Rep. Laura Wiley said last week that she would not seek a fourth term in the legislature. That means House District 61, a Republican-leaning area based in High Point, will be an open seat. From my story in Saturday's paper:

“It’s a desire, at this point, to be able to spend more time with my family here in North Carolina and in Tennessee,” Wiley said during a phone interview Friday. “Being a legislator, if you do it well, you must be willing to go at it 100 percent. I refuse to go at it any less than 100 percent, and right now I need the additional time with my family.”

Wiley’s term won’t expire until a new General Assembly is elected next year and takes its place in January of 2011. Wiley said she plans to serve out the rest of her term.

The General Assembly is typically in session for at least 11 months of a member’s two-year term. In between, there are frequent study committee meetings and other events that bring legislators to Raleigh.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Word in GOP circles is there will be lively contest to replace Wiley. The first of those candidates made his intentions known today. John Faircloth, a former police chief who currently serves on the High Point City Council, tossed his hat in the ring via e-mail. From his e-mail:

Rep. Laura Wiley recently announced that she will not be a 2010 candidate for another term as the 61st District member in the North Carolina House of Representatives. The 61st District includes a geographical majority area of the City of High Point, the Town of Jamestown, a small but very important area of Greensboro, and a significant portion of rural southwest Guilford County. Thanks is certainly due Representative Wiley for her tireless service to the citizens of the 61st District, and indeed to all the citizens of North Carolina. .

I am today announcing that I will be a candidate for the 61st House District seat. I will be filing in February, 2010, to participate in the Republican Primary scheduled for May and the General Election scheduled for next November. We are in the process of putting together my campaign team and I have already received very positive encouragement from many citizens of the district, business associates, and from my family.

We are, as everyone knows, going through a period of history that will be the subject of analysis and debate for decades to come. The importance of the selection of a representative for our district who has the experience and background to work closely with the governments of our local municipalities and our county cannot be overstated. There is also obvious benefit in choosing a person who knows well the process of state government; one who has experienced the long and often tedious work involved in moving a good idea through to an effective piece of legislation. Most importantly, in today's economy and period of high unemployment, a sound understanding of business principles, and ethical, effective cooperation between government and business is critical to the Triad.

In the weeks ahead, I will be clearly presenting my qualifications, my perceptions of the problems of today and the prospects for the future. I look forward to individual discussions and to group interaction with as many organizations as possible, including businesses, non-profit service organizations, public and private schools, and the religious centers of our communities. I also look forward to a vigorous campaign and want only the best the future has to offer for High Point and our surrounding communities.

I will continue my service to the citizens of High Point as a member of the City Council through my present term.

For those unfamiliar with High Point, Fairtcloth can indeed serve out his complete city council term. Unlike most neighboring cities, such as Greensboro, High Point holds its city council elections on even-numbered years.
 

From a story in Sunday's paper:

There’s no need to wonder where the collard greens or tomatoes came from that are on sale at Whitaker Farms’ stall at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market.

They came right from Richard and Faylene Whitaker’s Randolph County farm fields or greenhouse. The farm has developed such a reputation among local veggie lovers that something curious happened in 2008 when a salmonella outbreak had folks running scared from tomatoes.

“People knew where ours were coming from, so our sales went up,” Whitaker said. “It was an advantage for me because people knew my product.”

But Whitaker and other small farmers worry about a rewrite of the nation’s food safety regulations expected to be chewed over by a Senate committee this week.

In particular, small farmers say rules designed to prevent transmission of foodborne illnesses by large growers and packers will overwhelm small growers.

“It could eliminate all local leafy greens, I think,” Whitaker said.

Click here to read the whole thing, which includes thoughts from Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan.

The House passed a food safety bill this summer. Most folks with North Carolina connections that I spoke with did not like that version of the bill. You can read more about it in this Wall Street Journal story (click here).

The Senate version of the bill is S 510. You can click here to read that version. The Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee has already held one hearing on the bill. You can find written testimony from that hearing and watch a video of the proceedings by clicking here. Both Burr and Hagan sit on this committee.

In the story, I spoke with folks from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Their website is here. You can find out more about Whitaker Farms here.

"Make Our Food Safe," a group tied up with the Pew Charitable Trusts, recently did a survey that purports to show a majority of folks support greater food safety regulation. North Carolina was one of the states surveyed and you can see those results here. Given the length of the survey and the technical details of some of the questions, I'm skeptical that the data can be used to promote one food safety approach over another.

SEANC, the state employees union, is once again picking a fight with Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Democrat and House majority leader from Lexington. The Davidson County lawmaker is among the leaders who helped rework the state health plan this summer. SEANC cites that work in a news release that says its members will protest outside a fundraiser for Holliman here in Raleigh this evening.

This legislative session, Holliman pushed through Senate Bill 287, which charges state employees and their families an extra $600 in out-of-pocket expenses (and implements tobacco and BMI privacy invasions and reduces benefits for some employees to a 70/30 plan), while asking nothing from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of N.C., the nonprofit health insurance monopoly that made $180 million in profits in 2008.

Click here for the full release.

I wrote a story and blog post earlier this year when SEANC targeted Holliman with a radio ad. You can find that by clicking here.

As I noted at the time, Holliman sits in one of the few true swing districts at the General Assembly, one that the Democrats could most easily lose if things break against them in a general election. In 2008, Holliman won by five percentage points – not a slim margin but slimmer than typical among incumbents and House leaders. (House Speaker Joe Hackney was unopposed in his bid, for example. Rep. Maggie Jeffus from Greensboro had a 29 percentage point margin.)

Of course, Holliman is in a conservative-leaning district and one wonders whether a union group complaining about an effort to cut taxpayer-subsidized health care costs for state employees is likely to lose him many votes there.

Was that just Gov. Bev Perdue on the radio in a PSA with Elmo, the red monster from Sesame Street?

Yes, yes it was.

The U.S. HHS has apparently been doing a whole slew of flu-prevention PSAs featuring elected officials and the furry red critter. Click here for the release. And click her for the other spots released by HHS.

Somehow I missed the memo on this when the ad first launched. And come on, how often is it that your governor appears in any way, shape or form with a fuzzy red icon. To atone, here is the 30 second spot: 

Raleigh television station WRAL had a good watchdog story on the state motor fleet yesterday:

The state motor fleet is receipt-driven and gets no money from the state's general fund. Agencies pay a monthly fee for the cars based how much they drive, but the mileage scale only slides one way. There is no provision to save money by driving less.

The Department of Correction is one of the motor fleet's biggest customers. It gets more than 2,400 vehicles a year, and most are permanently assigned to correction employees who use the cars for everything from training to transferring prisoners.

From July 2008 through June 2009, the DOC paid approximately $1.7 million for vehicles that were not driven.

One car, a Ford Taurus in Greenville, wasn't driven for five months during the last fiscal year, yet the DOC paid more than $2,000 for it during that time, records showed. DOC leaders said a cut-back in staff training and an employee's injury kept the car in the lot.

Click here for the full text. The video is below:

As Marlon Brando’s character said, “What have you got?”

Folks on the conservative end of the political spectrum will be doing a whole lot of protesting this coming Saturday, Nov. 14.

First up, the North Carolina branch of Freedom Works - a well-funded, Washington-based, grass-roots group headed up by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey - will hold a shindig on the grassy area behind the Legislative Building known as Halifax mall. Speakers will include Army as well as a lineup of conservative thinkers and writers.

Information is here and here. (Local to Guilford County note: former GC Republican Party chairman Marcus Kindley is organizing buses to bring locals to the event. Info here.) Online literature I've seen promoting the event focuses a lot of ire on the health care bill that passed the House last week.

That very same day at 2 p.m. ALIPAC is helping to organize an event called “Unite Against Amnesty.” The immigration-focused group will hold a “Tea Party Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration” on the Bicentennial Mall, which is on the opposite side and across the street from the Legislative Building on Jones Street.

Information is here, here and here.

I guess this is sort of like what was going on in Philadelphia last weekend, where folks could go to the Eagles’ game and head across the street to the Phillies – except that instead of watching ball games these folks will be speaking out about what they see as social and political ills.
 

The General Assembly’s fiscal research division just circulated its monthly “General Fund Revenue & Economic Outlook.” Basically it’s a snapshot of the state’s economy with particular emphasis given on how that economy affects tax returns.

You can read the whole thing by clicking here. (PDF)

The headline number is that state tax collections are lagging 1.5 percent below what lawmakers anticipated when they drafted the budget.

Also very important: “Employment has yet to show improvement and continues to impact income tax withholdings and sales tax collections.” Despite economists saying the recession is over because GDP has begun growing again, the fiscal picture for states don’t tend to turn around until the job market recovers. Unemployment is still heading in the wrong direction, albeit more slowly than it was in the first part of the year.

Other interesting notes from the report:

• The first four months are 1.5 percent below target. The target reflects the increase in the sales tax and excise taxes (tobacco and alcoholic beverages), which began to show up in October. Net collections are down 4 percent from last year.
   
• The main weakness in collections continues to be the sales tax, which is tracking about two percentage points below expectations.
   
• Withholdings (wage & salary income taxes) continue to fall as accelerated withholdings, representing most wage & salary taxpayers, were down 3.5 percent.
   
• Economic conditions will continue to be recession-like for the rest of 2009, but gradual improvements are expected. Signs of a recovery in employment are expected in the spring of 2010.

Read the whole thing.

I’m pretty sure it was a peculiar minority of folks who were geeking out watching C-SPAN on Saturday nights as the House debated and passed its version of the health care/insurance/system/etc… reform bill.

For those who spent their weekends in other pursuits:

• Click here for my story rounding up our local Congressman’s thoughts and votes on the topic.
• Click here for an AP story explaining why the Senate may be a tougher nut to crack.
• Click here for a New York Times story on the Obama administration’s desire to get this thing done before the end of the year.

There were actually two telling votes on Saturday. The first was on what became known as the Stupak amendment. That amendment would preclude federally-funded health plans from paying for abortion services. It purportedly won over some conservative Democrats and at least one Republican who were sitting on the fence over the bill.

The second important vote, of course, was for final passage. Here’s how North Carolina’s delegation broke down on the two:

Click here for the full roll call on the Stupak amendment.

Click here for the full roll call on final passage.

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.