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Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison has sponsored or co-sponsored 838 separate bills in the past two years, more than double most members of the General Assembly. But Scoop can't crown her the champion bill filer.

As best we can figure, that honor goes to Rep. Bill Faison, who represents Orange and Caswell counties and signed onto 942 separate bits of legislation.

Still, Harrison does outpace her colleagues from the Guilford County delegation. Sen. Katie Dorsett is the next most profligate bill sponsor, with 292 bearing her signature.

"I really do try to be thoughtful about which bills I sign onto," Harrison said. "If it's an idea I agree with or something I think we ought to be studying, I don't have a problem signing it."

Most lawmakers, Harrison included, co-sponsor more bills than they author. Legislators who co-sponsor a bill support the idea but don't necessarily play a role in drafting the bill.

Sometimes those co-sponsorships can get legislators in trouble. For example, the News & Record's editorial writers rapped the knuckles of those signed onto a measure to let school boards raise taxes. Harrison caught flak even though she wasn't the bill's author and the thing was filed last year.

She's taken the most heat over a bill she did play a part in drafting. It would prevent community colleges or state universities from asking about a person's immigration status, overruling a decision by the community college system this year.

"I'm getting pretty ugly e-mails and probably some phone calls on that," she said. A couple of writers have suggested "your days are numbered," but she didn't take that as a death threat but more of a promise to find political opposition in an upcoming election — no one has filed to run against her this year.

"More of them are like, 'What part of illegal don't you understand?' or, 'Go back to Mexico,'" she said. "But pretty ugly."

Really, he's a senator

Sen. Stan Bingham, a Republican who represents Davidson County and parts of Guilford County, had been away for a couple of weeks at weddings and graduations for his daughters. And when he was back in the Senate chamber last week, he let folks know just how happy he was to be back in North Carolina.

It seems that while he was in Connecticut, someone stole the license plate off his car.

"I guess one of the university students wanted it in his dorm room. It meant more to him than it did me. But it wasn't very helpful when I came back south ... I got close to North Carolina and a patrolman or an officer pulled me over and I thought, 'Oh, no. No license plate.'"

It gets better.

"He said, 'The reason I pulled you over was your headlight was out. ... I got behind you and saw you and saw you didn't have a license plate and thought I was following John Dillinger.' And so, we talked for a while, because he came up to the car and all I had on was a pair of shorts, no shirt, no shoes. And he said, 'Um, have you got a registration for this car?' And I said, 'Yes sir.' And he said, 'You mean to tell me you're in the North Carolina Senate?'"

Bingham said he spent 15 minutes on the side of the road with the officer.

"I finally did convince him that senators were a little different in North Carolina than they are in Virginia," Bingham said.

Scoop will vouch for that.

Sometimes, you just gotta say it

During Thursday's budget workshop, Commissioner Bruce Davis could have waded into finding whether one goal of magnet schools in Guilford County had succeeded: to balance race levels in schools.

Instead, he dove in.

"Is the magnet system giving the success that you thought it would?" he asked Alan Duncan, chairman of the school board, "To bring white folks back to inner-city schools?"

Race is often a touchy subject among the elected officials in Guilford County. Other times, it becomes a joke.

After his first statement, Davis rephrased his thoughts on magnet schools.

"They were designed to balance the socioeconomic environment in the schools," he said.

To that, Duncan said, "They were meant to balance race." And added that they would be reviewed soon.

Laughter settled among the commissioners as Linda Shaw chimed in.

"That was a racial remark," she said, smiling, while Melvin "Skip" Alston giggled beside her and several other commissioners chuckled.

He's Dunn

We at Scoop love a party. And a party was had Friday morning on the last day of Dusty Dunn's 44-year broadcasting career.

In Dunn's small studio in downtown Greensboro, where he anchored his weekday morning show for WGOS, there was quite the crowd. Let's run the numbers.

There was one TV camera, three still cameras and at least 11 people, including the pride of southeast Guilford County sitting knee to knee: U.S. Rep. Howard Coble and singer Billy "Crash'' Craddock, the King of Country Rock in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, a crowd of at least 20 mingled just outside.

Local columnist Ogi Overman wore his special "Bon Voyage" tie, and Greensboro City Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw came in holding a white sheet cake, with the icing-spelled message: "Thanks for the memories, Dusty Dumpling."

Yes, quite the crowd: politicians, journalists, entertainers, gadflies, neighbors and friends. They all came to Dunn's South Elm studio to say goodbye. Dunn started his radio career in 1964. Fifteen stations later, at the age of 62, Dunn signed off Friday.

Coble talked about getting Dunn into the N.C. Broadcasting Hall of Fame. And Craddock talked about his first tour through Australia. They told some funny stories, too. But like most weekday mornings, Dunn grabbed the last laugh.

"If you've been around long enough, like politicians and old hookers," Dunn said, "you'll get respectable."

Staff writers Mark Binker, Gerald Witt and Jeri Rowe contributed