RALEIGH (AP) — The General Assembly returned to work Wednesday for the first time since a seismic shift in North Carolina politics brought Republicans to power in both chambers.
The gavels fell in the House and Senate at noon for the new two-year session. GOP lawmakers, who will be in charge of both chambers for the first time since 1870, were expected to vote as a bloc later in the day to elect Rep. Thom Tillis as House speaker and Sen. Phil Berger as Senate leader.
Republicans held an 11-seat advantage in the Senate and 16 in the House, ending Democratic control of one or both chambers continuously since 1898. The new legislators arrived with high expectations, but they face painful budget choices and a difficult job redrawing district boundaries that could aid Republicans as they try to retain their new advantage for another decade.
Berger’s likely ascendancy to Senate president pro tempore ended a record 18 years of power for Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who resigned Tuesday from the Senate. Rep. Joe Hackney’s successor as House speaker was expected to be Tillis, who in only his third House term climbed the ladder quickly as minority whip and helped knock more than a dozen Democrats out of office on Election Day 2010.
The new leaders can expect a difficult job closing a budget gap for the third straight year, the result of tax collections slow to rebound as the state recovers from a recession that has kept the unemployment rate close to 10 percent.
The projected shortfall for the year starting July 1 is $3.7 billion — nearly 20 percent of the current year’s budget. Members of both parties and Gov. Beverly Perdue have said trying to close it will probably lead to state employee or teacher job layoffs and cuts to services. Federal stimulus money has dried up and Republican lawmakers pledged in the fall campaign not to extend a pair of temporary tax increases approved by the Democratic-led Legislature and Perdue in 2009.
“We intend to keep the promise that the Democrats made two years ago when they said that they were temporary taxes,” Berger said earlier this week.Perdue said Tuesday she’s unsure if her budget proposal to the Legislature will extend or end the taxes. But in the new reality at the Legislative Building, the views of a Democratic governor matter less. Republicans are within four votes of having the luxury to send veto-proof legislation to Perdue’s desk.
Still, Perdue and Republicans leaders are cautiously optimistic about working on some issues.
“It would be very disingenuous of any of us before the new session even starts to say there are these things that I’m absolutely going to veto,” Perdue told reporters Tuesday.One thing she can’t veto are bills that change the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts. GOP leaders in charge of the maps say they’ll draw fair districts, but Democrats aren’t so sure.
Wednesday, however, was about ceremony and celebration for the Republicans. Family members of newly elected lawmakers and GOP party activists filled the hallways of the Legislative Building to take in a day of history. Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, who is mulling a second bid against Perdue after losing to her in 2008, was a last-minute replacement to lead the pledge of allegiance in the House.
Other GOP activists attended small receptions or watched the proceedings from the galleries or overflow seating. About a dozen members of the Carteret County Republican Women were in the front row of the Legislative Building auditorium an hour before noon to watch the Senate proceeding by closed-circuit TV.
“It’s a big occasion,” said Ellen-Brent Boone, 76, of Morehead City. “It’s the first time in over 100 years. We worked hard.”
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
(Updated 12:53 pm)
By Gary D. Robertson
Associated Press
