Weekly Briefing

An update on some bills of importance to progressives

House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight both indicated yesterday that they expected the General Assembly to adjourn the 2008 session late next week - probably Friday July 18. This means, barring an unforeseen (and shocking) gubernatorial veto of the budget bill that was passed on Tuesday, legislators will be devoting their exclusive attention to several dozen "substantive" (i.e. non-budget bills) covering a wide variety of topics.

In general, this is usually a time of concern for progressive policy advocates. The rush to handle a huge number of bills in a short time frame forces lawmakers to hold committee hearings at odd hours in strange places and, in general, seems to give license for less rigorous adherence to normal standards of process. Yesterday, before the House adjourned for the weekend, House Rules Committee chairman Bill Owens made a point of addressing the House membership to urge those who contemplated offering amendments to bills on the House floor to get up with the sponsors of the bills to see if they could work out compromises ahead of time (i.e. out of public view) so as to expedite matters next week.

Not surprisingly, such an environment generally works to the advantage of those with the most money, lobbyists and access (i.e. the well-heeled business community) and those who would use appeals to negative emotions and baser instincts to push their legislative agenda (i.e. the far right).

In light of this rather tough and volatile situation, here are a handful of bills and/or issues that will be worth paying close attention to next week. Progressive North Carolinians should do their best to monitor these issues and, where possible, heed the calls of the various progressive advocacy groups to weigh in with phone calls and emails. NC Policy Watch staff will also do our best to provide timely updates on The Progressive Pulse blog.

A new business subsidy giveaway? In keeping with patterns described above, officials at the Commerce Department (aka the publicly funded branch of the state's business lobby) rather nonchalantly inserted an amendment into an anonymous Senate bill this week. The amendment, which was adopted in a brief, scarcely noticed meeting of an Appropriations subcommittee, authorizes a $10 million expansion in the amount of money that the Department may dole out to businesses this year through its "Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) program.

JDIG, of course, is a controversial program that features direct grants to companies who expand or relocate. In theory, the grants are supposed to equate to the amount of "new" tax revenues that will be collected from the employees of the new or expanded business. Critics of JDIG have questioned the theory behind the grants as well as the fact that most of the program's investment continue to flow to companies in economically healthy counties. Suspicions about the last minute expansion were also fueled by the fact that Department officials never discussed the need for such a change with leaders of a Select Committee on Economic Development Incentives that met multiple times this past spring.

"Street gang" bill compromise likely?  As reported recently on The Progressive Pulse, House and Senate leaders met this week to work out differences in their respective versions of a proposed bill that is purported to be about combating gangs, but that seems, in reality, to be more about combating negative campaign ads in the fall. Both versions feature the establishment of new crimes, disturbingly vague definitions and harsher penalties, though the House version does a much better job of preventing kids under age16 from being branded as felons for life. Critics like the state NAACP, the ACLU of North Carolina and the Carolina Justice Policy Center note that the "get tough" approach included in both versions has already proved a failure in several states. At last report, it appeared that negotiators were leaning toward a final compromise that would fall somewhere between the House's bad proposal and the Senate's really bad proposal.

Ethics rewrite to create new loophole? Legislators unveiled a long-awaited series of mostly technical corrections to state ethics and lobbying laws this past week. In general, most of the changes are noncontroversial and do little to advance or hinder the cause of reform. One provision, however, has attracted the attention folks at the Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform, Democracy North Carolina and other groups that helped push the 2006 reform law. It concerns the issue of public notice and transparency surrounding so-called "public events."

The 2006 reform law sought to clamp down on lobbyists' wining and dining of lawmakers by banning - with only a few narrow exceptions - the legality of lobbyists providing free food and drink to public officials. One exception allows officials to accept "food and beverages for immediate consumption in connection with public events." "Public events," in turn, are defined fairly narrowly in the act. A question has arisen, however, as to just how "public" such events must be. Under a proposed change in the new bill, officials can be invited to such events "in any manner at any time." Reform advocates have raised the legitimate concern that such broad language will be manipulated by sharp lobbyists to avoid any real public notice for "public events" that could, as a practical matter, take place over drinks at a local watering hole.

In fairness to the drafters of the bill, it is a complex issue (if one accepts the premise that public events are a legitimate reason to waive the law's ban on gifts). Lawmakers would do well to delete the proposed change and allow more time for a thorough and unhurried discussion during the months leading up to the 2009 session.  

Hogs - As was reported yesterday on ncpolicywatch.com, the state hog industry is attempting to rush a bill through during the session's waning days that would liberalize the rules surrounding hog farms and where they are located. An editorial in this morning's edition of Raleigh's News & Observer described it this way:

"Farms built before the 1995 law were exempt from the setback rules. Now, a bill being rushed through the legislature could have the effect of giving those farms a green light to keep operating right where they are, indefinitely, with no upgrade to better methods of waste disposal. The green light would even extend to rebuilding a place that had been wiped out by fire, flood, hurricane or other such disaster. Once a bad location, always a bad location?"

The measure is actually a House bill that was amended and whizzed through the Senate. It's now back in the House for possible concurrence with the Senate's ill-conceived change. Lawmakers would do well to hold the matter until next year.

Health care policy reform - Yet another example of powerful industries having their way during the session's waning days seems to be occurring in the realm of health care. Here, the vested interests (i.e. insurance companies, hospitals, doctors) have worked to undermine a simple and straightforward bill to establish a new health care policy council that would study how the state can expand health care. As Adam Linker of the N.C. Health Access Coalition reported in recent days on The Progressive Pulse, the bill has been peppered with industry-inspired amendments as conservative lawmakers did everything within their power to prevent even a discussion of what North Carolina might do to seriously address the state's scandalous rate of uninsured residents. Prospects for passage of a truly meaningful study bill at this point seem fairly remote. Click here to see some of the things opponents have been saying about this modest proposal.

Hope for Racial Justice Act? Two weeks ago, we reported that Senate leaders were holding up the Racial Justice Act - a bill which passed the House last year and that is designed to allow those sentenced to death to contest their sentences if they can show that race played a part in the decision of their prosecutor to seek capital punishment. This week, it appears that advocates for the bill may have made some headway in getting the bill scheduled for a hearing in one of the Senate's Judiciary committees prior to adjournment. While final passage on the Senate floor no sure thing even if there is a hearing, this appears to be one small ray of hope for the session's waning days.  

And finally, the gun lobby strikes again - Lastly, just in case anyone was feeling too optimistic, there was yesterday's Senate floor vote on a bill pushed by Attorney General Roy Cooper and others to limit those with mental illness (like the Virginia Tech shooter) from gaining access to a firearm. The bill passed the Senate but only after being weakened by an amendment that was adopted over the objections of Senator Tony Rand - the man usually seen as the Senate's first or second most powerful member. Mark Binker of the Greensboro News & Record has a thorough report on the status of the bill and the Senate debate at his blog, Capital Beat. The bottom line: most state politicians of both parties remain remarkably wimpy in the face of the gun lobby.

For more information on these matters and others check back regularly next week on ncpolicywatch.com and The Progressive Pulse.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.