By Scott Mooneyham
Published: June 14,2011
RALEIGH — Most people my age can probably remember those “Schoolhouse Rock!” educational cartoons that once accompanied the rest of the Saturday morning cartoon fare. “I’m Just a Bill” described, at least in theory, how a Congress member’s idea can become a bill and then ultimately a law. The crumpled, rolled up bill sings about [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: June 10,2011
RALEIGH — Perhaps their shared circumstances are simply coincidence. John Edwards and Mike Easley, once two of North Carolina’s most prominent politicians, came to their positions with minimal help from the state’s political establishment. Edwards financed his own U.S. Senate campaign in 1998. Easley began his political life as a state prosecutor, struck up a [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: June 7,2011
RALEIGH — With the help of five Democrats, legislative Republicans released much of the air from Gov. Beverly Perdue’s balloon. They didn’t pop it. Perdue had been beating the drum for weeks that legislative Republicans’ plans to slash public school and public university spending would damage North Carolina in fundamental ways, robbing individuals of opportunity [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: June 3,2011
RALEIGH — Despite their protests, Democrats in the state legislature can’t get around a simple fact: It’s now been 11 years since legislators asked for North Carolinians’ permission to borrow money. Nonetheless, legislatures controlled by Democrats have authorized more than $3 billion in borrowing during those 11 years. Legislative Republicans want to end the practice [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: May 31,2011
RALEIGH — Unlike their counterparts in the state House, Senate Republicans rolled out their state budget plan with a pretty good talking point. “We have to reform what we’re doing when what we’re doing isn’t working,” said Sen. Harry Brown, the chamber’s majority leader. Brown, of course, was talking about the public schools, responding to [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: May 24,2011
RALEIGH — It was 2000, and the North Carolina General Assembly was in the final throes of its yearly deliberations. Republicans weren’t a happy bunch. A provision stuck into a bill, sprung on them by Democrats on the final day of the legislative session, was the cause of their despair. The provision allowed the majority [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: May 20,2011
RALEIGH — “I’ve never known a governor that did not run as an education governor.” Leo Daughtry, the longtime state representative from Johnson County and himself a former gubernatorial candidate, didn’t exactly mean those words as endorsement of governors who wrap themselves in the mantra of public education. Rather, he was criticizing the tendency to [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: May 17,2011
RALEIGH — Unlike so many, the Republican legislator wasn’t getting lost in the weeds of taxes and job losses. Rambling around the Legislative Building late at night, when typically only reporters, security and the cleanup crew are still around, he paused to remark on the $19.3 billion budget plan being considered by the House. “If [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: May 13,2011
RALEIGH — One of the more remarkable changes that has occurred in the state capital over the past decade is how little thought and care state legislators give to the investing practices of the state pension fund. That the fund is $70 billion — the size of 3 1/2 state budgets — and will require [...]
By Scott Mooneyham
Published: May 11,2011
RALEIGH — These days, mentioning Jim Black’s name around the North Carolina Legislative Building is nearly akin to uttering “Lord Voldemort” at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School. But my most vivid recollections of the former House speaker have nothing to do with the shenanigans that landed him in prison. They come from the summer and fall [...]
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