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Monday: Coming Soon?
posted at 2008-05-20 00:12 | Last modified 2008-05-20 00:26
Big House-warming
Former State Lottery Commissioner and convicted felon Kevin Geddings lost his appeal today. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Geddings’48-month sentence on denial-of-honest-services fraud. The decision’s here.
No word yet on whether Geddings’ defense team will try to take their appeal higher. The AP’s Gary Robertson has the blow-by-blow.
Perdue for VP?
Perdue spokesman David Kochman is sending around links to yesterday’s NYT “Week in Review,” in which Kate Zernike says “Beverly Perdue, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, who is running for governor, is also named as a prospect” for Obama’s VP.
Okay, I’ll bite - by whom? No disrespect to Lt. Gov. Perdue, but I’m with Dome on this one - she’s gotta win the mansion first.
If Perdue becomes NC’s first female governor, all that might change. But she's facing a tough fight against Pat McCrory, possibly the strongest gubernatorial nominee the NCGOP has put up in years. So give it time.
Dueling over community colleges
House lawmakers are itching to join the battle over who should and shouldn’t be admitted to NC’s community colleges.
Republican leader Skip Stam says Onslow Rep. George Cleveland will introduce a bill, maybe as soon as tomorrow, that would make law out of AG Roy Cooper’s advisory opinion barring illegal immigrants from degree-bearing programs.
A handful of House Dems led by Harrison and Luebke are ready to counter the Republican measure with their own bill seeking to legislate access for all residents, regardless of legal status. That’ll be introduced if/when the Republicans roll theirs out. House Speaker Joe Hackney might be looking to stay out of this one. He reportedly told Luebke et al to "do what you have to do. ”
So the big question is which bill, if either, sees the light of day in committee. My guess: neither. There's no margin for the Dems in bringing immigration issues into this year’s campaign.
Bag it
The Joint Environmental Review Commission gave its blessing today to a long list of legislative proposals. One measure on the list is Gov Easley’s water management omnibus, which would give state ENR officials the right to enact mandatory water restrictions on drought-afflicted basins, regardless of what local officials say about it. (As written, the bill would extend those restrictions to private well users, too – look for a fight over that one.)
Another provision approved today would require large retailers (anyone owning or running 10K+ sq ft or more of NC retail space) who give out plastic bags to customers to set up a recycling system to take those bags back.
Guilford Dem Pricey Harrison is running the measure. She says it’s an issue of stewardship: throwing the bags away adds to the state’s solid waste woes, wastes the petroleum used to make the bags, and endangers wildlife.
Not surprisingly, NC retailers don’t see it that way. NCRMA spokesman Andy Ellen says some retailers are already doing a booming biz in recycling on their own: one group of grocers recycled more than 7 million tons of bags last year on a strictly voluntary basis. He says it ought to remain a market-driven decision, not a mandate.
The ERC’s blessing by no means guarantees a bill’s success, but it does grease the way. Commission approval is one of the few ways a new bill can emerge in a short session.
Other stuff Tuesday:
- House ENR Chair Lucy Allen joins up with the Land for Tomorrow coalition to talk about conservation and land preservation tomorrow morning.
- House Judicary I looks at medical release for sick, aging inmates. (It may sound humane, but stop and think about inmates’ options for health care outside the walls: Not so good. So is it charity or cost-cutting? We'll find out.)
- House and Senate Republicans return to their regularly scheduled pressers. Tomorrow morning, they’re advocating for a temporary moratorium on involuntary annexation. It’s a reasonably savvy move – annexation limitation has fans on both sides of the aisle – but in a short session, an issue this big might not get much traction.
Comments? Drop me a line.
