She's the Democratic nominee for governor this year.

"I loved being here in the Senate," she said.

If the November election works out the way she wants, Perdue will be back working with legislators, but in a different role.

"I told some of my friends in the Senate and the House I know how to spell veto," she joked.

McCrory pays a visit

Pat McCrory dropped in on the legislature Tuesday.

The Republican gubernatorial nominee made an appearance at a news conference with 30 Republican legislators.

Earlier in the morning, he was introduced to the Republican Senate caucus by state Sen. Fred Smith, a competitor in the GOP primary.

McCrory told reporters that the party is "a united front" on its goals of boosting the state's education system, creating jobs, lowering crime and reducing the size of government.

Standing behind McCrory was state Sen. Robert Pittenger, a Charlotte Republican who won the party's nomination for lieutenant governor, but McCrory failed to introduce him.

At the end of the news conference, Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger introduced Pittenger, and McCrory promptly apologized for forgetting him.

Budget gets hard early look

Lawmakers spent more than two hours going over details of Gov. Mike Easley's $21.5 billion budget proposal Tuesday afternoon.

They put Easley's senior budget adviser, Dan Gerlach, on the hot seat right from the start. Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat and chief budget writer, questioned devoting only $5 million to a low-income housing trust fund while spending $2.7 million to expand the N.C. Zoo's polar bear exhibit.

"So the other folks who can't come in on that trust fund, we're going to send them to live with the polar bears?" Michaux asked.

Gerlach noted that lawmakers approved $5 million for the housing fund in last year's budget.

Several lawmakers said they were unhappy with the additional compensation Easley proposed for most state employees -- a 1.5 percent raise, a $1,000 one-time bonus and an additional week off -- especially since he proposes raising teacher pay by an average of 7 percent.

Gerlach said it is critical to increase teacher pay to the national average to attract and keep teachers in a state that is adding thousands of new students each year. He said Easley would have liked to have done the same for all employees, but the money wasn't there.

"We just couldn't afford it, and we're just not going to play make believe," Gerlach said.

GOP: Don't raise 'sin taxes'

Republicans object to proposed increases in the so-called sin taxes.

At a news conference, Republican leaders of the state House and Senate said the state budget should not raise taxes on alcohol and cigarettes.

"In tough economic times, it is not the time to raise taxes, particularly the taxes that hit the poorest people," Berger said.

For their budget priorities, Berger and Paul Stam, the House minority leader, called for cutting spending, ending the annual transfer from the Highway Trust Fund, putting a road bond before voters in November and not raising any state taxes.

On nonbudget items, they called for lifting the cap on charter schools, putting constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and curtailing the use of eminent domain before voters, making the killing of an unborn child a crime and ending the de facto moratorium on the death penalty.

A tweak for records law

State Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, sought to fix the mess from a public records law he sponsored last year that became a hot issue in the Democratic primary for governor. The law was intended to make public all forms of compensation for public officials, but a last-minute amendment in the Senate also caused state Treasurer Richard Moore to determine that the names and addresses of retirees were no longer public.

It became a campaign issue after The News & Observer reported that Moore was still providing that information to an insurance broker that was marketing vision, dental and life policies to retirees. The broker, State Insurance Services of Raleigh, won the designation as the preferred provider from Moore's office. The company's principals have been fundraisers for Moore's campaigns.

Hoyle's fix would allow the Treasurer's Office to release the retirees' names and addresses to not-for-profit organizations representing "2,000 or more active or retired State government, local government, or public school employees."

It might not make everyone happy. Some of State Insurance Services' competitors would continue not to have access to the information; nor would the rest of the public.

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