May 27, 2007
'Crossover' week shows improvements in NC House operations
Gary Robertson - Associated Press

Even though the numerical gulf between the Democrats and Republicans in the state House is the widest in a dozen years, the hostility between the opposing parties has dropped a notch or two this session.  
 
With several bipartisan-sponsored bills passing by wide margins, less cantankerous debate and the absence of Jim Black and Richard Morgan from the chamber, the House reached the biennial "crossover" deadline last Thursday pleased with itself. 
 
"It's been a very good working relationship," said Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, chairman of the House Rules Committee, after a week in which the chamber debated an eminent domain constitutional amendment that Republicans sought vigorously. 
Democratic leaders, Owens added, have "tried to work with everybody and treat everybody the way we would like to be treated." 
 
Even Republicans, who trail Democrats 68-52 in the chamber and complain many of their bills still aren't heard or voted upon, acknowledge that first-term Speaker Joe Hackney largely has been fair to them. 
 
"They've been following the rules of the House to a much greater degree," House Minority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake. "There's a big change from the Jim Black era." 
 
The 2003-04 co-speakership between Democrat Black and Republican Morgan did little to extinguish partisan enmity that had been simmering since Republicans took over the House in 1995 for the first time in nearly a century. 
 
With a 60-60 split in the chamber, animosity grew because the partnership left out about half the Republicans, most of whom felt Morgan betrayed the GOP by entering the deal in the first place. 
GOP members on the outs with the co-speakers complained Black and Morgan singled them out because they criticized their leadership and violated the chamber's procedural rules for debate to push through legislation. 
 
"They went out of their way to try to get back at us," said Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, one of the Republican critics. 
 
Morgan is gone, defeated in a primary election last year. Black is awaiting sentencing after he pleaded guilty or accepted punishment earlier this year for accepting cash from chiropractors and bribing a colleague. 
 
Hackney, who succeeded Black as sole speaker, has been widely praised for improving partisan relations. 
 
"The House is more open," said Chris Fitzsimon with NC Policy Watch, a liberal political watchdog group in Raleigh. "It is certainly more ... democratic and that is a tribute to Speaker Hackney." 
 
Hackney, D-Orange, endorsed new chamber rules that attempted to limit some of the power critics say Black abused. He's also put fewer contentious bills in the Rules Committee, a place where bills often died without debate in years past. 
 
The most significant bipartisan effort this year came last week when Stam joined with Rep. Dan Blue, D-Wake, to push through a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar governments from condemning land for private economic development. 
 
Black refused to allow debate on the bill last year despite more than 80 co-sponsors. This year, nearly 100 legislators co-sponsored the bill. Hackney, who said earlier this year he saw no need for an eminent domain amendment, relented after Stam pestered him and Majority Leader Hugh Holliman. 
 
Blue, a former speaker in the early 1990s who returned to the House this year, said colleagues are looking for good ideas, no matter which party originated them. 
 
"They got tired of constantly being at each other's throats and not being allowed to explore ideas, doing things jointly," he said. 
 
On the floor, Hackney has presided over debate diligently in keeping with the new rules, seeking approval from the entire body before deviating from the sequence of bills on the daily House floor calendar. 
 
During marathon floor sessions last week designed to beat the crossover deadline - in which non-tax or spending bills not passed were likely dead until 2009, Hackney first tried gently to move along late-night debate on contentious bills before allowing motions to force a vote. 
 
Even Blust received extra help from the Democrats late last week when rules were suspended so he could insert an amendment into a bill regulating legal expense funds of elected officials. 
 
"I don't think there's anybody on a list of people to be blackballed," Blust said. 
 
Hackney is still taking some criticism from inside and outside his caucus. Some Democratic budget committee members complained aloud about the closed-door process and that budget leaders forced certain items in the spending plan. 
 
And Republicans are unhappy that Hackney sent a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage - with more than 60 sponsors - to another committee to kill it. The issue wasn't part of the Democrats' agenda, according to Hackney. 
 
Stam said Hackney is still thwarting the will of the majority of House members by avoiding votes on issues they support. But a standing ovation for Hackney at the close of crossover week shows that colleagues are largely pleased with his efforts. 
 
"This was an encouraging week for the legislative process," Fitzsimon said. "It was not perfect but certainly improved."