Sen. Kay Hagan once again was speaking on the Senate floor speaking about the need for health care reform. She told a couple stories, including one where two staff members, about the same age, were given very different quotes on health insurance because of their gender. Click here to listen to the full clip from CSPAN.

Staff writer Richard M Barron is riding heard on our Dell coverage for Thursday’s paper. In case you haven'r heard, Dell is shutting down its Winston-Salem plant and letting go of more than 900 workers. A cast of thousands are feeding him information. Update: Click here for our story from today's paper.

From my particular notebook, here are a few things I found interesting:

State incentives flowed through a bunch of different places, but there are two main agencies: the Commerce Department and the Department of Revenue. The logical question to ask each of these folks today: So, how much did the company get of that $242 million we ponied up?

Commerce oversees JDIG grants and the like. Their answer: "We're still trying to make sure we have that information...we're still pulling it together," said Kathy Neal, an assistant secretary and spokeswoman for the agency. She also noted that all the performance-based incentives granted by the state have “clawback” provisions that would allow North Carolina to recoup its investment.

The Department of Revenue would be in charge of granting millions of dollars in tax breaks. Initially, a spokesman said they were working on researching on how much money went to Dell or any company got under the tax break. When I gently suggested it might be worthwhile to have that information ASAP, they pointed to two online documents: This one for 2007, and this other one for 2008.

For 2007, there were $492,175 claims processed, but of those, $385,696 were ineligible. That means only $106,479 were legitimately claimed under the credit? The only claim made in 2008 was also ruled ineligible. That suggests not a whole lot of money has gone out under that credit. It also suggests that if anyone was watching the data, state leaders might have had an idea the Dell plant wasn’t necessarily thriving.

Either way, those numbers reflect something far less than the $10 million to $20 million the company could have theoretically reaped under the deal.

So what's the answer to how much the state has put into Dell? Well, we don't know on the Commerce side. And if we assume that the one legitimate grant went to Dell, and that there weren't any payments in 2005 or 2006, then $106,479 might be the answer...but I don't have a great deal of faith in it yet.

-=-=-=-=-=-

The General Assembly called a special session to vote up the bill (click here) that created the lion’s share of incentives for the company.

The vote in the House was 92-18 on third reading in the House. The vote was 33-15 in the Senate. Locally, Guilford County lawmakers backed the measure virtually unanimously:

In the Senate: All four members who represented parts of Guilford County voted for the measure. They were Republicans Stan Bingham and Phil Berger and Democrats Katie Dorsett and Kay Hagan.

In the House: Republican John Blust and Democrats Alma Adams, Maggie Jeffus and Earl Jones voted for the measure. Then-Rep. Steve Wood, a Republican, had an excused absence for the session. Then-Rep. Joannie Bowie was recorded as "not voting."

Hagan issued a statement today:

“I was very disappointed to learn today that Dell will close its facility in Winston-Salem.

“In 2004, state and local officials reached an agreement with Dell that included a generous incentive package to build the facility in Winston-Salem. In accordance with that agreement, the announcement today means that Dell is obligated to make substantial reimbursements to both the state and the city of Winston-Salem for its investments. I have been in touch with state and local officials, as well as Dell officials, and it is my understanding that the company will meet their obligations. Today’s announcement is a stark reminder of the economic and human impacts of this recession.”

Sen. Phil Berger also issued a statement today, although it was probably not as strong as it could have been since he voted for the Dell deal. Here’s part.

“It is also important that we take a serious look at and reconsider the various incentives programs which are now North Carolina’s dominant economic development philosophy and program. North Carolina will not be a national leader in job creation and retention through government officials thinking they can pick winners from losers in a dynamic free market economy. The sooner state government moves to reduce the overall tax and regulatory burden on our families and small businesses and concentrates state resources on core government functions like education, transportation and public safety, the sooner North Carolina will be in a position to see a real turnaround in the state’s economy.”

-=-=-=-=

Dan Gerlach, now president of the Golden Leaf Foundation, was a senior advisor to then-Gov. Mike Easley and one of the state’s leading negotiators on the deal.

At the time, luring Dell was seen as a way to bring in a high-tech manufacturer who could replace job losses in industries like textiles and furniture.

“This is not a buggy whip manufacturer,” Gerlach said at the time. “Computers will still be needed for a long time.”

Wednesday, Gerlach said he was most worried about the workers who lost their jobs.

“I am surprised because I thought it had a lot of potential,” Gerlach said. “But five years ago, I didn’t imagine the depths of the current economic recession…At the time, it had the potential to help a lot of people.”

Gerlach said that Dell’s announcement showed how important it was that all incentives deals be based on the company performing as promised.
 

A few things coming over my desk this afternoon:

• For those wondering if ACORN would go to ground after all its national problems, the answer seems to be no, at least here in North Carolina. On a news release I received this morning group is a listed as a cosponsor of a protest at Blue Cross-Blue Shields headquarters today. From the release: “This Tuesday, the “Big Insurance: Sick of It” push continues as organizers and outraged BC/BS customers return to the scene of the ‘crime’ armed with signs, personal stories, crime scene tape, and chalk to deliver a simple message: If the insurance companies win, we lose.”
   
• Speaking of ACORN, Rep. Howard Coble took to the floor of the House last week to chastise the media for not paying more attention to the scandal. Hey mentioned the Washington Post and New York Times by name. “Most other national news outlets ignored or downplayed the ACORN scandal. Days passed before the network news programs covered the story and only one out of five Sunday news show hosts asked the President about ACORN last week...The national media should report the facts instead of ignoring stories that don’t fit their liberal agendas.” (CSPAN)
  
  
   
• I don’t think Gov. Bev Perdue will be doing her Sally Fields impression anytime soon, especially in the parts of the state covered by area code 336. A recent Public Policy Polling survey (click here for the PDF) showed the governor’s approval rating at 24 percent. A friendly caller told me to look at the cross tabs, where responses are broken down by area code. In area code 919 – Raleigh and the surrounding areas – Perdue holds her own, with roughly the same approval number (40 percent) as disapproval (42 percent). In area code 336 (map) – Greensboro, Winston-Salem and the surrounding area – Perdue’s approval is at 13 percent, with 64 percent saying they disapprove of the job she’s doing.
   
• In a column today  I wrote about a group targeting N.C. Sen. Kay Hagan with an add urging her to support a “public option” health care payer. (link - it's the second item.) I wrote: “Hagan has said that Congress needs to pass a health insurance reform bill but has focused a lot of her attention on controlling the cost of any such effort. She has not supported or opposed a public option. Hagan has said there needs to be some sort of “backstop” to help those who can’t afford private health insurance but has left herself open to supporting cooperatives and other measures that stop short of a federally-run plan.”
  
  A Hagan staffer objected, pointing out she had helped craft and voted for the bill put forward by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. Point taken, but Hagan has hardly owned that bit of legislation. In fact, when pressed on whether she backs a public option as a component of the final health care bill, Hagan has demurred. One example: in August, she visited the SAS campus and Cary and was asked “Is the public option a necessary component?”
  
  She said: "I'm going to have to wait and see what the finance committee puts forward from a cost standpoint to really analyze that. You know, at the end of the day, I think we're going to have healthcare reform. I know the finance committee is talking about coops right now, which to me would be more on a state-by-state basis, which is something I was interested in many, many months ago."
  
  That’s hardly foursquare support of a public option plan. Public support (or lack there of) is important at this stage in the game since the bills put together by either committee will be stiched together into one as yet unsee omnibus piece of legislation before its sent to the floor.

Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a Mecklenberg County Democrat, spoke to a Greensboro Bar Association function at the Elon University Law School Monday. The topic: North Carolina latest tax reform effort.

You may remember, back during the General Assembly session, Clodfelter was a leading voice calling for the remake of the state’s tax system. Doing so, the argument went, would not only make revenues more stable but help the state make up a growing budget deficit. (Background.)

However, while the Senate had a proposal, they never unleashed a bill. And House members were unwilling to agree blindly to a tax reform effort that was viewed largely as a product of the Senate.

But when the House and Senate finally inked a budget deal, there was an agreement to continue the tax reform discussions. In fact, the House and Senate Finance Committees will come back outside of session to continue their discussions. While not unheard of, such an arrangement is unusual. Typically standing committees don’t meet outside of the legislative session.

Clodfelter said Monday that those meetings were due to start in two weeks. He was also careful in how he cast his remarks.

“I’m not going to give you a detailed plan here. Frankly, that would not be a responsible thing for me to do,” Clodfelter said. “We’re about to start discussions again with our colleagues in the House and the Senate, and I hope we come out with a plan that is jointly shared and not any one person’s plan.”

Although the tax reform plan was a Senate position during the budget negotiations, it was closely associated with Clodfelter. And while he is well regarded as a very intelligent senator, Clodfelter has a reputation as sometimes being impatient or abrasive. That remark seemed both conscious of that reputation and aimed at defusing any brewing clash of personalities.

A lot of Clodfelter’s presentation will sound familiar if you were paying attention during the session. He talked about broadening the base (increasing the number of things that are taxed, including services) and lowering the rate (the percentage charged on income or sales). But for you tax geeks, listen in at this link:

Clodfelter did some Q & A after his session. Among the topics he covered:

• One audience member asked how they could get more lawyers in the legislature. Apparently, having 25 percent (give or take) of the seats in the 170-seat legislature isn’t enough for the legal community. Granted, these guys deal with the law for a living, but can you imagine any other profession saying they ought to have more than a quarter of the policy-making seats in the state?
• He was asked to handicap the chances that tax reform would get done: “I don’t know how to do that. I just have to sort of remain committed to getting it done because I just don’t think there’s an alternative…We’ve got to do it because it’s the only thing we can do.”
• Clodfelter was asked about the rationale between taxing all amusements at the same rate. Right now, you pay the equivalent of sales tax on tickets for a sporting event but not other forms of entertainment like going to a museum. “The push-back was all from golfers…I’m serious. It was almost exclusively from the golfing community.”
• Clodfelter was asked about the lottery at one point: “There was legislation proposed and discussed to change the distribution of lottery proceeds this session … But those never saw the light of day because the supporters of the lottery were afraid that if any bill on the lottery got to the floor again, an amendment would be offered to repeal it and it would pass.” Worth noting at this point: Clodfelter was not and is not a lottery backer.

Click below for more of that second part of the converstaion.

Here’s what I’m reading this morning:

• My colleague Taft Wireback looks at a recent sewage spill in Thomasville and what that says about the safety of our water supply.
   
• Also from the News & Record, Amanda Lehmert says city council candidates are having a hard time raising money because political donors have been hit by the recession.
   
• The New York Times has a story about how hamburgers can put you in a wheelchair. Ick.
   
• It was the heckle that launched a thousands ships, or at least some big time fundraising. McClatchy reports on the fundraising potential of “You lie!”
   
• More from the U.S. media’s hysteria series on the flue: The Washington Post ponders whether anyone will want the swine (H1N1) flu vaccine.
  

From a story in today’s paper:

RALEIGH — Ed Taylor stood with friends and family in front of the Wake County courthouse Tuesday, each wearing a lime-green T-shirt with a simple message: “Free Greg Taylor.”

Greg, 47, is the Greensboro retiree’s son. Sixteen years ago a jury found him guilty and a judge sentenced him to life in prison for murder. Since then, he has exhausted most every legal avenue to overturn his conviction, save one. Last month, the relatively new N.C. Actual Innocence Commission ruled unanimously there was enough evidence to warrant a review of the case.

Along with other friends and family, Ed Taylor hopes the display might speed the day Greg is released from a state prison in Johnston County.
Today he is certain his son isn’t a murderer. As he drove toward the same courthouse in April 1993, Taylor said, he was certain of other things.

“I was always a strong law-and-order man,” Taylor said. “I came down to the trial mentally prepared to hear evidence that he was guilty.” There’s a choke in Taylor’s voice when he confides he would have “thrown the switch” himself if prosecutors had proved his son was a murder.

What he heard during the trial and what he has found out since has convinced him of quite the opposite.

Click here for the full story.

I’m not the first to write about this story and got interested mainly because of the Greensboro angle. You can read more about the case here, here and here.

In addition to interviews, my story was based on a trove of documents at the Innocence Inquiry Commission offices, including a few snipits of audio and video.

Here's a video of Taylor being told that the Innocence Inquiry Commission would take up his case:

It’s worth noting that there’s a lot more to this story than I was able to cram into my piece. Each of Greg’s family members has their own stories to tell, and I only talked to a few of them. And there were many twists and turns that I didn’t have time to get into.

A few other notes of interest:

• In the story, I mention that Greg’s brother Eddy is writing a blog on the case. You can find that by clicking here.
   
• Primary sponsors of the 2006 law that created the inquiry commission included now-Speak Joe Hackney. Co-sponsors included Reps. Pricey Harrison and Earl Jones, both of Greensboro.
   
• The commission remains the only one of its kind in the nation, according to officials at the commission.
   
• Legislators amped up the powers of the commission this year with H 937. That bill allowed the commission to grant immunity to witnesses in certain cases.

A final note: I spoke with Don Vaughan, now a state senator but at one time an appellate lawyer for Taylor, and Chris Mumma, who heads the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence. Both said there are plenty more cases that the commission could be taking up. Vaughan told me of another case with facts very similar to Taylor's that the commission rejected because it didn't have the time or resources to take up.

So it's somewhat serendipitous that this release came over the transom Friday:

The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission (Commission) is proud to announce that they have been awarded a federal grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in the amount of $566,980 for DNA testing of post-conviction innocence claims. The Commission applied for the grant with the support of the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. The money will be used from January 2010 through June 2011.

Under the NIJ grant, the Commission will be able to dramatically expand their capacity to review DNA cases and conduct forensic testing. The grant includes: funding for two staff attorney positions, training, supplies, expert witness fees, and DNA testing.

The Commission is a state agency that currently operates with a staff of five and is allotted a budget of $372,879 per year. The Commission reviews and evaluates post-conviction claims of actual innocence. Since the Commission’s creation, they have reviewed 557 innocence claims and conducted three hearings. A public hearing in the case of State v. Gregory Flynt Taylor was conducted on September 3rd and 4th and is now pending for final hearing before a three-judge panel.

The Commission’s Executive Director, Kendra Montgomery-Blinn, explained that the Commission reviews cases that involve DNA testing and cases where there is no physical evidence to test. The grant may only be used for cases involving DNA testing, but the Commission will continue to use their regular funds to review both types of cases.

The Commission’s Chairman, Judge Quentin T. Sumner, said, “This grant is recognition of the important work the Commission does. I am proud of how much we have accomplished in the past three years and ready to see how much more we can do with this extra funding.” Executive Director, Kendra Montgomery-Blinn, said, “This funding comes at a time when it is desperately needed and will almost double our budget.”

Cases may be referred to the Commission by any person or agency. If you have an innocence claim to refer, please send information about the claim to the Commission at:

North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission

Administrative Office of the Courts

P.O. Box 2448

Raleigh, NC 27602

More information about referring an innocence claim can be found on the Commission’s website at: www.innocencecommission-nc.gov

A few of pressing journalistic matters (one a story for the print edition, two others goose chases of the wild sort) have kept me away from regular blogging. But let’s see if I can catch up on the news from around these parts:

EASLEY MONEY

The swirl of skunky-looking stuff surrounding former Gov. Mike Easley’s land deals and other, um, potential extravagances while in office has earned him and his associates an invite to appear before the State Board of Elections the week of Oct. 26. If recent history (I’m looking at you Jim Black and Thomas Wright) is any indication, it will be an absolute festival of blights.

The board will "receive the report of its staff about its investigation and to further investigate allegations of possible violations of election laws, including but not limited to, allegations of illegal contributions and inaccurate reporting in campaign finance reports by the Mike Easley Committee and the North Carolina Democratic Party."

MAD MONEY

The state’s former chief investment officer, Patricia Gerrick, was fired from her job by Treasurer Janet Cowell. Cowell won’t say why she fired her top money manager. But in short order after releasing documents that show Gerrick was fired, Cowell released a policy “governing travel reimbursements for employees who visit companies through which North Carolina's public pension funds invest money,” leaving us scruffy media types and those playing the home game to draw a whole heaping load of our own conclusions.

LUNCH MONEY

Employees at the DMV took “$21,800 in freebies, such as pricey dinners, a hockey ticket and a spa visit” from Verizon as the company angled to land a $51.5 million no-bid contract to support the state’s new vehicle inspection system.

Soon after that revelation, Gov. Bev Perdue issues and executive order banning all employees under her control from taking gifts on any sort from people doing business with the state.

Republican Sen. Phil Berger issued his own release saying that Perdue didn’t go far enough but stopping just short of calling for keelhauling of errant employees.

BEER (OR CHELADA) MONEY

Former Rep. Cary Allred may have pled guilty to a speeding charge that was part of a bizarre tangle of events that eventually saw him leave office. But the former lawmaker tells his hometown paper he’s not planning to plead guilty to another careless and reckless driving charge leveled by police after he left office.

What may be the best few lines from the story:

Driving 37 mph over the speed limit was justified because he was trying to get to the House in time to cast a vote on behalf of his constituents, Allred said. Police and emergency workers “break the speed limit for the public good,” he said. “What I was trying to do was for the public good.”

CAMPAIGN MONEY

Our friends at Dome report: “The new head of the state agency charged with busting illegal video poker took a $500 campaign contribution from a man who has backed legalizing the gambling games. John Ledford was sworn in as director of state Alcohol Law Enforcement Wednesday in Madison County, where he has severed as sheriff the last 10 years. In raising funds for his most recent reelection campaign in 2006, Ledford accepted a $500 contribution from Howard Cole of Weaverville, owner of Cole Vending Co. Cole has been a leader in the video poker industry's political efforts to win legalization and has been a frequent contributor to the campaigns of Democrats such as former House Speaker Jim Black and former Gov. Mike Easley, as well as committees seeking to elect Republican candidates.”
 

NOT QUITE ON THE MONEY

In a blog post a couple weeks back, I mentioned a Civitas Study that claimed to show federal stimulus spending would actually cost the state money and reported Gov. Bev Perdue’s reaction. At the time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what bothered me about the white paper. Andrew Brod, director of UNCG’s Director, Center for Business & Economic Research, helps me out in this column: "After making a few more questionable assumptions and misapplying an overly simple statistical model, the Laffer study eventually pops out its prediction of nearly 70,000 lost jobs. All in all, it’s a pretty dubious piece of work."

House Speaker Joe Hackney has been making the rounds visiting various newspaper editorial board offices throughout the state this fall. I sat in when he arrived at the News & Record for his interview.

Much of what he talked about was a review of the legislative session, which readers of this blog probably don’t need rehashed.

He did bring up a few interesting points, including that the legislature’s new ethics apparatus seems to be working well. Given that it’s great you have a smoothly working ethics apparatus, isn’t the larger point that you’ve had to use it on a fairly regular basis?

That prompted Hackney’s best answer of the day: “We don’t get to decide who the public sends us.” More of his answer here:

Speaking of ethics, Hackney was asked if voters would punish Democrats for problems involving former Gov. Mike Easley. This was two days before we knew that the State Board of Elections would hold hearings on L’affair de Easley.

“People in my district, my legislative district, are not going to blame me for what Mike Easley did,” Hackney said. “And I don’t think people in Alma Adams’ district or Maggie Jeffus’ district are going to blame them either, because common sense tells you they had nothing to do with it.” More of that answer:

I asked Hackney about the ongoing expansion of video poker/lottery/ sweepstakes machines throughout the state. He noted that there were three superior court decisions in the mix and that the legislature may or may have to step in after they were settled on appeals.

“I don’t think it’s so all fired certain that the superior court level judicial decisions are going to be upheld on appeal,” Hackney said. More of his answer:

The interview touched on several other topics, including:

• The fact that students on full-ride athletic scholarships get in-state tuition to UNC-system campuses. Hackney said it was a bad policy:
  
• The recent decision by the Community College board to admit the children of illegal immigrants into system schools. He was non-committal on the legislature might do and said that a federal fix to immigration was what’s really needed:
  
• The editorial board and Hackney discussed at length how he’d like to reform to appointment and retention of judges and how a fix almost came to be recently:
  

Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro, has been doing weekly conference calls with North Carolina reporters for a while now, mostly on Wednesdays.

Today's came after the ten freshmen Democrats in the Senate took the floor and said in various ways that they supported doing something with health care.

You can watch Hagan's floor speech by clicking here.

Update: The link above is from CSPAN. This is the video from Hagan's YouTube channel.

Hagan said during that speech that if health care reform doesn't come about the average American family will spend roughly half their income on insurance premiums by 2016.

"I don't know how people would pay for mortgages and save for colleges spending that kind of money," Hagan said later on the conference call.

Hagan at once insists that health reform is necessary and that the cost of inaction is too great, but won't jump in whole-heartedly in support of any particular piece of legislation. (For those who haven't been paying attention to all this, Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, adamantly opposes the genre of health reform proposals now being considered.)

Aside from saying she was committed to a bill that didn't increase the deficit, made sure pre-existing conditions weren't an obstacle to coverage and insured folks who aren't insured, Hagan didn't explicitly endorse or condemn any particular proposal. She allowed that the bill the Senate Finance Committee today met her no-new-deficit requirement but stopped way short of saying that she'd vote for it.

The N+O's Rob Christensen pushed her for a yes or no answer on whether she supported the Finance Committee bill. Hagan responded (accurately) that the committee was running through 500 or so amendments. Her strongest statement on the measure was, "I think we're getting on the right track."

Neither would she commit on a process question I asked her.

"It is my strong preference that it move through the regular order (of business)," Hagan said of the health care bill. "Regular order" would require that 60 senators vote in favor of going forward on the measure.

There has been talk of Senate leaders circumventing that rule and voting the bill through under "reconciliation."

I asked if she would vote for a bill if it came through reconciliation.

"I'm hoping for still bipartisan support of this bill," she said.

Right, but if that hope doesn't come to fruition, would the fact a measure is moving through reconciliation stop her from voting for the final product?

"At the end of the day we will have a bill that will be sent to the president for signage," Hagan said, adding, "It's my strong preference that it move through regular order."

I asked again, and she started, "We're closer now than we've ever been before on health care reform…"

For those keeping score at home, she was asked at least three times if she would vote for a bill if it came up under reconciliation and didn't answer the question directly yes or no.

Of course, this could all be a bit of a moot point if Massachusetts gets its act together and appoints a replacement for Ted Kennedy and all 59 other Democrats stay on board with the health care reform effort.

Virginia Foxx's Facebook page just sent me the following:

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