Ross calls our environment a fragile planet. And that means he is the caretaker of one small piece of it.
Henry: And now to one of the smallest and most unique departments in the state, the North Carolina Center for Nursing. With a staff of only six the department is taking on the issue of too few nurses in North Carolina.
Cleary: North Carolina wanted to be the first state to step out and say we scramble with this issue about every ten years. Couldn’t there be a better way?
Henry: Dr. Brenda Cleary is the executive director for the N.C. Center for Nursing. She says in 1991 the General Assembly put such a priority on ensuring there were enough nurses in the state that they created an entire department, even though it is a small one, to combat the issue. Dr. Cleary says today enrollment into nursing programs has increased and the number of nurses has also gone up with the population. The problem now? Not enough teachers for the nursing students the state needs.
Cleary: We know that we turned away about half of our qualified students to all of our nursing education programs last year. It is not because we didn’t need them, we just didn’t have the resources and capacity to admit them.
Henry: Dr. Cleary projects the faculty bottleneck will get worse. By 2020 the state will have about half of the faculty it needs to graduate enough nurses. This year the General Assembly allocated money for a nursing fellows program in community colleges that want to teach nursing. Dr. Cleary says the extra funding along with other creative education programs and the state’s reputation as a good place to be a nurse will hopefully be the local solution to a nationwide shortage.
Cleary: We have never gone out to other states to recruit nurses in our whole history. That is really not how we are addressing these challenges but they come and we are grateful for that.
Henry: Just to put each of these departments in perspective we wanted to show you the operating budget of each. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources tops the list at $183 million. Next the Department of Cultural Resources comes in at $70 million. And finally at the bottom the Center for Nursing operates at under $500,000. Now all of these together equal less than 1.5% of the state’s $19 billion budget. Just one more thing I learned while doing this story, the Department of Cultural Resources recently acquired the first lottery ticket sold in North Carolina and the first winning lottery ticket for the state archives. They have to really plan ahead for future generations. Back to you.
Vajda: All right, interesting. Thanks Johanna. A bill limiting eminent domain seizures for private developments is in the hands of the governor. The legislation restricts eminent domain for private development dating back to July 1st of this year. Projects started before July 1st may continue. The bill preserves any local ordinances which further restrict local governments from seizure of property for private development. This legislation is an alternative to a House proposal calling for a Constitutional Amendment.
McCullen: To wrap up how the short session went Eszter sits down separately with the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate.
INTERVIEW WITH SPEAKER JIM BLACK
Vajda: Speaker Black thanks so much for taking time out to talk with us.
Black: Thank you, I am very happy to be here.
Vajda: End of session, give me your overall view of how things progressed this session.
Black: I believe that this was the best session that we have had in the last 25 years that I have been watching the sessions. I am just really proud of this session and I think that all of the members of the House and probably the Senate are very proud of the work that we have done.
Vajda: Do you think that some of the lobbying reform ethics bills and campaign contribution bills that have been passed will restore what some call a lack of confidence by the public of elected officials?
Black: Well it probably depends on how it is reported. You know I think a lot of the lack of confidence that people have, you know they listen to the media and they read the papers and they develop their opinions based on what you folks say but we have listened to criticisms from the public, our neighbors, the people we talk to back home and the media folks who watch what we do very carefully. And we are comfortable. We took those suggestions to heart. If there are some areas that we need to clarify so that our members know more about what the boundaries are then we wanted to do that and we did do that. So I believe that we have done a lot of work that should restore confidence if it is reported that way. But if it is reported that they didn’t go far enough or fast enough then the public won’t have any more confidence than they have ever had. There is some good news happening out of here and I hope that gets reported.
Vajda: And why weren’t PACs included in the final ethics reform bill?
Black: What?
Vajda: Political Action Committees, PACs.
Black: Why was it included?
Vajda: Why was it not included?
Black: Well Political Action Committees are an entity or a tool that gets people involved in the process so you can’t just totally exclude people from having some input into the political process. So we went a long way and the things that I think that we didn’t get done that are still a problem, as Representative Ross said on the floor the other day, we will back in January and we can continue to fine-tune this process.
Vajda: Let’s talk about the budget; $19 billion, some say it is the best budget in years, some—everyone got something out of it. But some fear that it will lead the state into deficit. What is your response to that?
Black: Well you always have the naysayers and the people who did not want us to spend as much as we spent the last time. Our state is growing and we have 20,000 to 30,000 new children reporting to school every year and if we are going to stay up with the rest of the world we are going to have to invest in education and in our people and infrastructure so in a growing state we are an attractive state and so we have to keep up. My goal is to be number one in education in this country for North Carolina. And that is going to be one of the best economic incentives that we can have is to have the best education system in the country. And we are striving to do that, in great strides in this session to do that.
Vajda: This is the short session however you passed many, many bills. What others bills or pieces of legislation would you have wanted to see done this session?
Black: Well there is just so much that you can do and we put first things first. You know we did some tax cuts and that was important. When I moved to North Carolina we had more education than we’ve ever have; we spent $895, uh, $943 million more than we had ever spent in education. And in addition to that we’ve captured that $425 million through the lottery that had been going to South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. And that is going to be a huge help. During this session we made sure that we, all of that money is spent in education and it will not be supplanted. As far as you can each legislature can of course change those things but we wanted to set an example and to make sure that money is used for education. So the education initiatives this time were the main thing. Tax cuts we did a lot of work in mental health that had been put aside for so long. We made some improvements in our court system by infusing more money into that. We have more judges, more D.A.’s so the backlog is not so great. And so those are some really important things we needed to do. We did a lot of good work and one of the reasons we were able to get so much done was that we had study commissions working in the interim on the campaign finance reform, the lobbying reform and the ethics reform. We had a study commission that did a lot of work and we hit the ground running and we were prepared for the session; we just got more done in the short session than some of the long sessions that I remember.
Vajda: You ran this session a little bit differently than last session. Why did you think it was important to run each session differently?
Black: I probably run every session a little differently. Every year that I have served as speaker I have learned a lot and have gotten a little bit better at the job. My ability to manage the situation has gotten a little better; it is—managing the House is a huge proposition and first I have to manage the Democratic caucus then I have to fuse that with the ones in the Republican caucus who want to work with us. And by the way there are a lot of members in the Republican caucus who do like to work with the Democrats. I hope we can continue to do that. There is some criticism from folks that want to work with the other side but after all we should be about the people of North Carolina and not political parties.
Vajda: Some feared at the beginning of this session about the stability of the session and how you would run it. How were you able to keep the Democratic caucus together?
Black: I have solid support in the Democratic caucus and you know we’ve known for a long time that there is a certain program out there to, you know, to get the Democratic caucus split. One way to do that is to discredit the speaker and get the speaker out and then of course you have the toss-up districts and there will be people organizing campaigns to take them out, try to get the Democratic caucus divided. But we are more together than we’ve ever been. And we were determined to stay focused and you know I am an optometrist and that is what I do in life is help people stay focused. But it has been a great session. I feel really good about the way things have occurred this session, how we worked together. And environment issue this time was really, really important. There is a concern that states like New Jersey will be sending their trash down to North Carolina, dumping it in North Carolina and that was quite an issue because some of our communities were depending on that for revenue and we have to keep that in mind and we have to let them be heard. At the end of the day today we passed a one-year moratorium on landfills in North Carolina until we can study the rules and regulations and get it right so that we don’t become a dumping ground for the rest of the country.
Vajda: You called this the best session you’ve ever had since you’ve been here. How are you going to top it next year?
Black: Well next year will be a different set of problems and what every session is about is fine tuning the laws that we have and you know sometimes we pass laws that have unintended consequences and every long session is an opportunity to move new ideas through the legislation and of course the short session should be about fine tuning the budget. But we have carryover issues that have not been completed in the long session and so next year will be a new session and we will deal with that one when it comes.
Vajda: Speaker Black thank you so much for taking time.
Black: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity.
INTERVIEW WITH REPRESENTATIVE JOE KISER
Vajda: Representative Kiser thanks for taking time out to talk with us.
Kiser: My pleasure.
Vajda: Give us your overall view of the session.
Kiser: Basically it has been a very good session I would say. Of course all sessions are not perfect and this one is not either. What made this session so much easier was the fact that we had $2.4 billion to fill some holes that have been missed for the past several sessions.
Vajda: What would you have done to make this session perfect?
Kiser: Well I don’t think anyone can make the session perfect.
Vajda: Or closer to.
Kiser: Okay, first of all I would have liked to have seen us use this money to relieve the counties of their obligations that we place upon them for Medicaid payments from the counties. I believe that is something that we need to do. I feel very strongly about that. We are the only state where counties are now participating in Medicaid payments. That is one thing that I thought we ought to have done. The next thing that I would like to do is have our budget process take more members into it. I have been a co-chair of Justice and Public Safety and along with Representative Haire and I am just not satisfied that our committee has very little to say about what goes into the budget. This is something that I’ve seen get progressively worse over the past sessions where it is a fewer number of people are determining what goes into the budget and I would like to see my committee members have more say-so.
Vajda: Now you voted for this budget but some members in your caucus voted against it stating that it would drive the state into a deficit. What is your response to that?
Kiser: Well there is quite a question there as to reoccurring money and I don’t think that I can recall a budget that we didn’t spend more money than we had reoccurring money. And so we will not know whether this is the case but I can tell you this, when a state is growing as fast as North Carolina is growing, that it is impossible to spend the same amount of money and meet the needs of the people and that is one thing that we have to realize, that our budget is going to have to grow because of the fact that we have more population.
Vajda: Representative Kiser, do you think the lobbying reform bills and the ethics bills that have passed this session will help restore some of the confidence that many say is lost in public officials?
Kiser: Well I think this lobbying bill that we just passed a few hours ago is a good attempt to do that. I have looked very closely at this bill and I don’t think it affects very much of what I’ve been doing anyway and I believe that is the case for most of the members. There has been a cloud out there that the members of the General Assembly, whether it be the House or the Senate, are maybe less than honest and doing shady things. And I can tell you that I don’t believe that, I think it is as fine a group of people as I’ve ever been associated with.
Vajda: Let’s talk about your caucus because it has been divided for quite a while. What are you doing to keep it together and of course you will be losing some of your members?
Kiser: Well it has been no secret that we’ve been very divided. We have been able to do much better this session than we did last session. We’ve been able to hold caucuses and be very constructive in our caucuses. To give you an example just yesterday we had a vote on the floor when all members of the Republican Party voted the same and that is, we are a very independent group and that doesn’t happen very often. It takes a lot of hard work to get that to happen. You know two years ago we voted the same way on the budget and all members voted “no” on a budget that was more grievous by far than this one.
Vajda: What are some of the bills and issues that you would have liked to have been taken up this session?
Kiser: Well of course the one that I would have loved to have been taken up is one that I’ve introduced for three or four years now and that is medical malpractice. I think that is one of the biggest problems that face North Carolina is the cost of medical care and I don’t believe we can every bring that down until we have tort reform and medical malpractice reform and I would certainly like to have the opportunity to debate that issue on the floor.
Vajda: What else do you foresee for the future in the next session?
Kiser: Well I think the next session might be a very interesting session in the House because I believe that the House will be closely aligned with Democrats and Republicans like we’ve been for the past while and I think that you are going to see a real opportunity if we were to have a new speaker for a coalition to be formed. Maybe not a co-speakership but from people from the center that will move North Carolina ahead.
Vajda: Well let me talk to you; let me ask you about the speakership. There were some questions and doubts about the stability of the House at the beginning of session, how do you see the progress and how the session has operated in the House?
Kiser: I think that the House has operated very well this time. You know everyone is going to have bills like mine that the leadership don’t want to hear and it wouldn’t be any different if we were in charge. But we’ve had a very cordial session I think where those of us who have an interest in the state have worked together to make it a better budget and a better session.
Vajda: Besides the budget and some more involvement from the Republican Party in the budget process, how do you feel about the way it operated, the session operated, how the speaker ran things?
Kiser: Well the speaker has done the same job that every speaker has done since I’ve been here whether they have been Democrat or Republican. He satisfied me on some things and some things I wasn’t very happy with the way they went.
Vajda: Representative Joe Kiser thanks so much for taking time.
Kiser: Thank you.
INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR MARC BASNIGHT
Vajda: Senator Basnight thanks so much for taking time of your busy, busy schedule.
Basnight: Well it is about ending so it is a happy day and a happy time.
Vajda: Well give us your overall view of this session.
Basnight: Well we did pretty good in relocating funds and saving some monies that we had generated with over $2 billion in excessive monies that we normally would have collected. Now those excessive monies are already taken for healthcare and Medicaid and the health insurance that we furnish for our employees.
Vajda: Senator Basnight this $19 billion budget many praise it as being a great budget because it has something for everyone but some fear that it will drive the state into a deficit. What is your response to that?
Basnight: Well if you are going to get into a deficit it should be a deficit that recognizes economic growth and putting people to work so that you generate more revenue and take people off of any kind of program that the government has to pay for. So I believe in creating jobs and jobs that pay some money, enough money that you can provide for your family. So the importance of education can’t be very well argued against. And if you say okay, we will not invest into this new wave of students that are moving into North Carolina from other states to be able to go to school very, very cheaply—you know if you come from the North you pay a lot of money to go to college, if you come from the South you pay a lot of money to go to college, if you come from the West you pay a lot, but if you come to North Carolina you don’t pay a lot. And so you want to live here, you want to be here, you’ve got fine educational opportunities. If you remove that investment from education, if you remove it and say that tomorrow you could have a deficit—I don’t know that we will have a deficit or not but if we do have a deficit like we’ve had in years past, at different times you do have them, that means that you reduce your spending immediately. There is no damage in the fact that you invest in education to get a return. You are trying to get a return, you are trying to train people, prepare people for jobs so they are not dependent on their government. And that is where we put our money. Now there are other necessary ingredients of what we have to do in government, you have to build roads, you have to have an infrastructure, you have to have water and sewer and you have to try to create one North Carolina. So you make investments in different regards—you give the governor $15 million to try to recruit industry to North Carolina and create these jobs and these opportunities. There is no deficit in North Carolina today. We have more money in the rainy day fund than we’ve had in many, many, many years. Our retirement fund is more healthy than anyone in the southeast. We’ve done the right things in following the governor’s lead—I have to give him a great deal of praise in controlling how we do spend money. And so that has been well taken care of. If there is a deficit you deal with it when it occurs.
Vajda: Senator Basnight the lobbying reform and ethics bills that passed this session, do you think that they will restore what some say has been a loss of confidence by the public of elected officials?
Basnight: You lose confidence in your government when you find yourself unable to go to work and you find yourself without employment. I believe then the government has failed you. Does a government fail you when someone writes a check and does not fill out the name to where that check goes? Absolutely so. So ethics becomes an important ingredient of how we manage ourselves. So that is critically important that we do that. We did that, we created an ethics committee that will oversee the three branches of government.
Now by Constitution there are some limits as to how far you can go—there are—free speech is well established in North Carolina, rightfully so. And so in that regard any punishment that is due a member of the Assembly or any ruling, not punishment, would have to be ruled by the Assembly itself. And so that component, after the review by the commission itself—it wouldn’t make any recommendations of wrong-doings to us for whatever treatment we were to find was in order. But the lobbying reform piece, no lobbyist can give any money; I don’t even know if that is constitutionally legal. I am told by some that it is and some that it is not but you cross the line. I think we drew it as fine as we possibly could, Senator Clodfelter did an incredible job with is committee and Senator Rand and others working in that effort to develop a—and with the House—to develop an ethics bill that affected who could give what and who could raise funds for you and who could not raise funds for you, but we do have that commission and in that regard you have to certainly identify any contribution that anyone does give you that is legally given. Obviously you don’t take anything that is illegal. But we have made great change in North Carolina.
We took it about as far as you possibly can. What you have to guard about is that you are hopeful that more people will want to run and serve in the North Carolina General Assembly. It is awfully hard to find people who can afford to come here. So many people have to work for a living that they just can’t leave their jobs and come. So Senator Graham had made some predictions that this would be difficult for people such as himself and many others that I’ve seen in the past who served that if you place more responsibilities upon a person who is part-time to come here, more requirements of review or study or cost associated with serving that you maybe will not have the candidates one day that you want in the people serving here. So you have to take that into consideration as well.
Vajda: A moratorium on landfills, your sort of pet project this session. The House took it down to one year instead of the 18-month moratorium that you proposed. How do you feel about that?
Basnight: I am happy that they passed a moratorium. I think the year is okay; you can study and review in that time. You probably could do it quicker but let’s say we have the year. If you move with some sense of haste then we can find out if this is what North Carolina wants and needs and it benefits the communities and who pays what and whether we want this much trash in our state. I think that would be the bottom line.
Vajda: Senator Basnight thank you. Enjoy your time at home.
Basnight: Thank you very much; it will be good to get there.
INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR PHIL BERGER
Vajda: Senator Berger thanks so much for joining us here.
Berger: Thank you.
Vajda: Give us an overview of what you thought about this session.
Berger: Well the session of course is the short session, lasted about as long as folks expected. Some of us would have liked to have seen us go home a couple of weeks ago but it is working out okay, at least we are not here into the leaves changing. So it is by historical standards a fairly short session. I have some concerns about some decisions that were made but probably the biggest concern I have is the failure to do some things. We didn’t fix the structural deficit that we’ve got. We didn’t really do anything about the problem that is continuing to grow about illegal immigration in North Carolina. We really didn’t do as much as we could have done on ethics reform, particularly the real problem of money coming into the system that is brought there through lobbyists soliciting campaign and other contributions. So while I’m glad to see that we are having the session come to a close I am some concerned about a lot of things that didn’t get done.
Vajda: Let’s take all of those separately. Going back to the budget, what was your biggest issue? You didn’t vote for the budget but some fellow Republicans did vote for the budget. What was your biggest issue with it?
Berger: Well there are two problems. One, we had a $2.4 billion surplus. And with that $2.4 billion surplus there were a number of things that could have been done. One of the things that should have been done is we should have given the people of North Carolina the tax relief that they have been promised since 2001 and we didn’t do that.
The second thing that should have been done is we should have fixed the structural deficit that we have because what we did is the majority voted for a budget that has about a $400 million deficit of recurring expenditures over recurring revenues and so we will see next year whether or not that grows as our fiscal staff has suggested it will to about a billion dollars by the time we come back in January.
Vajda: But many who voted for the budget say how can you say no to all of the money that went to education?
Berger: Well there are a lot of things that you can say I am happy about with that kind of spending. You know you can’t spend $19 billion and not make some people happy. But for the longest time what we’ve been doing is we’ve been papering over problems in education with money and we’ve been throwing more and more money into the educational system and yet we still have a graduation rate, a drop-out rate, that is amongst the highest in the nation—it is over the national average. And I don’t know that putting more money, just putting more money into that system, is going to show us real improvement. And so yeah, I think a lot of people are saying we spent money on this and we put money into that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we did something right.
Vajda: Lobbying reform and campaign contribution reform, nine bills total, the last one that just passed 60 pages, what would you have done differently in that bill and all the other bills?
Berger: Well the key thing I would have done differently in the bill that we voted on today is I would have put something in there that would have banned lobbyists from soliciting contributions. I think that is the one glaring omission in all of the lottery legislation that has passed this time. And it is the one thing that I think will come back to haunt us in terms of the perception that has been created that the system here is one where the person that either contributes or has an ability to garner the most money for legislators is the one that gets listened to. Now that is not the case and that is a situation that we need to make sure that the public understands that and we could have made that loud and clear by banning lobbyists from soliciting contributions. We didn’t do that.
Vajda: Senator Berger, when I interviewed you before session you said you were concerned about the stability of the House because of some of the investigations surrounding Speaker Jim Black. Looking over the past two months, how do you think session has been, session went?
Berger: Well I actually think that those concerns that were voiced not just by me but I was voicing concerns that other people had mentioned and actually mentioned from time to time during the session but those fears have not materialized and the House has been able to do its business.
Vajda: Let’s go back to the bills that you wish would have come to fruition and that you wish made it to the Senate floor, including illegal immigration. Expand on that a little bit please.
Berger: Well we as anybody that lives in North Carolina now knows have a huge problem here with illegal immigration. We have one of the fastest growing illegal immigrant populations in the nation. And part of the reason for that is the favorable laws that have been enacted over the past five or six years by this General Assembly. But it made it easier for people who have no documents to get driver’s licenses, that have made it possible for people with no documents to take that driver’s license and access our Social Services, that have made it easy for those folks in some instances even to register to vote and to vote in our elections. And so I think we could have done a great deal to address that. There are some things that could be done at the national level but it is too easy to say the folks at the federal level need to fix this. There are some things we could have done that we didn’t do.
Vajda: Any bills you are proud of?
Berger: Well I am proud of course of some parts of the lobby bill. I think we’ve done some good things there. I just am some concerned about the fact that we didn’t go far enough. I am also disappointed about several other things. You know we have introduced a Constitutional Amendment to protect traditional marriage; we couldn’t get a hearing on that. We’ve introduced a number of other bills dealing with the issue of illegal immigration. We’ve introduced bills that deal with how we budget and trying to put some reasonable limits on how much government spending grows from year to year. So it is more those things that didn’t get done than those things that did get done.
Vajda: How do you keep the Republican caucus together at a time that the Senate is ruled by Democrats?
Berger: Well I think Republicans share a common philosophy and many of the Republican members, as some of the Democrat members, hear from their constituents and the things that their constituents are concerned about tend to be pretty similar all across North Carolina. They are worried about education, they are worried about illegal immigration, they are worried about protecting family, they are concerned about public safety, you know all North Carolinians share those concerns and so the members of the Republican caucus just at times have a different way that they would like to address those problems than the way that has been done by the Democrats over the past number of years.
Vajda: Next session what do you see coming out?
Berger: Well I think a lot depends on what happens in the election. I think that depending on the results of the election you know things in the General Assembly may be very similar to the way they are now, may be somewhat different. But I think the big issue as it normally is is going to be the budget and I suspect we will be dealing with the deficit that has been created by the spending that was approved in this budget.
Vajda: Senator Berger thank you so much and have a great time at home.
Berger: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Vajda: That is going to do it for our show. Thanks so much for joining us everyone. I’m Eszter Vajda.
McCullen: I’m Kelly McCullen. Goodbye.
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