In his 29 years as a state lawmaker, Rep. Mickey Michaux has unabashedly earned a reputation as a maverick and firebrand. He rarely backs down from a fight, is quick to call out a colleague's wheeling and dealing, and makes no bones about his own machinations for the causes he believes in.

Not exactly the guy you would think of for one of the most powerful but diplomatic posts in the legislature -- the House's chief budget writer. But as lawmakers try to hammer out a $21 billion state budget, it's Michaux representing the House's position on money for schools, public safety and pay raises for public employees.

House Speaker Joe Hackney named Michaux, a Durham Democrat, to the job last year after defeating him in a wide-open speaker's race. Hackney has sparred with Michaux over the years -- particularly when Michaux sought to take research dollars away from UNC-Chapel Hill to spend on the state's historically black public universities, including Michaux's alma mater, N.C. Central University in Durham.

But Hackney says Michaux has grown as a lawmaker to the point that he can serve as the lead negotiator on the budget, typically the single most important piece of legislation lawmakers take up each year. The negotiations will pick up again Sunday morning after a two-day break.

"It requires a certain maturity of judgment and a certain calm to sit in that room day after day after day and sort of guide the process," said Hackney, an Orange County Democrat. "I think Mickey has arrived at that point."

Michaux, 77, a nattily attired lawyer with a sandpaper voice, doesn't think he's changed a bit over the years. He says it's the people around him who have changed, now that he's achieved one of the most powerful positions in the House.

"A lot of them like to get in your good graces," he said. " 'Here's the man with the plan,' and all that.

'Like being speaker'

"It's like being speaker or something."

Michaux talks about it in a matter-of-fact way. But it is an interesting turn of events for someone who grew up under segregation and had to fight his way into a white-dominated world. Michaux was one of the first African-American law school graduates admitted to the N.C. Bar Association and the South's first black U.S. attorney. He might have been North Carolina's first elected black congressman in the 20th century if today's rules for runoffs were in play.

Michaux captured more than 40 percent of the vote in a three-way primary contest in 1982, but then a candidate needed more than 50 percent to win. Michaux lost the runoff against the second-place finisher, Tim Valentine, who went on to win the seat.

Michaux returned to the state legislature in 1985 and sought to end runoffs, which he considers a "Jim Crow" law. Eventually, legislation passed that awarded the primary to the candidate who finished first and collected more than 40 percent of the vote.

The son of a successful businessman and a public school teacher, Michaux received a prep school education and started out in pre-med before going to law school.

"I've been sort of lucky in that I've just been able to have a good upbringing and been able to take some responsibility for a lot of things," Michaux said this week during a break in the budget talks. "That's what my parents instilled in me. You have to figure out a way to give something back, just for the life that you live."

That has often meant helping programs and institutions that aid minorities, particularly NCCU. Michaux has continued to help those causes as chief budget writer -- this year, for example, he has inserted $24.5 million in the House budget proposal to build a new nursing college at NCCU -- but he said he has gained a broader view of the state's needs.

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