Gov. McCrory signs ‘Kilah’s Law’

(Charlotte Observer) With 4-year-old Kilah Davenport sitting silently alongside, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory Wednesday signed into law a bill designed to protect children like her from abuse.

“This is no doubt probably the most emotional bill I’ll sign as governor,” McCrory said.

As he entered the old House chamber in the Capitol, McCrory bent down on one knee and kissed Kilah’s forehead. The Union County girl sat immobile in a chair, surrounded by family, supporters and lawmakers who made “Kilah’s Law” a reality.

Authorities say the girl was badly beaten by her stepfather last May. Her stepfather, Joshua Houser, remains in jail on $1 million bond awaiting trial. Kilah was hospitalized with severe brain damage and a fractured skull.

Wednesday’s measure would toughen punishments for serious child-abuse cases.

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Push to end NC’s renewable energy program dies in committee

(Raleigh News & Observer) The push to terminate North Carolina’s renewables program is over for the foreseeable future after a House committee in the state legislature defeated the measure with the help of key Republicans.

The vote in Raleigh was closely watched by national conservative organizations that had targeted North Carolina as the first domino in a national strategy of toppling green-energy policies in more than two dozen states.

Sixteen conservative organizations – including the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform and The Heartland Institute – made a final push for North Carolina’s bill this week with a letter urging lawmakers that it was their “moral obligation” to oppose government programs that interfere with free markets.

Despite the presence of a pair of Americans for Prosperity representatives on hand to remind lawmakers that “other states are watching,” the bill was defeated with the help of a half-dozen Republicans, including three of the most powerful legislators in the state House.

The Committee on Public Utilities and Energy voted 18-13 on Wednesday to kill the proposal that would have ended the state’s 6-year-old policy of subsidizing solar farms and other forms of renewable energy.

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Three More Perdue Donors Convicted In Campaign Probe

(Carolina Journal) Three associates of former Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue — New Bern attorney Trawick “Buzzy” Stubbs, Morganton businessman Charles Michael Fulenwider, and former Western Piedmont Community College board member Robert Lee Caldwell — were convicted Wednesday of misdemeanor charges for obstruction of justice in an investigation of fundraising violations during Perdue’s 2008 campaign for governor.

With the 2011 felony plea of Perdue’s former campaign finance director Peter Reichard and the 2012 misdemeanor plea taken by attorney Juleigh Sitton, who ran Perdue’s Western North Carolina office, five people connected to the Perdue campaign have been convicted of fundraising crimes.

Stubbs and Fulenwider each were fined $5,000 and Caldwell was fined $500. The three men were banned from participating in any political fundraising activities for 18 months.

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Moffitt: Nipple bill still has life

(Asheville Citizen Times) The nipple bill lives.

“The nipple bill is not dead,” state Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, said Monday. “Probably sometime between now and crossover, which I think is set for May 16, I will re-introduce it.”

Crossover is when bills transfer from the House of Representatives to the Senate.

Moffitt sponsored and introduced the bill earlier this year, but he pulled it in February just before a planned vote in the House. The bill would clarify the state’s indecent exposure law to make it illegal for women to expose their nipples, but it also would include the possibility of women being charged with a felony for nipple exposure.

Moffitt introduced the bill at the request of the city of Asheville, he said. The bill has an exemption for breast-feeding mothers.

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Apodaca: Little sympathy for Asheville’s water woes

(Asheville Citizen Times) Disbarred Hendersonville attorney and former congressional candidate Sam Neill was sentenced today to three years in federal prison for income tax fraud.

“I have committed serious transgression,” Neill told Judge Martin Reidinger in U.S. District Court. “I sincerely wish to express my deep regret for my actions. My life has already been destroyed.

Neill, 63, pleaded guilty in April 2012. Prosecutors said he underreported his income by nearly $500,000. Court documents also alleged that Neill stole money from his clients to improve his lifestyle and cover losses at his law firm.

Neill also faces sentencing in Henderson County Superior Court on Thursday. He pleaded guilty in September to five felony counts of embezzlement stemming from the theft of more than $2 million from clients over a decade. One indictment alleged that he stole nearly $1 million from a client in the span of five months.

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Apodaca: Little sympathy for Asheville’s water woes

(Asheville Citizen Times) A powerful state Senator says he has little sympathy for the city as it faces losing its water system to a regional authority.

The Senate Finance Committee today is set to consider the controversial bill that would take Asheville’s water system without reimbursement for the money the city has put into it.

Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Hendersonville, the chairman of the powerful rules committee, which controls the flow of legislation, said the bill will pass.

“Living in Henderson, I come at this from a little different perspective,” he said Friday. “It’s hard for me to find a lot of sympathy for Asheville.”

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Road Worrier: NC leaders postpone worries about transportation taxes

(Raleigh News & Observer) “We face a difficult problem,” Transportation Secretary Tony Tata told a Raleigh audience last week.

He used a simple PowerPoint slide to illustrate his problem, but he never quite asked us to face it.

North Carolina is one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, Tata said, so we will need more and more roads and other transportation improvements over the coming decade. But we will have less and less money to provide these needs.

On the video screen behind him, a blue arrow slanted upward to show 1.3 million more residents expected by 2023. A downward arrow marked an expected $1.7 billion drop in state and federal transportation tax revenues.

Gas tax collections are falling about 2 percent a year, Tata explained, “even when factoring in population growth – because our vehicles are more fuel-efficient.” Motor vehicle fee receipts are flat, and the highway use tax on car sales lags below pre-recession levels, he said.

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Abortion bills could drive wedge in NC GOP

(Winston Salem Journal) Abortion-rights advocates and political observers say a series of measures in the N.C. General Assembly adding new restrictions for the procedure could set up the first test of wills between the GOP majority in the legislature and Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.
McCrory said in the final debate of his 2012 gubernatorial campaign that he wouldn’t sign new abortion regulations, but the Republican-controlled legislature has followed up new restrictions in 2011 with a series of measures this year, most recently a bill to broaden protections for medical professionals who refuse to participate in an abortion.
“It could be the governor’s first time he has to decide to pull out the veto pen, and I think a lot of people are reminding him of his statement in the third debate,” said David McLennan, a political science professor at William Peace University.

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NC Senate OKs drug testing requirement for welfare

(Raleigh News Observer) Applicants for North Carolina’s cash and worker-training welfare program would have to undergo a drug test to qualify for benefits and pay for it upfront under a bill approved Monday night by the Republican-led state Senate following debate on whether such a get-tough strategy goes too far.

Senators agreed in a largely party-line 35-15 vote to pass legislation that would demand testing for applicants and recipients for the state’s Work First program.

Those who pass the screening would be reimbursed in future assistance payments; those who fail could reapply in a year after completing a treatment program at their own expense and passing a test. Both parents in a two-parent household would have to take a test.

The current law already requires local social service agencies to screen for substance abusers using experts or doctors in addiction fields, but no drug testing is required. An applicant or recipient determined to be addicted to alcohol or drugs must complete a substance abuse treatment program and submit to drug testing, however, to continue qualifying for benefits.

Bill supporters said the state should go a step further and deny benefits to substance abusers so they can’t receive monetary assistance from the state that they may use to buy drugs instead of helping their families. Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, said the state should not help pay for what he called an “ugly, dirty habit.”

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Sanford radio show taken off college station after NC Rep. complains

(NC Policy Watch) A Lee County community college stopped airing a radio talk show this month after a state lawmaker took issue with an online post a radio host wrote criticizing the lawmaker.

A legislative assistant for State Rep. Mike Stone, wrote the president of Central Carolina Community College on April 3 asking what the school’s affiliation was with “The Rant,” a weekly radio show hosted by three former Sanford-area journalists on the college’s FM radio station WDCC, 90.5. Stone is a Sanford Republican serving his second term in the state legislature.

The show’s hosts don’t plan on fighting the suspension, but will move to an online podcast format to shield the community college from negative pressure from Stone or others.

“We’re gracefully bowing out, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t think this is ridiculous,” said Billy Liggett, who started the show in 2008 as the then-editor of the Sanford Herald. “The fact that Mike Stone would be upset about this we find to be humorous and puzzling.”

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Local film leaders say bill would end N.C. film industry

(Star News Online) A bill proposed by two local lawmakers Wednesday to eliminate the refundable portion of North Carolina’s film tax credit would effectively gut the state’s film and television industry, film leaders say.

Under state law, film production companies can claim a 25 percent tax credit – up to $20 million – on productions spending more than $250,000 in qualifying expenses. If passed, House bill 994 would eliminate that credit and, instead, waive any tax liability the company accrues over the next five years up to an equivalent amount.

Because only companies based in North Carolina pay the taxes that would be waived, only a fraction of the films that do business in the state would reap any benefit under the law, according to Wilmington Regional Film Commission Director Johnny Griffin.

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Bill would remove airport from Asheville

(Asheville Citizen-Times) A Henderson County legislator is threatening to adjust city boundaries to exclude Asheville Regional Airport, a move local officials say could cost more than $190,000 in lost revenue a year.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said he filed a bill earlier this month to remove Asheville Regional from the city whose name it bears as a way of pressuring city government to speed a transfer of city-owned land to state government. Reps. Tim Moffitt and Nathan Ramsey, both R-Buncombe, are co-sponsors.

The General Assembly passed a law last June mandating that the city give 50 acres used by the WNC Agricultural Center to the state, but the land transfer has yet to happen.

McGrady said he hopes he does not have to push for passage of his de-annexation bill, but “At some point you can’t put up with the city just not cooperating. There’s got to be some ramifications to the city not complying with the law.”

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Republicans push to grant legal driving priviledges to undocumented immigrants

(Wilmington Star-News) Some North Carolina lawmakers want to extend driving privileges to those living in North Carolina illegally while adding new enforcement measures, including a provision mirroring an Arizona law that authorizes law enforcement to check the legal status of people stopped for other legitimate reasons. The bill, filed by four House Republicans, creates a separate class of restricted driver’s permits and allows law enforcement to detain people suspected of living illegally in the U.S. for up to 24 hours following a stop or arrest to check their immigration status. The legislation comes as the U.S. Senate looks ready to take up its own bipartisan legislation following a push from GOP leaders to moderate its tone toward the Latino community. Rep. Harry Warren, R-Rowan, and a primary sponsor, called the measure a “public safety” bill that strikes a balanced approach in an interview Thursday. “To recognize that people here illegally are driving uninsured and untested and to do nothing about it is irresponsible,” he said.

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House Bill Would Free Auto Insurers To Set Rates

(Carolina Journal) State Rep. Jeff Collins may have foreshadowed debate on a proposal to rework the way auto insurance rates are set when he told a panel hearing his proposal, “This is truly in my opinion a non-consensus bill.” Collins, a Nash County Republican, promoted House Bill 265 during Tuesday’s meeting of the House Insurance Committee. It would allow auto insurance companies to set their own rates. Currently, rates are set by the N.C. Rate Bureau.
Insurance companies could continue going through the rate bureau if they chose. But sponsors of the bill suggested that they wouldn’t. The bill would allow total rates to go up, or down, by no more than 7 percent per year, a change from the original bill that allowed an annual variance of 12 percent. Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, asked what would keep a company from continually increasing rates by 7 percent a year, year after year.

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Opposition to solar farms mounts in Cape Fear region

(Fayetteville Observer) A thriving solar industry has flocked to the flat farmland of southeastern North Carolina, bringing jobs and pumping tax revenue into some of the state’s poorest counties. But in recent months, signs have pointed to growing opposition to solar farms. Town leaders, neighbors and farmers are showing up at meetings to voice worries over possible toxins, health risks and property values, sometimes outnumbering supporters for the industry. In two cases, opponents have succeeded in blocking new solar farms in Robeson and Scotland counties. A lawyer for landowners who were denied a permit last week by the Robeson County Board of Commissioners says the unfounded worries are putting in jeopardy a lucrative industry.

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