And the beat goes on in NC..

[G_j]

http://www.wral.com/bill-filed-to-allow-lobbyists-gifts-again/12323945/

Bill filed to allow lobbyists' gifts again
By Laura Leslie

A veteran Republican state House lawmaker has filed a proposal to allow lobbyists to once again give unreported gifts to state lawmakers in North Carolina.

House Bill 640, filed by Iredell Republican Robert Brawley, would roll back many of the ethics reforms passed by state lawmakers in the wake of the Speaker Jim Black scandal of 2006.

The measure would repeal bans on gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, and relax requirements that lobbyists disclose such gifts.

Brawley returned to the state legislature in 2013 after having served from 1981 till his retirement in 1998 — well before the current gift bans were enacted. He's currently a member of House leadership, serving as chairman of the Finance committee, an influential post that would almost certainly attract lobbyists' interest.

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http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2013/04/02/the-wrecking-ball-keeps-pounding/


Here’s a challenge for you. Try to explain what is happening in North Carolina these days to someone who doesn’t follow politics or government and limit yourself to a minute or even two.

You can’t do it. The damage being inflicted on the state by this radical and reactionary General Assembly is too vast and is happening too quickly to even catalogue, much less explain.

Lawmakers, who have only been in session a little over two months, have already refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, denying health care to 500,000 low-income adults even though the federal government would pick up the full cost of the expansion for three years and 90 percent of the cost after that.

<snip>.

All bets are off on public education too. There are bills to divert public school money to home schoolers and turn teachers into glorified temps in the classroom. Senate leaders are trying to remove what’s left of accountability for charter schools by setting up a parallel and likely unconstitutional governance system to oversee them. A sweeping voucher scheme is coming soon.

Exhausted yet? There’s more. Predatory payday lending has surfaced again backed by faux research by the think tanks on Right Wing Avenue. And the consumer finance industry is back pushing for more exorbitant interest rates to charge people when they most vulnerable.

The state’s urban areas are on the tea party target list too. Legislative leaders are changing local election systems, redrawing local school board districts, reneging on signed contracts, and taking over water supplies and airports from cities.

Virtually every day, there’s another bill in committee that shoves North Carolina backwards and replaces the outrage of the day before in the headlines, from forcing married couples to wait two years for a divorce to repealing the Racial Justice Act to allowing loaded handguns in bars and restaurants.

That’s nowhere near a complete list and doesn’t take into account the offensive choices being made by Governor McCrory, who House and Senate leaders continue to treat as their junior partner in their tea party crusade.

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