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Past deadline but not dead
Crossover’ cutoff not last hope for some bills

Bills that raise revenues or substantially affect the state budget are exempt.

By Gary D. Robertson
Associated Press

RALEIGH - The General Assembly has completed its biennial winnowing of bills that didn’t have enough support – or friends in high places – to stay alive.

The "crossover" deadline that passed last week left behind bills on scores of topics that never got a committee hearing, from medical malpractice and state spending caps to immigration and school testing reforms.

None of those measures passed in one chamber, meaning they’ll have to wait until the next edition of the General Assembly convenes in 2007.

"I think any bill deserves a debate and a vote," said Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, a primary sponsor of a proposed constitutional referendum to ban gay marriage. More than half of House members are co-sponsors, but House Democrats refused to take it up. "A bill of that magnitude with that many sponsors needs to be heard."

The deadline, created in the early 1980s, is a convenient method for legislative leaders to dump controversial bills and narrow what can be considered during the remainder of the session.

House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, who first served in the legislature in 1981, said a line has to be drawn somewhere.

"Some people think that many of our rules are strange and wrong-sided," Mr. Black said. "Those who don’t get their way complain that they don’t get their bills heard. I’ve been on both sides of that."

But there are ways to get around the deadline.

Amending a bill to add a nominal fee or require the spending of state dollars will resurrect a measure. Bills that raise revenues or substantially affect the state budget are exempt from the crossover deadline.

For example, Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, refused to declare a bill that would eliminate a mercury-based preservative from certain childhood vaccines as finished. It may cost the state additional money to pay for inoculations without the ingredient, he said.

"We are looking at options on some of the issues," Mr. Dollar said after a sparsely attended news conference aimed at drumming up support. "The bill is still very much alive for the session."

Proponents of medical malpractice reform also tried to put the best spin on the fact that their favored legislation, backed by members of both parties, has gone nowhere.

Carter Wrenn with the group ProCare blamed the delays in part on politicians who don’t want to give up campaign donations from doctors and trial lawyers, who are actively lobbying on the issue.

"Is medical lawsuit reform dead?" Mr. Wrenn wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "No. There are still several ways legislators can pass it."

Proponents of suspending executions for two years while the state conducts a study of capital punishment said early last week they believe the measure was subject to the crossover deadline and had to pass by last Thursday.

But when they realized they didn’t have enough votes for passage, House Democratic leaders announced it wasn’t subject to crossover after all because the study required by the bill would spend state funds.

House Majority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange, the bill’s primary sponsor, said it just didn’t occur to him that the measure could be held longer until the House clerk’s office mentioned it. But it sure helps that Mr. Hackney is a top lieutenant of Mr. Black, who supports the moratorium idea and wouldn’t challenge a deadline exception.

There are other strategies legislators use to bypass the deadline.

They can amend or gut a bill that passed in one chamber to add their provision. Appropriations Committee leaders also can hide initiatives that were defeated or had a hard time passing separately by inserting a slightly different version in the budget.

"Those kind of practices have been the same regardless of who had the majority," said Ran Coble with the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan think tank in Raleigh.

Perhaps that’s why Rep. Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, wasn’t totally dejected about seeing his bill, which would restrict smoking in restaurants statewide, fail. After all, Mr. Black is a supporter.

"There are still some ways one could still surface this session," Mr. Holliman said.

Mr. Coble said even though lawmakers passed at least 140 bills over the three days heading up to the crossover deadline – some called it the most orderly crossover week ever – the House and Senate have little to show for the first four months of the session.

Mr. Coble said the legislature has handled only four significant items: a hurricane aid package for western North Carolina, election law revisions aimed at settling the school superintendent’s race, the House approving a lottery and the Senate approving a budget.

"Just looking at what they have passed this year, there’s not much there," he said.

Setting aside the lottery and budget, there are plenty of other issues that could keep the General Assembly in session through the summer, including lobbying reform and education issues.