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Monday: Hurry Up and Wait
posted at 2007-07-23 23:59 | Last modified 2007-11-14 10:38
From what I heard today, I'd say we can expect another continuing resolution to emerge Tuesday. Budget negotiations went on all day today, but neither side reported much progress. If anything, Governor Mike Easley's entry into the debate last Friday only buttressed the roadblocks that are already in place.
The biggest impasse still appears to be the transfer tax. House Dems say the majority of their caucus still strongly supports giving local officials that option. Senate Pro Tem Marc Basnight says two-thirds of his caucus does, too. But without the few who don't, he says, he doesn't have the votes to pass the budget.
So that's where we are. House Dems will advance another proposal Tuesday morning. If that goes nowhere, then it's time to pull out a second CR to buy more time to wait for someone to blink.
Plan B?
Of course, negotiations could still wrap up in time. No one's betting on that, to be sure. There's one way it could happen, but it wouldn't be pretty.
The Senate could threaten not to pass a CR that would extend two temporary quarter-percent sales and income taxes. The Senate wants to let them expire, anyway, so it wouldn't be much of a loss to them. The House, however, would lose a key bargaining chip - allowing the top income tax to expire - as well as $300 million House leaders say they need for education and tax relief for low-wage workers.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
There may not be much action at the budget talks, but there's plenty elsewhere. The House gave unanimous approval tonight to a groundbreaking bill regulating the disposal of hog waste. It would ban new lagoons, but it would also help farmers make the switch to new, cleaner technologies - and it includes a pilot program to make electricity from the methane existing lagoons produce.
It's a consensus bill - which, according to Russell Tucker (D-Duplin), means no one likes it very much. But everyone's backing it anyway - and as Carolyn Justice (R-Pender) put it, "It says something when publications like the NC Conservative and the Rolling Stone magazine agree."
Energy Bill moves forward
SB3, the controversial renewable energy bill, moved out of House Energy today. No one seemed terribly enthusiastic about it, but it withstood amendment attempts by Buncombe Dem Susan Fisher, who says it's a utility protection bill, and Buncombe Repub. Charles Thomas, who questioned the blurring of "special interest" and "stakeholder."
The measure heads next to House Public Utilities, and then Finance. Given its support by House leaders, don't expect it to change too much before it hits the House floor - probably later this week.
Let the sunshine in
A simple, largely uncontroversial House ethics bill got a whole lot longer and more interesting today. The Senate's Gov Reform committee rolled out (but didn't vote on) a proposed committee substitute for H1111 that would open up many proceedings of the Legislative Ethics Committee and the State Ethics Commission. It's a change reform advocates have been pushing for all session. The N&O's Dan Kane has more details.
Down the (You)Tube?
You can argue - and you probably will - about who won last night's CNN/YouTube debate, but you might be hard-pressed to say it was John Edwards.
Edwards probably faced more pointed, uncomfortable questions than anyone else on the panel. But in my opinion, it didn't help his case that he didn't fully answer many of them - especially in the context of other contenders who seemed to have no problem saying yes or no. He completely failed to answer one question early on - which Republican he'd choose as a VP, if he had to. Other times, he sounded more "lawyerly" than ever, reframing almost every question he was asked (often inaccurately) before picking his way through an answer.
But Edwards' most awkward moment of the night came courtesy of Rev. Reggie Longcrier of Hickory, NC, who sent in a pointed question about religion and discrimination. After Edwards' candid but equivocal answer, Anderson Cooper asked Longcrier, who was in the audience, whether he felt his question had been answered. An uncomfortable Longcrier conceded no, he hadn't heard the kind of answer he'd wanted to hear - though he gave Edwards an out by blaming that on the noise around him.
Edwards' performance did improve markedly as the night went on. He really rallied in the last half-hour (aside from a flat-as-a-pancake joke about Hillary Clinton's clothes), but you have to wonder how many folks stayed tuned in through the entire second hour of the debate.
And Edwards was by no means the only one having a hard time up there - Bill Richardson, for instance, looked lost for most of the night. But Richardson isn't the issue: the ones Edwards really needed to stand up to tonight were Clinton and Obama. To my ears, at least, he didn't pull it off.
Wanna argue for the home team...or not? Drop me a line.
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