NC Legislature

That's the question in the minds of many observers of environmental policy-making this week, as a wave of the greenest legislators in North Carolina decline to stand for re-election in the face of radically re-engineered district lines.

The latest worrisome retirement announcement came last week from former House Speaker Joe Hackney, long considered the leading environmental champion in the N.C. General Assembly. Redistricting had gerrymandered Hackney into a "double-bunking" of incumbents with fellow legislator Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange).

After months of waiting for the Legislature to officially end the 2011 Long Session, the NC League of Conservation Voters released its annual Conservation Scorecard. NCLCV has been scoring NC Legislators on environmental issues since 1999 and this year’s scores are the lowest they have ever been. The Scorecard is a valuable tool voters can use to evaluate which legislators best represent their environmental values. The Conservation Scorecard gives each state legislator a score of 0 to 100 based on his or her votes on key environmental bills in the recent session of the General Assembly.

Tillis and Berger pull a fast one

Republican leaders of North Carolina’s legislature acted unethically – if not unconstitutionally – in the middle of the night last night.

read the opinion piece at: Charlotte Observer

All you have to do is look at today’s front-page story in the N&O to know that North Carolina faces some pretty hefty challenges. Hurricane Irene destroyed more than 1,100 homes and damage from the storm has reached $71 million and still climbing.

The same front page details how today is the final day of a federal program to help laid-off workers pay for health insurance while looking for work. With an unemployment rate topping 10%, this news will undoubtedly make worse the situation facing so many North Carolinians.

And yet, tucked in the Triangle section, aptly under political news is the headline, “GOP pushes same-sex marriage amendment.” That’s right. According to our new legislative majority, altering our state’s Constitution to deny couples the right to make a lifelong commitment to each other is pressing business.

Blue NC'ers will be interested in a new NC Policy Watch Investigates series by reporter Sarah Ovaska. It's called “Public money, personal gains,” and details some of the questionable business practices of a powerful member of the North Carolina House Republican leadership team, Rules Committee co-chair, Rep. Stephen LaRoque.

There is a clip of Senator Nesbitt at http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2011/03/22/nesbitt-gops-budget-ideas-eeri...

In it Nesbitt shows a new Locke publication which he has word will be the basis for the Republican proposal, which the Democrats have not seen. Locke proposal takes a hell of a lot out of education to arrive at $18.3 billion. See

http://www.johnlocke.org/research/show/spotlights/259

If you look at it, you will find it follows the rule for Taxpayer Bill of Rights: adjust budget only for population and inflation and that only. Only Coletti takes the mid 1990s as the starting point.

On the verge of being screwed again, the NC public is facing a new health insurance exchange law that, according to the News & Observer, is being "orchestrated by Blue Cross/Blue Shield." The new law requires that the health insurance exchange board be made up of a permanent seat for BC/BS and also two other insurance company representatives, someone from the business community, someone from the state medical society, and someone from the hospital association.

No consumer groups or advocates will be included.

The law is getting fast service in the legislature who are again, swapping campaign dollars for dead people.

Cross-posted from The Progressive Pulse:

Here is a video of House Majority Leader Paul Stam telling a school privatization crowd Thursday night about the morning’s health care vote and what he thinks of the Democrats who objected to the way it was steamrolled through the committee.

The video was taken by the folks in Lockeland. You can watch the whole thing on their site here if you want to listen to Stam talk about his views on school choice and hear from Dallas Woodhouse as a bonus.

The new state legislative Republican majority is already moving on its effort to undermine health care reform. HB 2, their first bagful of sand in the gears of health care, is laughingly mis-named the “Protect Health Care Freedom” bill.

Protect health care freedom? HB 2 would be more accurately known as the “Protect Freedom from Affordable Health Care” or perhaps “Protect Freedom to Suffer from Lack of Health Care” bill.

Please join me in telling your legislative representatives, and the media, that this is unacceptable—and why. I’ve copied my message to my own legislators below. Please write your own. We cannot stay silent.

NC Speaker-elect Thom Tillis has gotten a lot of media coverage lately talking about his plans to reduce abortion when he takes control of the NC House today.

Just to be clear, when he says, “reduce abortions”, he is not talking about reducing unintended pregnancies—the number one reason why women have abortions in the first place. He’s definitely not talking about greater access to birth control, comprehensive sex education or preventive healthcare in general—all proven ways of reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Instead, Speaker-elect Tillis says he’s going to reduce abortions through “informed consent,” which strikes me as odd.

Most health providers I know view “informed consent” as an ethical way of providing patients with unbiased, non-directive information so that the patient can make her own choice about a particular medical procedure.

If Speaker-elect Tillis and his new majority think they are going to reduce abortion through informed consent then perhaps they are talking about a different kind of “informed consent” than what most of us receive when we go to see our doctor.