PHOTOS BY TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver.com
Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue vetoes the GOP-written budget Sunday at the Capitol. She denounced cuts in education and other services.
RALEIGH -- Hard-fought and often emotional battles over issues such as abortion, the environment, medical malpractice, voting rights and guns have played out in hallways, committee rooms and both floors of the General Assembly all spring. Now the final battles are under way for the governor's ear.
Since the last batch of proposed legislation arrived in her office Monday, Gov. Bev Perdue has been wading through many more than 200 bills with one week left to sign, veto or let them become law without taking action. Advocacy groups and interested residents have ramped up their last pitches to sway her through tens of thousands of phone calls and email messages. Staffers are triaging as they tick through daily deadlines for each bill.
"Clearly, some rise to the top immediately that we know the governor feels strongly about," said Chrissy Pearson, Perdue's spokeswoman. "There's a huge pile the governor will be able to sign and send along. Then there are others that may require a little bit more digging that may not be the hot-button issues but could have some implications on one side or the other before she decides."
Of more than 1,000 phone calls about pending legislation that have come in between June 8 and Tuesday, according to data the Governor's Office provided Wednesday, more than a fourth were in opposition to SB709, a bill that is the intense focus of environmental organizations because it encourages offshore oil and gas exploration and inland shale gas exploration.
Of the more than 32,000 email messages about legislative issues, the most for any single bill were the more than 4,000 that addressed SB781, which cropped up late in the session and is also opposed by environmentalists. It would prevent the state from enacting stricter standards than federal regulations. Environmentalists have made a big push this week for a veto of those bills and of SB110, which would allow jetties to be built jutting off the coast to protect beachfront property. Opponents say jetties could accelerate erosion. Thirty-three environmental organizations signed a letter to Perdue on Sunday opposing those three bills. Twenty-nine business leaders signed a letter last week urging her to veto two of the bills.
Records provided by the governor's staff show other calls to the Governor's Office were about the 24-hour waiting period abortion bill (56 percent support it), requiring photo identification to vote (70 percent in support), and lifting the cap on charter schools (93 percent support it). The abortion bill drew about 3,500 email messages, with 89 percent of those opposed to it. Email messages have also been sent about loosening handgun laws and changes to medical malpractice lawsuits. On the voter ID bill, 78 percent wrote to oppose it.
Bill-signing ceremonies are good public relations, but vetoing a bill on principle, even though it is likely to be overridden by the Republican majority in the General Assembly, also scores political points. And the GOP hasn't mustered the votes to automatically override every veto that Perdue might make.
Perdue has not indicated how she'll swing on some of the hot-button bills, and so interest groups are not taking for granted what she might do. She has already vetoed seven bills this session.
Who's pushing
Groups representing doctors, hospitals, long-term care homes, nurses and others have rallied to persuade the governor to support SB33, the medical malpractice bill that would expand liability protections in hospitals and set a limit on non-economic damages in jury awards. A related bill, HB542, is also on her desk. She has to decide SB33 by Friday and HB542 by June 30.
Robert Seligson, CEO of the N.C. Medical Society, said Wednesday that the malpractice bill is widely important in the health care provider industry, so his organization has coordinated efforts to get the governor to sign it.
"It's probably one of the most important pieces of legislation to pass through the General Assembly," he said. "We're pushing as hard as we can. I know the Governor's Office is getting lots of calls and letters."
Working just as hard to defeat it is the N.C. Coalition for Patient Safety, a group started by plaintiffs' lawyers to put a public face on the victims of medical malpractice, like Laurie Sanders, whose son died during botched treatment in a hospital. Sanders said Wednesday she began focusing her efforts on the governor after it became clear that a more favorable version of the bill would be rewritten in the Republican-dominated conference committees that hashed out the final version.
N.C. Right to Life helped pass HB854, the Women's Right to Know Act. The group's website instructs people to call the Governor's Office and tell the staff that the voice mail box is full so they can leave a message with a person, even providing a script for what to say.
Her pro-gun stance
Grassroots North Carolina, the main pro-gun lobby in the state, is optimistic that Perdue will sign HB650, which expands the "castle doctrine" protection for shooting intruders, and allows concealed handguns in state parks and other places. When she was a state senator, Perdue earned a "three-star" rating from the gun group because she had an 89 percent pro-gun voting record, President Paul Valone said.
"We have high hopes of awarding her GRNC's highest four-star evaluation," Valone said.
In the last election, Valone said, the ratings went into 110,000 voter guides distributed at gun shows, gun shops, concealed carry classes, its own members and in a mailing to 75,000 gun-owning voters.
Considering that Perdue is also a member of the National Rifle Association, opponents have pretty much conceded this battle. Roxane Kolar of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence said the group decided to focus instead on other bills pending next year, such as the one that would allow concealed permit holders to take guns into places that serve alcohol and food.
