nc house

Two hours ago I had never heard the name Pricey Harrison. It just so happened that I emailed every sponsor and co-sponsor of HB726, a bill that would expunge the criminal records of those who committed a misdemeanor before the age of 18 and had a clean record for two years after.

My expectations were of a few form letters over the next few weeks. Instead, around midnight, I get a personal email from Ms. Harrison sent via her iPhone. And did I mention that I do not even live in her district??!

This is the kind of Representative we need in North Carolina and across the country. I ask my fellow BlueNCers to promote this diary and, if you can afford it, throw a few bucks to Ms. Harrison's campaign.

While we all bemoan the current inaction, we should also reward action.

I am a teenager on the North Carolina Youth Leadership Council (NCYLC) in Chapel hill, NC. This is an exciting few weeks for us, because we are introducing the Healthy Youth Act, a bill that would put comprehensive sex education into schools in grades 7 through 9. Teens are going to be lobbying, attending a press conference, writing letters, talking to their schools, and making phone calls for this cause. I met with a NC senator from Durham to discuss this issue today, and we are working on persuading more state representatives and senators to vote for the Healthy Youth Act.

This Diary is meant as a how to guide on making North Carolina more progressive within the state legislature. As we have seen, even with large Democratic majorities, it is often not enough to just get more Democrats elected to office in Raleigh. We also need to make sure that we are pushing for different Democrats, real progressives who put people first. But, how do we do that on an individual basis?

Hopefully this is not in bad form. We are having a contest over at Progressive Electorate and Larry Kissell is one of our candidates. He is lagging behind in votes so we just wanted to invite some Carolina Blue folks over to come and visit and join in. The winner and runner up are guarantee donations. Also we have a diary up on Daniel Johnson.

Again, I hope I did not offend anyone but I wanted to make sure that the Larry folks knew they were in the contest and had an opportunity to get their folks participate.

The House and Senate Education Appropriation Committee distributed a version of the Conference Budget this afternoon. Our public schools received less funding in the Conference Budget than was included for public schools in the House or the Senate passed Budgets. The Conference Budget is $33.9 million less than the Budget passed by the House for public schools. The Conference Budget is $10.2 million less than the Budget passed by the Senate for public schools.

For all the friends of labor that are in the General Assembly, there are a few who need a backbone transplant in order to help them stand by working families.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Al Swanstrom, and I’m running for the NC House of Representatives in District 36, which my friend Greer Beaty almost won in 2006. It covers parts of Cary, Apex, and Swift Creek.