I spoke with U.S. Sen. Richard Burr yesterday about health care and food security for a couple of stories I’m working on. We finished up our conversation talking about his vote on the Franken amendment.

For those who need the back story:

In early October, the Senate was voting on a defense spending bill. Sen. Al Franken, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, offered an amendment that would set certain conditions on contractors working for the government. As he described it, the amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from entering into contracts with companies that force their workers to sign certain kinds of arbitration agreements. As explained by the Associated Press:
 

WASHINGTON - The Senate approved a measure Tuesday prohibiting the Defense Department from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve sexual assault allegations and other claims through arbitration.

The Senate voted 68-30 to attach the amendment sponsored by Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota to a larger defense spending bill. A vote on the full bill was expected later.

Franken said he sponsored the measure in response to the case of former KBR/Halliburton employee Jamie Leigh Jones, who alleges she was raped by co-workers while in Iraq in 2005. She went public with her story in 2007.

• Click here for the AP Story.
• Click here for the Minnesota Post’s story.
• Click here for a story from the Guardian in the UK.
   

The amendment passed and is now part of the Senate version of the bill, which has yet to be reconciled with the House version. Thirty Republican senators, including Burr, voted against the amendment.

• Click here for information on the bill itself.
• Click here for the amendment vote from the Senate clerk’s office.

This immediately opened those 30 senators up for criticism. As reported by the N+O’s Rob Christensen:

Republican Sen. Richard Burr has been accused by a Democratic opponent of voting against protecting rape victims working as contractors in Iraq, a charge that he denies.

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall noted that Burr was one of 30 Republican senators who voted last week against an amendment that grew out of a publicized case of a Halliburton employee who was gang-raped by co-workers.

"Senator Burr has obviously been in Washington too long," said Marshall, who is one of two Democrats who say they will challenge Burr's 2010 bid for a second term. She is also a founder of a rape crisis center. "This is a clear-cut case of right versus wrong, and Richard Burr got it wrong."

Click here for Rob’s story.

I asked Burr why he voted against the amendment. First and foremost, he said, the amendment was opposed by the Defense Department and the Obama administration. More on that opposition is here  and here.

Still, Democrats have developed a talking point that Burr “voted against rape victims” and I would expect to see that line used through much of his 2010 election campaign. So I thought it would be useful to have Burr talk more about this particular vote.

“The Franken amendment did nothing to address rape victims,” Burr said. Instead, he said, the measure would be of more benefit to lawyers. He also argued that someone who had been the victim of sexual assault could bring a case in criminal proceedings.

You can click on this player to listen to my conversation with Burr about the Franken amendment:

And below is the video from CSPAN of Franken introducing and explaining his amendment:

From a story in today’s paper:

RALEIGH — Rep. Pricey Harrison has asked the state’s attorney general and Department of Insurance to investigate Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina’s use of campaign-style tactics aimed at defeating controversial federal health insurance legislation.

The Greensboro Democrat wants to know whether the insurer violated the state’s do-not-call registry law with an automated message in late October. And she questions whether it is proper for the insurer to use its premiums to pay for the calls and two recent pieces of direct mail.

“I have heard from a number of constituents who were really upset about the postcard campaign,” Harrison said Thursday. “There are a lot of angry taxpayers, policyholders and state employees.”

Click here for the whole thing.

Some back-up documentation:

• Click here for one of the BCBS fliers in question. (PDF)
• Click here for some background here, here and here.
• Click here for Harrison’s letter. (PDF)
• Click here for BCBS corporate documents filed at the Secretary of State’s site.

In included that last link because there was some discussion over whether or not the insurer is a nonprofit. Their folks point out that the company pays taxes. But Harrison and other advocates point out they’re organized as a nonprofit. And all their corporate document filings list them as a nonprofit.

Sen. Kay Hagan announced on her conference call this morning that President Obama had nominated two North Carolina judges to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals:

• Judge James “Jim” Wynn currently sits on the N.C. Court of Appeals. Link
• Judge Albert Diaz is a superior court judge in Mecklenburg County who handles complex business cases. Link

Click here for the Fourth Circuit's web site.

Update: Editorial writer Doug Clark weighs in here.

 From a Hagan release:

The 4th Circuit serves five states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. North Carolina, the largest and fastest growing of the five states in the 4th Circuit, has been historically underrepresented on the 15-judge panel. Dating back to the establishment of the 4th Circuit in 1801, North Carolina has had only six judges serve on the panel. Currently, Judge Allyson Duncan is the only judge from North Carolina. Upon taking office in January, Senator Hagan made it a top priority to increase North Carolina’s representation on the court.

Hagan has been pounding away at this issue since she was elected and getting these two appointments is a win for her.

“I’m going to be working very hard to ensure this confirmation process is smooth,” Hagan said.

Update: The following was just issued by the White House:

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Obama nominated Judge Albert Diaz and Judge James Wynn to serve on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Diaz currently serves as a Special Superior Court Judge in North Carolina and Wynn currently sits on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

“Judges Diaz and Wynn have been exceptional public servants for the people of North Carolina and I am honored to nominate them today to serve from the federal bench,” said President Obama. “Their distinguished judicial careers leave no doubt that they will be esteemed additions to the Fourth Circuit.”

Judge Albert Diaz: Nominee for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

Judge Albert Diaz currently serves as a Special Superior Court Judge for Complex Business Cases, one of only three in the state of North Carolina. Judge Diaz began his legal career in the United States Marine Corps Legal Services Support Section, where he served as a prosecutor, defense counsel, and ultimately Chief Review Officer. He then moved to the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General (JAG), where he served for four years as appellate government counsel handling criminal appeals. In 1995, Judge Diaz left active duty in the Marine Corps and worked as an associate at Hunton & Williams with a primary focus on commercial litigation. He remained in the Marine Corps Reserves while in private practice, serving as Reserve Appellate Defense Counsel in the Navy’s JAG Corps, a Reserve Military Judge in the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary, and a Reserve Appellate Military Judge in the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps’ Court of Criminal Appeals. He resigned as a military judge when he retired from the Marine Corps in 2006. Judge Diaz was the first Latino appointed to the North Carolina Superior Court when he was named as a Resident Superior Court Judge in 2001. In 2002, he was appointed as a Special Superior Court Judge and he was designated as Special Superior Court Judge for Complex Business Cases in 2005. He earned a B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1983, and received his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1988. He also earned a Masters degree in Business Administration from Boston University in 1993. Judge Diaz is a nominee for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and received a rating of unanimous well-qualified from the American Bar Association.

Judge James Wynn: Nominee for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

Judge James Wynn currently sits on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court. Prior to taking the bench in 1990, he served as an appellate public defender and worked in private practice. He is a certified Military Trial Judge and a Captain in the U.S. Navy Reserves. He served on active duty in the U.S. Navy JAG Corps from 1979 to 1983. He has received the Meritorious Service Medal three times, the Navy Commendation Medal twice, the Naval Reserve Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Medal. He is the Chair of the American Bar Association Judicial Division, a former Chair of the Association’s Appellate Judges Conference, and a member of the Standing Committee on Minorities in the Judiciary. He received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975 , his J.D. from Marquette University Law School in 1977 , and a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995 . Judge Wynn is a nominee for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and received a rating of unanimous well-qualified from the American Bar Association.

In 2008, Guilford County backed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with 58.78 percent of the vote. Sen. Kay Hagan, also a Democrat, won close to 62 percent of the vote. Greensboro contains the bulk of Guilford County's Democratic voters.

A year later, voters have given a majority on the nine-member Greensboro City Council to Republicans.

Republican Bill Knight upset incumbent Democrat Yvonne Johnson in the mayoral contest. Incumbent Robbie Perkins and newcomer Danny Thompson are both Republicans and won in the at large race. Republican incumbents and former county commissioners Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw also kept their seats. Zach Matheny is a registered Republican as well.

If that tally is correct, two-thirds of the city council are at least nominally Republicans. The current council had four Republicans and five Democrats if I count right.

Going from backing mostly all Democrats in 2008's statewide elections to electing a Republican city council majority is a fairly stunning turnabout in just a year.

My colleague, city council reporter Amanda Lehmert, will be writing more about that will mean policy-wise for the city. When I covered the city earlier this decade, council members would often say party politics didn't matter. I'm not so sure that's the case any more.

It's worth noting that candidates are not listed on the ballot as either Republicans or Democrats. But there's been a fair amount made in the last few days of party interference in the election, so it seems reasonable to expect some voters knew who had what affiliation going into the voting booth.

I'm curious what this says about the larger political landscape. Is this all about turn-out? Were Republican/conservative voters were more motivated so they showed up? Is this part of a larger trend? Virginia will have a Republican governor after Obama won that state last year. The New Jersey gubernatorial race is too close to call as I write this. Update: The Republican was just declared the winner in New Jersey.

Of course, closer to home, Democrat Anthony Fox won the open mayoral seat being vacated in Charlotte by long-time Republican Pat McCrory.

I am sure the GOP will paint this as a backlash against Obama. I'm equally sure that Democrats will try to brush it off as an anomaly due to turnout and the like. I'm not sure either party has enough data points to make a meaningful argument.

Still, in Greensboro, a city where the majority of residents are Democrats, this seems to me to be a fairly profound result.

Rep. Howard Coble, a Greensboro Republican, took less than a minute to speak on the floor of the House today about health care reform. He targeted the health insurance bill backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which would include a public option insurer – ie: a health insurance option provided through the federal government to compete with private insurance options.

Coble’s remarks:

“Mr. Speaker, the majority of my constituents believe the United States has the world’s best delivery of health care services. I concur. These same constituents are not adverse to reform but they fear the Pelosi health care plan will leave the gate wide open for introduction of overwhelming governmental involvement. I believe that fear is well founded.

“Our health care system, Mr. Speaker, may well need some adjusting, some fine tuning. What it does not need is a major overhaul. The Pelosi plan is indeed a major overhaul and should be rejected.”

Click here if you want the video from CSPAN.
 

The N.C. Council of State, a body made up of the 10 statewide elected officers, met this morning. For the initiated, this group mainly approves land sales, bond issuance, etc… But the monthly meeting has become a reliable place where one can get a quote from the Gov. Bev Perdue on the news of the day.

Two soundbites of interest to your humble correspondent:

• The House and Senate Finance committees began meeting on their tax reform efforts today. (Background here.) Their first target appears to be remaking the state sales tax system. Broadly speaking, the committees want to lower the sales tax rate (the percentage you pay on any one transaction) but want to broaden the base (the number of things that are taxed). That base broadening could include taxing services.
  
  Perdue said she supported moves to remake the state’s tax code.
  
  “I don’t know what the timeline will be but I think it’s imperative that we start working toward an ultimate tax reform process in North Carolina,” Perdue said. “I have a group of advisors that are meeting with me later this week or next week, who have gone through and analyzed what was done in the General Assembly last year and what we might do in overall tax reform. I don’t think you can do the whole thing year one. But I do believe there’s energy and an opportunity to help transform North Carolina’s economy and thus the taxing structure.”
  
  Perdue has said since late this summer she supports a tax overhaul. If you believe one poll, voters are not so sure. The Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank, says 58.5 percent of voters they survey oppose tax reform. Click here for that release.
   
• Perdue had “good news” to tout today. North Carolina has been named for the fifth time in a row as the top state for business climate by “Site Selection Magazine.” Click here to read the story.
  
  There are a lot of people who think these rankings are, well, not all that meaningful. You can’t cash in a ranking like you can a paycheck. So compared to a measure of the real economy, like the ESC pegging the state’s unemployment rate at a pretty high 10.8 percent in September (PDF), the ranking seems a bit hollow. Another example is the whole idea of the tax reform item above: one reason lawmakers are undertaking reform is to make North Carolina more attractive compared to others states. Right now, our state’s sales and income taxes are relatively high compared to our neighbors.
  
  Perdue, however, said there’s meaning to attach to Site Selections’ selection.
  
  “It means a whole lot to me and I think it means a whole lot to the businesses that I’m recruiting,” Perdue said. “Right now I’m working with one of national companies. I met with them on my trip abroad. I mean, we are really trying to build North Carolina’s economy and you have to tout we’ve done historically in education, what we’ve done in business climate. To be ranked in this economy as the number one state in America given the challenges we’ve had … We’ve come through a really horrendous time in North Carolina and I’m mighty proud people around the country, including the bond attorneys in New York yesterday, said ‘Wow, the management’s been good.’
  
  “I know people don’t believe it,” Perdue continued. “I know that people who have lost their jobs are dying around their kitchen table. But this may be one more tool in increasing job opportunity in our great state.”

This just moved from the Associated Press just moved this:

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican congresswoman says people have more to fear from Democratic health care legislation than from terrorists.

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina made the comments in a speech on the House floor Monday.

She said that the greatest threat to freedom is the Democrats' health care overhaul bill, which she called a tax increase bill.

So what exactly did she say? Here’s the relevant quote:

“I believe the greatest fear we all should have to our freedom comes from this room, this very room, and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country,” Foxx said.

Democrats at the state and federal level have begun circulating this as evidence that the Republican Party “has been hijacked by an extremist far right-wing faction.” I imagine you’ll be seeing this clip on either the Daily Show or any of the various cable opinion shows this week.

Obviously health care reform is a hotly contested issue provoking strong feelings. But describing it as a threat equivalent to terrorists might be a bit fraught.

Click here to watch Foxx say her piece from the House floor.
 

The N.C. Office of the State Auditor took a look at the Golden LEAF (Long-term Economic Advancement Foundation) nonprofit over the past year. Its report on the audit is at once harsh and kind of comforting.

Click here for a PDF of the audit report.

Golden LEAF handles about half the money North Carolina received as a result of the 1999 master settlement agreement with the tobacco industry. It was set up to foster economic development, particularly in rural communities, as jobs and profits from growing tobacco faded away.

Here’s what’s troubling: The report says Golden Leaf should do more to keep tabs on their grants. In particular, the auditor’s office says the foundation needs to do more to verify reports by their grantees and to vet the financial health of their grantees.

At the end of the day, the report offers a qualified opinion and the authors say they can’t say explicitly that no money has been wasted or lost.

Here’s what’s less than troubling: The report doesn’t site any instance where money had been wasted or lost.

“That’s fair,” said Dennis Patterson, a spokesman for the agency. “Had we found direct evidence, we would have pursued it.”

The qualified opinion is the result of auditors not feeling like they had unfettered access to Golden Leaf records. Pages 15 and 16 of the report detail the obstacles auditors complained they faced, including:

• Requests for minutes having to be repeated because “Golden LEAF management persistently omitted sets of minutes.
• Problems accessing a Golden LEAF file room.
• A request by management to route requests for information through the President or VP.

“A scope limitation finding is very important,” Patterson said. “It’s not very often we have that. Rarely do we get into a situation where we really can’t say one way or the other because of the restrictions that were put on us throughout the process.”

Dan Gerlach is the current president of Golden LEAF and has (obviously) a different take on things.

(Worth nothing given the recent spate of news over Gov. Mike Easley: Gerlach was a senior advisor to the former governor.)

Gerlach said that auditors arrived just as he was taking over at the foundation and during a busy time of year.

Some of the things cited as obstructionist by the auditors were meant to help speed the flow of information, Gerlach said.

“I didn’t know that telling them ‘Why don’t you go through me,’ was a problem,” Gerlach said. “They just felt like we weren’t cooperative. I’m sorry about that. I think it had to do with the timing of the transition…I think if the timing were different it would have been handled differently.”

Gerlach said the foundation owns up to and regrets errors made that lead to incomplete minutes and one grant approval being made in closed session. Those things will be fixed, he said.

As to the other findings, Gerlach points out that the audit didn’t find any missing or misspent money, qualified finding or no, after a year of going through the foundation’s books.

“We can tell you where every dollar has gone,” Gerlach said.

The foundation is in the process of changing its scholarship policies and may be putting some more requirements on grantees. However, Gerlach noted, most of Golden LEAF’s grantees were governments of one sort or another.

For example, the foundation contributed money toward the Dell deal that fell apart earlier this year. But that money didn't go to the company itself.

“Forsyth Tech went out and brought equipment for their computer lab,” Gerlach said. That equipment, which was used on job skills assessments, is still owned and used by the university.

Golden LEAF’s home page is here and you can search its grant awards here.

In Guilford County, Golden leaf money has been used for a variety of things, including:

• City of High Point's Economic Development Corporation: The purpose of this Golden LEAF grant is to support the design and implementation of a focused marketing campaign for the International Home Furnishings Market, which is held twice a year in High Point and generates significant economic opportunity for service, supply and retail businesses. Funds from this grant will be used for marketing and promotion activities aimed at increasing the number of buyers, vendors and visitors to the High Point Market and ensuring that the Market not only remains in North Carolina, but can grow and prosper. (Year=2004; Amount=$50,000)
• Guilford Technical Community College: The purpose of this Golden LEAF grant is to assist Guilford Technical Community College with retraining incumbent workers at Thomas Built Buses. The project will create 178 new jobs and retain 1,000 production jobs. (Year=2002; Amount=$500,000)
• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University: The purpose of this grant is to support the development of the North Carolina Center for Advanced Composites Training and Education at North Carolina A&T State University. The Center will provide the required education and training on the manufacturing and design practices used within composites applications industries. (Year=2007; Amount=$300,000)

Chances are, if you are at all interested in the alleged transgressions of former Gov. Mike Easley, you’re fully up to speed on all of this. But by way of a recapping the State Board of Elections hearings:

• The N+O’s Andrew Curlis tells us why the public scrutiny of Easley is far from over. Also linked to that story is a good roundup of the N+O’s coverage.
• If you’re looking for a quick and dirty wrap up, my story from Saturday’s paper is here. WUNC’s Laura Leslie has a link to her radio this piece at her blog.
• My Sunday story looked at changes to state law that might come in reaction to the Easley mess, if the honorables find themselves inclined to react and not just try to forget the whole mess ever happened.
• The N+O’s Rob Christensen has one look at SBOE Chairman Larry Leake, who basically got good reviews for his dogged interrogation of witnesses last week. I very much liked Ashville’s Jordan Schrader’s profile of Leake as well.

Of course, the board hearings raised more questions than they might have answered. Here are a few of mine:

What exactly would Ruffin Poole have said? The young lawyer who handled board and commission appointments might have been called a patronage chief in an earlier era. Would he have been able to close the circle on the questions about why Easley donors were giving large sums to the Democratic Party?

Do we believe McQueen Campbell or Easley? Campbell is a family friend who provided the most damning testimony against Easley last week. In particular, he said Easley asked him to submit bogus invoice in order to get reimbursed for home repairs done to the governor’s personal residence.

Do we believe Easley? Was he really “vacuuming a fireplace” the last time he talked to Bob Bleecker on the phone. (Who vacuums while they’re on the phone?) Was he really concerned about losing his homeowners policy if he reported a claim? (As Leake asked, what insurance company is going to cancel the coverage of the governor of North Carolina for a legit claim?)

What will come of the grand jury hearings? Federal investigators have been looking at things like how Mary Easley (the governor’s wife) landed sweet six-figure gig at N.C. State and whether Easley might have improperly benefited from a land deal down east. Will all of that be dismissed or become the basis for a new and much more serious proceeding?

Which narrative of Easley’s career do we believe?

• Was he the former DA and Attorney General who transitioned from a career law and order man to the guy who cared about remaking the state’s education system? Is all the sketchy stuff surrounding his time in office just the result of other bad actors, sycophants and poor memories?
   
• Or somewhere along the way, either through malice of forethought or the gradual embrace of the idea that one is just a little bit more important than everyone else, did Easley engage in a pattern of behavior through which he tried to improperly enrich himself?

I’m not going to answer these questions today. But if Easley’s case follows what has become an all too familiar pattern in this state, we may have a federal prosecutor answer those questions before too long.
 

Update: If by some chance you haven't heard, former Gov. Mike Easley's campaign committee was fined $100,000 and the State Board of Elections asked the Wake County District Attorney to investigate the governor for potential criminal wrongdoing. Click here for the early AP take. I'm working on print stories for over the weekend.

-=-=-=-

Today is the fifth and most likely final day of the State Board of Elections hearings into former Gov. Mike Easley’s campaign finances.

You can catch up on day four with my humble effort (click here) or from WUNC’s Laura Leslie or this N+O piece.

Barring a surprise, there won’t be any testimony or other evidence presented today. Instead, the board is due to come out of closed session sometime close to 9:45 a.m. and pronounce some sort of judgment on all this.

As has been the case all week, multiple reporters are using Twitter to cover the Easley hearings. You can see an aggregated feed of all that activity by clicking on the window below.
 

Today is the fifth and most likely final day of the State Board of Elections hearings into former Gov. Mike Easley’s campaign finances.

You can catch up on day four with my humble effort (click here) or from WUNC’s Laura Leslie or this N+O piece.

Barring a surprise, there won’t be any testimony or other evidence presented today. Instead, the board is due to come out of closed session sometime close to 9:45 a.m. and pronounce some sort of judgment on all this.

As has been the case all week, multiple reporters are using Twitter to cover the Easley hearings. You can see an aggregated feed of all that activity by clicking on the window below.