Thom Tillis (Rep.) Elected N.C. House Speaker; Hackney Minority?

GOP Picks Political Newcomer Thom Tillis To Lead N.C. House

After just four years in the General Assembly, Mecklenburg County lawmaker Thom Tillis was chosen Saturday to lead the new Republican majority as speaker of the House.

Tillis beat out current minority leader Paul "Skip" Stam, an Apex attorney, in what Tillis called a close vote. Stam was picked as majority leader.

Tillis' victory over Stam means that not only will the leader's gavel pass from the Democrats to the Republicans but also that it will leave the Triangle: Joe Hackney, a Chapel Hill Democrat, had held the post since 2007.

Republicans won a majority in the House and in the Senate on Election Day, giving the GOP control of both chambers for the first time since 1898. With a 68-52 edge over the Democrats, it also assures them control of the speaker's position for the first time since 1998.

Tillis, 50, won in the second round of the Saturday's voting. Mecklenburg Republican Ric Killian and Mitch Gillespie of McDowell County were eliminated in a first round. Rep. Dale Folwell of Winston-Salem was chosen to become speaker pro tem and Rep. Marilyn Avila of Wake County was picked as chairwoman of the joint House-Senate Republican caucus. The party's choices will be approved by a vote by the full House when it convenes in January.

With four candidates, the fight for the top House job was in contrast to the smooth ascension this week of the new GOP Senate president pro tem, Sen. Phil Berger of Rockingham, who was unopposed. Still, there was no acrimony at any point, Tillis said, adding that he and Stam worked together on transition issues daily even as they campaigned.

Because the election went so smoothly, House Republicans will be productive quickly when they take over in January, Tillis said.

"We went [into the leadership election] unified, we came out unified and I have every reason to believe that's why we're going into the legislative session and make history," he said.

Dealing with the state's expected $3.5 billion budget shortfall has to top the House agenda, Tillis said, along with measures aimed at creating jobs and reducing taxes.

Despite the certain spending cuts, Tillis said he would work hard to keep them from harming teachers and classrooms. He plans on bringing education leaders to Raleigh next month to help identify areas to reduce spending.

"I actually am optimistic that we can find ways to reduce funding that may be in the education category that won't have devastating impact in the classroom," he said.

The Republicans also have a priority list of legislation that got nowhere under the Democrats, including a constitutional amendment to limit eminent domain and legislation to limit the effects of the federal health care overhaul on North Carolinians.

Tillis' selection as speaker may mean that some social issues won't have the same priority they might have under Stam who, for instance, is a dogged abortion opponent. Wake County government temporarily removed abortion coverage from its health plan earlier this year after he questioned it.

Tillis, a 50-year-old management consultant who has worked for Fortune 500 companies, is congenial and polished, and he has the reputation for focusing on the big priorities.

He quit his job as an IBM management consultant 19 months ago to concentrate on helping Republicans win the House. Tom Fetzer, the state GOP chairman, said Tillis will bring a private-sector eye to his new role.

"He spent his whole life in business," Fetzer said. "He's going to bring a businessman's focus, a businessman's perspective to the job of speaker. He's not a career politician; he's tough, he's innovative."

Tillis was first elected just four years ago but has moved quickly up the leadership ladder in his party. He is currently minority whip and generated good will among fellow GOP members during this year's campaigning by raising more than $350,000, most of which was given to help fellow Republicans. By comparison, Stam raised more than $240,000.

Fetzer said that Tillis had proven himself and that a House leader with a fresh perspective would be healthy.

"We need to disabuse ourselves of this notion that people have to be around there forever to effectively lead," Fetzer said.

Tillis said his relatively short stint in office wouldn't be a hindrance, in part because he would rely on other GOP members, such as Stam, who had served longer.

"I think that you have the kind of experience that you need to lead a caucus that has tremendous institutional knowledge," he said. "I think that the problem that we've had maybe with past speakers is that they thought they should be doing it all on their own, or that they had the Rosetta Stone, the answers to a lot of the questions. I don't. I think most of the answers to our questions lay in the hearts and minds of our caucus members, not the leader."

Every member of caucus, he said, would have a meaningful role, and the GOP majority also would reach across the aisle to involve Democrats.

Tillis' comments echo efforts by Rep. John Blust of Greensboro, who last week sent an e-mail to his colleagues asking them to consider rule changes that would limit some of the speaker's power and put more decisions into the hands of caucus members.

Currently, the speaker makes appointments to state panels, appoints committee chairmen and members, assigns offices to other members, hires staff and controls the flow of proposed legislation through committees.

Stam said Saturday that a GOP house committee would meet in December to propose rules that could water down the speaker's role, based in part on Blust's suggestions.

Stam didn't specify the changes that the committee would consider but said that all of them would actually be to the advantage of House Democrats, though the real winner would be democracy in general.

Stam also vowed that the Republicans would work with the other party.

"We're still going to cooperate with the Democrats whenever we can," he said. "In the past that was out of necessity, because it was the way to get our bills passed. But in the future we'll do it because it's good government. We don't have a monopoly on all the good ideas."

Political consultant John Davis said the two make a powerful political tag-team: Stam as the policy wonk and Tillis as the political war general. Stam is a team member who makes sure the party appeals to the base, and Tillis has appeal to independents, Davis said.

Republicans need both to be successful, Davis said.

It's important to keep the party committed to social issues, Davis said, but if Republicans are seen as too preoccupied with those issues, they lose the independent voters they need to win elections.

"Stam can't do it by himself, and Tillis can't do it by himself."




Joe Hackney To Run For N.C. House Minority Leader


Outgoing House Speaker Joe Hackney says he'll run for minority leader in the wake of legislative losses that will flip control to the Republicans.

A spokesman for Hackney said Friday that the Orange County Democrat had told other Democrats that he would seek the post within their caucus.

The job has entailed speaking up for the Democratic viewpoint during floor debate and raising money for legislative campaigns.

Hackney, 65, was elected speaker in 2007 and again in 2009. He has served in the legislature since 1981.

It wasn't immediately clear when the House Democrats would meet to elect their officers.

Republicans and a GOP-leaning independent will have at least 68 of the chamber's 120 seats come January. Democrats had 68 seats the past two years.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Youtube, Google Maps

N.C. GOP Slams Democrats Over Unfair DOT/ Roads Funding (Decision 2010)

N.C. GOP Campaigns On Roads Funding Issue


Traffic jams still cut as a campaign issue in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, even in an election year focused on jobs. And Republicans have noticed.

John Aneralla, a GOP N.C. state Senate candidate, plans to pound his Democratic opponent over the county's need for road money.

"As I sit in traffic on I-77 - knowing that's one of the roads that should have been widened years ago and I-485 should have been finished years ago - absolutely I'm going to use that issue," said Aneralla, the lone Republican candidate for the seat held by Sen. Malcolm Graham, a Charlotte Democrat.

GOP candidates already have political momentum behind them, given the anti-establishment tenor of many voters. Now Republican legislative candidates in Mecklenburg are starting to argue that incumbent Democrats who control the state legislature haven't gotten enough road money funneled to the city - a contention that resonates with voters weary of staring at four lanes of brake lights.

An Observer report last month revealed how Charlotte-Mecklenburg County ranked 89th out of 100 counties in per capita road spending by the state.

"It's definitely an issue Republicans can use," said Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm.

The difficulty for the GOP, Jensen said, is that Charlotte-Mecklenburg offers perhaps only one competitive district among the county's five Senate and 10 House seats, that of retiring Rep. Jim Gulley, a Republican. The rest are drawn to safely elect either a Democrat or Republican.

Democrats are playing defense, too.

Malcolm Graham organized a town hall-style meeting at Mallard Creek High School last week, less than a month before the primary, to talk with his constituents about the forthcoming completion of Interstate 485. State transportation officials are in the process of selecting a contractor.

Graham, whose district has a solid Democratic voting history, co-chairs a Budget committee on Transportation Funding and emphasized that he is pushing to change the not-so-aptly-named state equity formula for road funding.

Many Urban leaders criticize the formula as shortchanging the cities. Graham and urban legislators in both parties want the formula to include traffic congestion in determining where the money goes.

"I don't think people care about Democrats or Republicans with respect to transportation," Graham said. "They just want the roads built."

Rep. Thom Tillis, a Huntersville Republican, holds a relatively safe GOP seat, but he's helping other Republican House candidates in hopes of winning a majority.

If that happens, Tillis is widely expected to run for speaker. His advice: "Needle Democrats on the lack of road funding".

"It falls behind Jobs and the Tax issue (with voters)," Tillis said. "But it's right up there after that."

Urban and Rural Funding

Republican candidates are expected to accuse local Democrats of following legislative leaders from the eastern half of the state who treat Charlotte as an afterthought.

When Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, a Democrat from the Outer Banks, held a Charlotte fundraiser in January, former Sen. Robert Pittenger, a Charlotte Republican, dispatched a mailing to a dozen of the 44 invitees.

The packet included a copy of a letter Basnight sent to four Democratic senators on the coast last fall, talking about legislative battles in which he helped protect the interests of Eastern North Carolina communities.

"Our urban areas are congested, yes," Basnight wrote on transportation funding, for example, "but they also are home to major employers and economic sectors that benefit their local economies. Improving infrastructure in our rural areas will help businesses and economic growth to our communities, too."

Sen. Bob Rucho, a Charlotte Republican, is encouraging GOP candidates to deploy road funding as campaign ammunition.

He questioned why Charlotte donors would help Basnight maintain a Democratic majority in the Senate when Rucho says Basnight is pumping state money into rural areas devoid of road congestion.

"People in the Charlotte area and the business community need to know that Marc Basnight is not working for their best interests," Rucho said.

Basnight said he supports the current equity formula for road funding but that urban and rural communities alike need money. Roads are what draw businesses and jobs, he said, arguing that a change in the formula takes money away from low income communities in the mountains and in the east.

"Would it stop economic development in the east and west?" he said. "I don't believe the people of Charlotte want (that)."


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Sources: Interstate Guide.com, McClatchy Newspapers, MUMPO, N.C. General Assembly, Youtube, Google Maps

NC DOT Proceeds With I-485 Project Despite Lawyer's Warning...They Can't Borrow

NC DOT Proceeds Despite Charlotte Lawyer's Warning: DOT can't borrow to finish I-485


A Charlotte-based lawyer hired by State Treasurer Janet Cowell's office concluded that the state Department of Transportation doesn't have authority to go into debt on its plan to complete I-485 around Charlotte.

Transportation officials, however, are moving ahead with their new financing plan. They held an information session at UNC Charlotte on Thursday for contractors, engineers and lenders to outline the funding and construction plans to finish the loop.

Cowell's staff previously referred to the opinion by Steve Cordell, a lawyer in McGuire Woods' Charlotte office who specializes in public financing. Cowell's office released the full opinion Thursday as part of a public records request by The Charlotte Observer and The (Raleigh) News & Observer.

The opinion is part of a disagreement between Cowell's office, which authorizes the state's debt, and the Transportation Department under Gov. Bev Perdue, which is trying to build the final segment of the long-unfinished I-485.

Perdue, who pledged in February to start construction on the loop's final segment by year's end, announced plans last month to finish the road using a new financing mechanism. The plan includes a private contractor financing $50 million of the $340 million project and the state paying that back over 10 years. The state would guarantee the debt when the contractor initially borrows the $50 million somewhere else.

Cowell's office raised questions about the plan before Perdue's announcement and the state agencies have been talking back and forth since. Cowell is in charge of issuing the state's debt through bonds and oversees the debt load.

The I-485 plan could set the precedent of letting a single state agency add to the state's debt load without requiring the treasurer's authorization.

Rep. Nelson Cole, a Rockingham County Democrat, sponsored a 2008 bill that he said gives the Transportation Department the authority to form partnerships with private companies to finance and build projects.

"This (I-485) project is a superb example of the innovation I had hoped for in sponsoring this legislation," Cole wrote in a letter to the Observer.

Cordell, though, wrote that, while state law authorizes the Transportation Department to enter into partnerships with private companies, it does not grant the agency or the partnership an independent authority to borrow money.





Charlotte Lawyer's views on I-485 Loop Financing Plan


State Treasurer Janet Cowell's office relied in part on an opinion by Charlotte bond attorney Steve Cordell of the firm McGuire Woods that a statute allowing for design-build-finance projects such as Gov. Bev Perdue wants to use to complete the Outer Loop can't be done the way her administration plans. The state would have to contract for the program, which involves having contractors front $50 million of the $340 million cost of the project, though a public private partnership, Cordell said.

In a document released by the treasurer's office this afternoon, Cordell wrote Nov. 24 that:

"... we think that (39) authorizes the NC Department of Transportation (“DOT”) to enter into partnership agreements with the NC Turnpike Authority, private entities and authorized political subdivisions, pursuant to which the partners agree as to how they will collectively undertake to finance the various costs delineated in (39). The statutory language only expressly authorizes DOT to enter into and act through a partnership agreement with one or more of the referenced partners with regard to the financing of the referenced costs. We note that the statutory language of the related provision (12a) only expressly authorizes DOT’s Board to approve such partnership agreements. Accordingly, we do not think the statute authorizes DOT to unilaterally finance the referenced costs."

The Nov. 24 memo is dated weeks after Cordell briefed treasury department officials about problems he saw with the proposal, unveiled by Perdue in Charlotte on Nov. 9. The treasurer's office tried to reach DOT officials for about a week before her announcement, but did not e-mail DOT with its specific concerns, perhaps because the treasurer's office did not know until the morning of Nov. 9 that Perdue would announce her proposal that day.

Cordell also said in his memo that he did not believe the statute granted DOT the power to borrow money. DOT has said the program should not be interpreted as increasing the state's debt because there are no bonds involved and the arrangement does not pledge the state to repay the money. But the deal does contemplate that the state would repay the $50 million over 10 years.

Cordell wrote, "...if the repayment arrangement between DOT and a contractor entered into pursuant to DOT’s “Design/Build/Finance” program was ultimately determined to constitute a borrowing of money by DOT, we do not think that (39) can be relied on as the source of that borrowing authority. "

If the courts found an unauthorized exercise of borrowing power, he noted, they likely would find the arrangement void.

Perdue said earlier this week she wanted to move ahead on the design-build-finance plan and was confident that DOT has authority to proceed under the statutes. In proposing the financing plan, her administration told the treasurer's office it didn't have to have the treasurer's approval but would prefer to have it. But unless the governor and the treasurer and attorney general put their heads together to figure a way out of this disagreement, it appears the state would be proceeding without the support of an important constitutional officer.



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, News & Observer, Indy Week, Google Maps

Charlotte's I-485 Project Is Dead! Did Perdue Lie To Charlotte Voters??

Charlotte Lawyer: DOT can't borrow for I-485


A Charlotte-based lawyer hired by State Treasurer Janet Cowell's office concluded that the state Department of Transportation does not have authority to go into debt under its plan to complete I-485 around Charlotte.

Cowell's office released the opinion today as part of a public records request by the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. The opinion is part of a disagreement between Cowell's office, which authorizes the state's debt, and the transportation department under Gov. Bev Perdue, which is trying to build the final segment of the long-unfinished highway loop.

Perdue last month announced plans to finish the road using a new financing mechanism that included the agency guaranteeing $50 million in debt by a private contractor and paying it back over ten years.

Steve Cordell, a lawyer with McGuire Woods' Charlotte office who specializes in public financing, said state law authorizes the transportation department to enter into partnerships with private companies but doesn't grant the agency or the partnership an independent authority to borrow money.






Charlotte Lawyer's views on I-485 Loop Financing Plan


State Treasurer Janet Cowell's office relied in part on an opinion by Charlotte bond attorney Steve Cordell of the firm McGuire Woods that a statute allowing for design-build-finance projects such as Gov. Bev Perdue wants to use to complete the Outer Loop can't be done the way her administration plans. The state would have to contract for the program, which involves having contractors front $50 million of the $340 million cost of the project, though a public private partnership, Cordell said.

In a document released by the treasurer's office this afternoon, Cordell wrote Nov. 24 that:

"... we think that (39) authorizes the NC Department of Transportation (“DOT”) to enter into partnership agreements with the NC Turnpike Authority, private entities and authorized political subdivisions, pursuant to which the partners agree as to how they will collectively undertake to finance the various costs delineated in (39). The statutory language only expressly authorizes DOT to enter into and act through a partnership agreement with one or more of the referenced partners with regard to the financing of the referenced costs. We note that the statutory language of the related provision (12a) only expressly authorizes DOT’s Board to approve such partnership agreements. Accordingly, we do not think the statute authorizes DOT to unilaterally finance the referenced costs."

The Nov. 24 memo is dated weeks after Cordell briefed treasury department officials about problems he saw with the proposal, unveiled by Perdue in Charlotte on Nov. 9. The treasurer's office tried to reach DOT officials for about a week before her announcement, but did not e-mail DOT with its specific concerns, perhaps because the treasurer's office did not know until the morning of Nov. 9 that Perdue would announce her proposal that day.

Cordell also said in his memo that he did not believe the statute granted DOT the power to borrow money. DOT has said the program should not be interpreted as increasing the state's debt because there are no bonds involved and the arrangement does not pledge the state to repay the money. But the deal does contemplate that the state would repay the $50 million over 10 years.

Cordell wrote, "...if the repayment arrangement between DOT and a contractor entered into pursuant to DOT’s “Design/Build/Finance” program was ultimately determined to constitute a borrowing of money by DOT, we do not think that (39) can be relied on as the source of that borrowing authority. "

If the courts found an unauthorized exercise of borrowing power, he noted, they likely would find the arrangement void.

Perdue said earlier this week she wanted to move ahead on the design-build-finance plan and was confident that DOT has authority to proceed under the statutes. In proposing the financing plan, her administration told the treasurer's office it didn't have to have the treasurer's approval but would prefer to have it. But unless the governor and the treasurer and attorney general put their heads together to figure a way out of this disagreement, it appears the state would be proceeding without the support of an important constitutional officer.





Bev Perdue's stock picks


State Sen. Tony Rand was accused of sharing inside information about a company with other state politicians, an allegation he vehemently denies.

A review of ethics disclosure forms for a handful of notable political figures shows that former Gov. Mike Easley and current Gov. Bev Perdue have owned stock in the company, Law Enforcement Associates.

Easley is pretty hard to get on the phone these days, but Perdue's office wanted to end any speculation.

Perdue purchased a little more than $1,000 worth of LEA stock in 2002 when she was lieutenant governor, said her spokeswoman, Chrissy Pearson.

The stock was listed only on her 2006 ethics disclosure form because that year its value exceeded the $10,000 minimum threshold for reporting it. Perdue still owns every share of the stock she purchased in 2002, Pearson said.

"The governor absolutely never took part in any insider trading of this stock or any other, and any assertions that she did are not only untrue but insulting and outrageous," Pearson said.





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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Under The Dome, Indy Week, Google Maps