A rival uplifted or tamed

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New majority leader doesn't want repeat

Sen. Martin Nesbitt, the Asheville lawmaker who was elected as the Senate majority leader Tuesday, will help lead Senate Democrats into an election next year that looks painfully familiar.

Nesbitt, 63, has spent nearly half his life as a legislator, starting in 1979 and interrupted only once - when he was bounced from his then-House seat by the Republican sweep of 1994.

He lost to an opponent who spent $50 in a three-member district where all Nesbitt needed to do was come in third to win.

Senate losing business advocates

Business leaders knew where to go in the North Carolina Senate to push legislation through or squelch a regulation they didn't like: Democratic Senators David Hoyle and Tony Rand.

Within the past few weeks, Rand, who was Senate majority leader, resigned effective at the end of the year, and Hoyle, finance committee chairman, announced he won't run again.

"The whole dynamic within the Senate structure for the business community is going to have to change strategy," said Gregg Thompson, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, "and look to other members to carry the ball. ... We're losing our best advocates."

New leader

Martin Nesbitt actually couldn't be called "new blood" in his just-elected role as majority leader in the North Carolina Senate. He's been in the General Assembly, House or Senate, since 1979, though he did lose his House seat out of Asheville in the Republican year of 1994. Now, in taking over for Sen. Tony Rand, the retiring leader from Fayetteville, one of Nesbitt's main chores will be to keep the trains running on Jones Street. This is a partisan post, to be sure, but Nesbitt would be wise to seek more input from Republicans.

A big bear of a fellow, Nesbitt is a lawyer by trade and popular with his colleagues. He may have less of an "enforcer" image than that of Rand, who ran the show in the upper chamber on Jones Street with direction from powerful Senate president pro tem Marc Basnight of Manteo. Basnight gave his support to Nesbitt for Rand's old post, though he did not appoint him chairman of the Rules Committee, a position Rand also had.

Nesbitt has a reputation as something of a populist, whereas

Liberals may gain in Rand's departure

State Sen. Tony Rand had several important roles at the legislature - majority leader, chairman of the rules committee that determines when and how legislation will be considered, member of the committee that writes the state budget.

Many senators, even Rand's fellow Democrats, say all those roles put too much power in the hands of one legislator.

And with Rand announcing this week that he is resigning after more than two decades in the Senate, lawmakers say it's time to spread power around the chamber.

The Senate won't be the same

In an institution that once was peopled by colorful characters with engaging nicknames and soaring oratorical powers, longtime state Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand's surprise decision to leave the Senate before the end of the year does several things all at once:

It makes the Senate a paler, less lively place that will go without Rand's pointed wit, flamboyant hand gestures, fierce advocacy on behalf of his alma mater and firm grasp on the rhythm and heartbeat of legislative work. As my colleague Lynn Bonner of the News & Observer once wrote of Rand, "The Senate belongs to the people of North Carolina, but the power to set its pace belongs to Sen. Tony Rand."

It opens up the possibility of considerably more power-sharing in a chamber where President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, and Rand, D-Cumberland, have run the place so long that most legislators cannot remember when things were different. Basnight is now in his 18th year as the chief lawmaker of the chamber, and Rand, who served as majority leader