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If and when the Senate finally passes the economic stimulus package -- that's the bill numbered H.R. 1 on your scorecards, kids -- Sen. Kay Hagan will be able to lay claim to shaping a little piece of the bill.

Hagan said today that she planned to vote for the Senate version of the bill after many, many amendments. That vote could take place as early as Tuesday.

The Greensboro senator is one of eight to back Sens. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, and Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, in offering an amendment to the stimulus bill to limit the pay of corporate executives whose companies receive bailout funds. Those folks could make no more than the $400,000 the president of the United States gets in annual take-home pay.

The amendment came in response to reports that even as some banks took billions in taxpayer funding, their CEOs were handing out bonuses.

"This is a slap in the face to millions of Americans who can't understand why the same companies who sought out taxpayer dollars to bail them out were in turn paying their top executives more money than many folks will make in a lifetime. It's unacceptable, it's unconscionable," Hagan said.

The idea was so popular it passed on a voice vote, with no senator wanting to go on record as sticking up for the CEOs.

Of course, once the Senate is done with the bill, it must be reconciled with the House version. There's no guarantee the CEO pay -- or any other -- provision will survive this conference committee.

Artful criticism

In last week's column it was noted that a coalition of liberal-leaning groups was putting ads on the air urging Sen. Richard Burr to vote for the economic stimulus package.

This week, Americans for Prosperity has begun airing a radio ad urging Hagan to vote against the bill.
"It's the same old wasteful spending for pet projects we've seen before ... $50 million to fund art. That's right, art," intones the ad.

Bonus fun: The masterminds behind the ads are brothers.

Dallas Woodhouse heads the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity. His brother, Brad Woodhouse, helps run Americans United for Change, a pro-union outfit airing the ads aimed at Burr.

I asked Dallas Woodhouse if the pair threw mashed potatoes at one another during family dinners.
"We get along OK," he wrote back by e-mail. "We are professionals. We are real close."

His brother echoed the theme of brotherly love to The Plum Line blog:

"While I love my brother, I am committed to trying to defeat everything he ever works for," Brad Woodhouse told writer Greg Sargent.

Other votes

In the past week:

• The House voted 264-158 to delay the transition to digital television broadcasts until June 12. The act, which has been passed by the Senate and is favored by President Obama, is meant to give consumers more time to prepare for the transition. Democratic Reps. Brad Miller and Mel Watt voted for the delay. Republican Reps. Howard Coble and Virginia Foxx voted against. Worth noting: The bill only moves back a federally mandated deadline. Television stations can still apply for a waiver to make the switch early.
• Voted 290-135 in favor of extending the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The federally funded program allows states to pay for health care for children whose families are too wealthy for Medicaid but cannot afford their own health insurance. Miller and Watt voted for the bill. Coble and Foxx voted against. The measure has been signed by the president and became law.

Burr's thing

Finally this week, a note from our Department of Things that Sound Dirty But Aren't.

The muckraking celebrity gossip web site TMZ published a video of Republican Sen. Richard Burr under the headline "Senator's Thing Exposed in Snowstorm."

Ahem.

It showed Burr wiping the snow off the seat of his VW Thing, a 1970s relic that is part Jeep and all ugly, outside the Senate office building.

Since then, folks cruising the Internet have questioned whether Burr actually drives this contraption or whether it was some stunt to demonstrate his frugality.

It's no stunt. Your correspondent had occasion to ask Burr about the car back in 2007, before he was captured by the same folks who chase the latest Rihanna-Chris Brown news.

"As most would tell you up here, rarely if ever does the top go up," Burr said at the time. "I leave the top down because the weather is pretty good most of the time and I can ride from here to the White House and kind of forget that I'm in Washington. It's as much therapy as anything else."

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com