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Thursday: Back...and just in time
posted at 2007-07-19 23:51 | Last modified 2007-11-14 10:38
You know, you can't leave this place even for just a couple of days. I came back from a brief beach trip to 400 emails, a new sex scandal, Tatum's resignation from the DMV, parallel budget universes, battling transfer-tax lobbies, and renewed hope for NC's under-appreciated salamanders. Read on for more.
Oy, Coy
The top item of the day by far was the arrest of former legislator Coy Privette on six charges of abetting prostitution.
Privette, a retired minister, currently serves as a Cabarrus County Commissioner, and as president of the state's Christian Action League. He was a member of the House Republican Caucus from 1985 to 1992. He also ran for Governor and US House, and formerly served as president of the Baptist State Convention.
The 74-year-old Privette was arrested in Rowan County on charges he rented a hotel room and paid for sex with Tiffany Summers, 32, who's already pleaded guilty to drug possession, prostitution, and receiving stolen goods, according to Kannapolis police and the SBI.
Privette didn't respond to my request for an interview. He apparently didn't want to talk to folks at the CAL, either. The AP is reporting tonight that the conservative lobbying group, unable to get through to Privette, has opted to suspend him for now until they hear his side of the story.
Legislators were pretty uniformly flat-out shocked. The Char-O's Jack Betts had this column today on reaction from folks who remember Privette's days in Raleigh. House Speaker Joe Hackney, who served with Privette, said he didn't want to "pre-judge" him. (And yes, it IS worth noting that Privette has only been charged at this point, not convicted.)
Black, Butner, and...the bottle?
The Char-O's David Ingram reports lawyers for disgraced former speaker Jim Black have requested his assignment to the federal prison at Butner. That part makes sense: it's the closest federal prison to his home in Charlotte.
More mystifying is the attorneys' request that Black be assigned to alcohol treatment during his stay. There were hints of a drinking problem last month, when federal probation officers changed his pre-sentencing order to bar Black from using alcohol in any quantity. But the story behind that order has never been told, at least on the record.
We've all heard the former speaker called a lot of things, many of them unkind. But to the best of my knowledge, no one's ever publicly accused him of abusing alcohol. That's led some observers to speculate Black is either hoping to shave time off his federal sentence, or looking for a little leniency from the state in his upcoming sentencing July 31st, or maybe both. Guess we'll find out more then.
Who's on first
Senate budget leaders told Approps members today they might be needed Monday to sign the budget conference report. Budget co-chair Linda Garrou said the spending plan should be ready for a final vote next week.
Garrou's announcement shocked no one more than House negotiators, one of whom inquired politely when NC's legislature had become unicameral.
House leaders say that, while Approps folks have made a lot of progress on spending, those working on the revenue package are no closer to a deal than they were in June - they may even be farther apart, given three intervening weeks of frustration.
The debate goes something like this: The Senate wants to implement permanent Medicaid relief for counties without raising taxes--but they want to pull it out of the budget and deal with it separately. The House says no way - and no systemic Medicaid relief without a transfer tax option for counties.
House negotiators are also reportedly threatening to take back their earlier agreement to cut the top income bracket surtax in return for making the quarter-percent sales surtax permanent. So essentially, they're back to square one.
Hackney called off Friday's session, saying today the reason for it had "evaporated" (see above). But he remains optimistic, refusing to rule anything out at this point. He says sometimes, if you can sort out a couple of key issues, everything else just falls into place. And he's apparently banking on it: Hackney said today he hasn't given any thought to another continuing resolution in case everything *doesn't* fall into place.
Bullfrog bill gets gigged
It's not easy being green - just ask Tim Spear. The Chowan Democrat was the original sponsor of a bill to make the bullfrog the state's official amphibian, ruffling the feathers (or scales) of NC herpetologists, who argued that the title really ought to go to some sort of salamander, given that we have more of them than any other state.
Chalk one up for the salamander lobby. The Bullfrog Bill was the target of a gut-and-amend move from the office of President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, who turned the measure into a funding instrument for the financially troubled "Graveyard of The Atlantic" Museum in Hatteras.
Spear says he hasn't heard anything yet from the class of fourth graders who proposed the bullfrog bill in the first place. They're bound to be disappointed, but Spear says he isn't giving up. Maybe he should: Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand told me today he'd rather see the honor go to the Neuse River Water Dog, anyway.
WalterDalton.org
Senate Budget co-chair Walter Dalton has apparently made use of his spare time during the budget stalemate to polish up the online component of his '08 campaign for Lieutenant Governor - walterdalton.org.
Of note - the "Contribute" button in the right margin sports a graphic of two pennies. I'm sure there's no shortage of folks ready to offer Dalton their two cents on any given topic, but maybe he ought to be asking his donors for a little more. He ain't running for the cheap seats these days.
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