The word from the corner offices here on Jones Street is that the N.C. General Assembly won't be doing any business on Feb. 16, which had been scheduled as a legislative mini-session.

House Speaker Thom Tillis sent an e-mail to members this morning saying it would be a "Skeleton / NO VOTE" session. In the e-mail he writes, "I have conferred with Representative Hackney and have informed him that no matters will be taken up on the floor except for the unrecorded votes to adopt the Journal and to adjourn." He went on to write that there was no need to travel to Raleigh.

That jibes with what Senate Rules Chairman Tom Apodaca told me this morning.

Now, there will be some skepticism about this pronouncement from the Republican leadership. One legacy of the early January "midnight madness" session is that nobody in the legislature's orbit (lobbyists, reporters, etc.) is quite sure to think when legislative leaders talk about their plans for mini-sessions (link). Fueling that skepticism was a post from the liberal-leaning N.C. Policy Watch this week that suggested unemployment issues might be on the table Feb. 16.

But staffers in Tillis' office say "the deed is done" and its to late to turn around and plan to legislate next week. I suspect that Democrats and those who watch the legislature will take a trust but verify (or mistrust and verify) stance on this one.

One post script for what it's worth: about an hour before the Tillis e-mail went out, I talked with House Majority Paul "Skip" Stam. He told me, "My current expectation is there will not be controversial legislation but there will be legislation." What I've been told (by two folks other than Stam) is that there was the possibility lawmakers would have taken up an economic incentives deal but that looks like it is off the table (or simply unneeded) for the moment.

Your random bit of North Carolina election trivia today: there likely will be more Libertarian candidates for president on the North Carolina primary ballot than there will be Republicans and Democrats combined.

The State Board of Elections has posted a PDF containing the nominations from the three state party chairmen (link). The breakdown is thus:

• Democrats: 1 nominee -- President Barack Obama
• Republicans: 4 nominees -- Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.
• Libertarians: 6 nominees -- Roger Gary, R.J. Harris, Gary Johnson, Carl Person, Bill Still, Lee Wrights.

I was interested in the fact that North Carolina law basically allows the chairman of a party to nominate "candidates whose candidacy is generally advocated and recognized in the news media throughout the United States or in North Carolina." (link) That seemed like it gave a lot of discretion to the parties. But there is also a way by which someone, if they're on the outs with their party's leadership, can gather 10,000 signatures to get on the primary ballot as well (link).

Among the Libertarian contenders, the best known might be Gary Johnson (link), who was the Republican Governor of New Mexico from 1995-2003.

From the Republican's nominating letter: "I would respectfully request that, in the event any of above candidates withdraw from the race or suspend his campaign prior to the printing of ballots, that such candidate's name be removed from the list in order to avoid voter confusion." 

Hat tip: Gerry Cohen

Actually, that headline is a bit off. What State Treasurer Janet Cowell said as she release the state's annual debt affordability study was:

The annual analysis, approved by the Debt Affordability Advisory Committee, found that the state has exhausted its General Fund debt capacity until fiscal year 2013. Additionally, the combined debt capacity of the Highway Fund and the Highway Trust Fund has been exhausted until fiscal year 2014.

The committee sets a percentage of revenue as the primary metric for determining debt affordability. This percentage for the General Fund is slightly above 4 percent, which is the self-imposed target adopted by the committee. The Highway Fund and Highway Trust Fund’s percentage also slightly exceeds its 6 percent target.

North Carolina’s “triple A” bond rating has been reaffirmed by all three national bond rating agencies. Currently, all of the state’s debt ratios are at or below the median levels for the state’s peer group, composed of other states rated “triple A” by all three agencies. North Carolina’s debt is considered manageable at current levels. The report acknowledges that the state’s current revenue picture is only modestly optimistic and reflects the continued slow pace of economic recovery. Additionally, the study outlines the need for replenishment of the state’s reserves.

The translation of all that really is: The state SHOULDN'T borrow any more money and if it does so, North Carolina will put its AAA bond rating at risk. So we've not hit a hard limit so much as we've gotten to the point where we've borrowed as much as is considered fiscally prudent.

The report also mentions that the state has pension and health care liabilities to worry about, a was a growing debt to the federal government incurred to pay for unemployment claims.

Click here for a full copy of the annual debt affordability study (link) (.pdf).

The current Republican-lead General Assembly isn't exactly a crowd that's big on borrowing. However, this does take away one tool from them as they go through the budget this spring. If the legislature does authorize any new big repair or renovation projects, they'll have to budget cash up front rather than borrowing on down the line.

Also worth noting: the debt limit floats with the total amount of revenue collected by the state. By letting the 1-cent sales tax expire last summer, the General Assembly effectively lowered North Carolina's self-imposed debt ceiling.

The North Carolina chapter of the ACLU (link) sent a letter to N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and legislative leaders warning that the General Assembly appears to be violating restrictions on sectarian prayers used to open sessions of governing bodies.

"Several legislators and members of the community have contacted us to express concern about the North Carolina General Assembly's ("NCGA") frequent practice of convening session with a sectarian prayer. According to the complaints, this practice occurs in both the House and the Senate chambers, and a significant majority of these legislative prayers are explicitly sectarian and favor only one religion, Christianity."

The ACLU goes on to suggest the General Assembly adopt a non-sectarian prayer policy.

I've written about this before, in the context of a Winston-Salem case that was heard by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. At the time, Sen. Phil Berger, the president pro tempore of the Senate, said: ""I'm more concerned about the government dictating what an appropriate prayer is than I am if a particular minister mentions Christ or mentions something that applies to one specific religion or creed."

Click here to read the letter itself (.pdf).

So Gov. Bev Perdue spoke to reporters last night for the first time since announcing she wouldn’t run for a second term. The press room at the Sanford-Hunt-Frye dinner was packed with no fewer than seven television cameras, a handful of print reporters and other various hangers on.

You can check out full audio of her remarks at this post.

During her Q&A, a television reporter asked why she hadn’t spoken to reporters before Saturday night.

"I actually wanted to go home and regroup,” Perdue explained. “I was in New Bern. I was surprised none of you all came to see me or call me there. I answered my phone. Y'all maybe aren't as smart as we think we are."

Ha. It’s not exactly like the governor’s unlisted home phone number is in every reporter’s Rolodex. So the Gary Robertson of The Associated Press quipped, "Give us your phone number."

This drew laughs.

But then she gave up the digits, complete with the 252 area code, while cameras and recorders rolled.

I posted full audio of the presser because I figured folks who couldn’t slog over to Greensboro might want to listen to the governor explain herself. (I often post full audio or video of important events.) And at the time, I didn’t think about the fact she had given her phone number and probably assumed it was to some office line.

Cut to this morning, when the governor’s press office called and asked me to clip the number out of the audio.

"I don't know that she intended for everybody to have it," Press Secretary Chris Mackey said on my voice mail.

Really? Then it probably wasn’t a good idea to give it up while standing at a podium with a nest of microphones all wired to a room full of people rolling tape in an on-the-record interview. Generally speaking, it is not a reporter’s job to clean up the messes politicians make for themselves when speaking. That’s doubly true when the politician in question just suggested you might not be as smart as she thought and was being a bit of a smart you-know-what.

That said, I have, in fact, clipped the audio in question to excise the phone number, more out of courtesy than out of any sense of obligation. I’m not sure it is, strictly speaking, the journalistically right thing to do. I’ll let you weigh in on that in the comments.

Gov. Bev Perdue spoke with reporters Saturday for the first time since announcing that she wouldn't run for re-election earlier this week. As she said in her written statement (link), Perdue insisted that she stepped out of the campaign to focus on lobbying for more education funding.

“If I were perhaps a typical politician…I would have said ‘to hell with this’ and gone right along and run for governor and let it become a political wedge and let the Republicans say … ‘She’s doing this to win votes and garner favors.’” Perdue said.

Click below to listen to her full remarks.

U.S. Rep. Howard Coble says he will seek election to a 15th term in Congress. Our early story, compiled from his news release, is here (link).

Coble, 80, will be running in a district that is much changed from the one he has represented for the past 10 years. Stokes and Surry counties now make up the western fringe of the Greensboro-based district and it includes parts of Orange and Durham counties as well. The middle of the district based in Guilford, Alamance and Rockingham counties will be familiar territory for Coble.

"One of my physicians described me as a 'young 80,'" Coble joked with reporters on Friday. "Folks, I'm not sure there is such an animal."

Coble was recently hospitalized and many thought he would not run because of health problems. However, Coble said today that doctors had cleared him to work.

Click below for video of Coble's announcement.

North Carolina leaders regularly trot out surveys that show the state is "business friendly." (See Site Selection Magazine and Forbes.)

Chances are the governor's office won't be sending out a press release the results of a study released today by the Tax Foundation.

North Carolina has the 44th most favorable tax climate in the country, according to the foundation. The state fairs particularly poorly on sales tax and individual income tax rankings.

The Tax Foundation was founded in 1937 and bills itself as a think tank that educates "taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government." It shares some funding sources with the likes of ALEC, but is generally viewed a providing reasonable analysis.

It's worth noting: a rewrite of North Carolina's tax code has been on the General Assembly's agenda for a long, long time. The Revenue Laws Study Committee and House and Senate Finance Committees have identified (over and over again) a set of steps the state could take to minimize swings in revenue collections that would also be more fair to all taxpayers. Virtually everyone involved agrees that the architecture put in place during the 1920s no longer addresses the needs of the state. However, partisan mistrust, powerful interests who like their current tax treatment and a political hothouse environment has pretty much killed any tax reform effort before it got rolling.