Senate leader Marc Basnight is a fan of his counterpart in the House, Speaker Joe Hackney. But Basnight doesn't relish negotiating a $20 billion budget with him. Basnight, and, for that matter, Gov. Mike Easley, have ideas about how to get the budget impasse resolved. Hackney, in his first term as speaker, listens carefully. He's polite, plain-spoken and open to their ideas. But then he respectfully declines to cut a deal.

Easley calls Hackney the "Iceman."

"Because," he said, "you can't get him rattled and you can't get him hurried up."

Hackney, an Orange County Democrat, became speaker in January, succeeding Jim Black, who held the post for a record-tying eight years before being convicted earlier this year on a federal public corruption charge. Black is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

Hackney, 61, had the disadvantage of being labeled a "Chapel Hill liberal" in a legislature that typically steers more toward the middle of the road. But Hackney also is one of the chamber's longest-serving members, and he has a strong reputation for integrity, having co-authored a package of ethics, campaign finance and lobbying reforms in response to the scandal that swirled about Black.

So far, those strengths are paying off. Colleagues and political observers say Hackney has returned the House to the business of passing laws and crafting budgets, and away from the problems that dogged the legislature during the final years of Black's tenure.

"The fact that Hackney is known as Mr. Clean, and that ethics are important for him, that sets the tone for the House," said Ran Coble, executive director of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan group that examines state government's effectiveness. "And that has not been easy given all that's gone on in the session, much less before the session."

Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, protected special interests such as video poker operators and fellow optometrists who helped him raise money for political purposes during his four terms as speaker, and let lobbyists pick up the tab for his wining and dining at upscale restaurants.

Hackney showed he was serious about members' behavior when the State Board of Elections called for a criminal investigation of Rep. Thomas Wright, a Wilmington Democrat.

Board hearings in May found that Wright had failed to report roughly $220,000 in campaign contributions that went toward personal expenses and had used his position to get a state official to write a false letter to help close a real estate deal. Hackney stripped Wright of his committee chairmanships, stopped nearly all of his bills and called for him to resign.

"I've tried to set a tone where we go by the rules and try to run the House in a way that people could look to it with pride," Hackney said. "I think I've done that."

Hackney has also questioned the practices of the Legislative Black Caucus, which operates a foundation that has given college scholarship money to relatives of five of its members. He has not, so far, called for the caucus foundation to open its books to the public.

Hackney has pledged to not push his legislative agenda as speaker, and so far, colleagues and other observers say, the House remains pretty centrist politically. He put rivals in key leadership posts, in some cases to the disappointment of supporters who expected they would win those assignments. Rep. Jim Crawford, an Oxford Democrat with conservative credentials, nearly beat out Hackney for the speakership, but he held his position as a chief budget writer.

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