State Treasurer Janet Cowell is not yet signing off on a complicated funding mechanism for finishing the I-485 loop around Charlotte, a step that Gov. Bev Perdue announced with considerable trumpeting earlier this month.

Cowell's spokeswoman, Melissa Waller issued a statement this afternoon saying:

In the absence of contracts specifying terms and conditions of the 485 project, we are unable to determine if there are issues or concerns. We continue to advise the Governor’s office and the Department of Transportation on the various options available for this important project.

Gov. Bev Perdue responded in a prepared statement Tuesday evening that the funding had been vetted and indicated that the project was still moving forward:

Prior to announcing the plan, we worked with the AG’s office as we developed the design-build-finance program for completing I-485. During this process, the Attorney General’s office indicated that our plan was legal. We are excited to see contractors express interest for this project that will save taxpayer dollars and complete the loop as quickly as possible.

Cowell's approval is important because her office watches over the state's debt load, and the funding for the highway includes the state guaranteeing debt incurred by private contractors.

Perdue's plan for finishing the last five miles of the loop call for the private contractors to finance $50 million of the construction on their own but with the state backing the debt.

UPDATE: Perdue's response included.

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Twenty state lawmakers have signed a letter calling for an investigation into a campaign by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of N.C. that was meant to thwart Democratic proposals for health care legislation.

The letter complains of robocalls made by the insurer as well as the fact that the organization used insurance premiums to pay for a political campaign.

"BlueCross BlueShield appears to be engaging in a blatant political campaign utilizing the premiums paid by their customers. Even if there is no apparent violation of existing statutes, we think this is bad public policy that deserves further scrutiny," the lawmakers wrote.

Others have raised objections and the company maintains its efforts were mean to try to protect customers from higher costs it believes the health care proposals would create.

The letter was signed by 19 Democrats and one Republican, Sen. Stan Bingham of Denton.

Gov. Bev Perdue says her staff is exploring a policy that would give the boot to appointees under indictment.

Perdue, a Democrat, was responding to a letter sent by Democratic consultant and watchdog Joe Sinsheimer. The letter called on Perdue to unappoint Ruffin Poole from the Golden LEAF board because Poole refused to testify at a State Board of Elections hearing on former Gov. Mike Easley.

Perdue said her staff is looking into a policy that would remove a gubernatorial appointee who is under indictment or refuses to cooperate with an investigation.

"Like all of us who have the honor of serving in government, those who serve on state boards and committees must be held to high standards," Perdue wrote in her response to Sinsheimer.

Sinsheimer also called on Perdue to release all reports on missing gubernatorial travel records from 2005. Perdue has so far refused to release the records. She wrote that she has appointed a panel to look into the missing records and when the that investigation is complete she would release all records.

There are plenty of N.C. voters who think both Democrats and Republicans are corrupt.

A poll of 711 state voters by Public Policy Polling found that 45 percent believe that Democrats are corrupt while 27 percent think they are not. The poll also found that 37 percent of voters believe Republicans are corrupt while 28 percent do not.

The poll unsurprisingly found that 67 percent of Republicans believe Democrats are corrupt and 45 percent of Democrats believe Republicans are corrupt. But a quarter of voters in both parties believe members of their own party are corrupt.

"These numbers show a pretty serious lack of trust from North Carolina voters in their
politicians," said PPP President Dean Debnam. "Democratic scandals have received a lot more attention in recent years but voters don’t seem to have much faith in the Republicans either."

The poll, conducted from Nov. 9-11, has a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

U.S. Rep. Mel Watt has gotten a lot of attention — not all of it positive — for a measure that would have given the Federal Reserve a little independence.

Watt, a Charlotte Democrat, offered an amendment to a bill that would provide for auditing of the Fed, Mark Binker of the Greensboro News & Record reports.

Watt favored a version of the bill that would allow for audits of the Fed’s balance sheet and lending, but not of its policy-making decisions.

An amendment he offered to do just that was rejected by the committee, but not before commentators online took aim at Watt, accusing him of carrying the banking industry’s water in exchange for political donations.

Watt did not return a call Monday seeking comment.

But a Reuters report quoted Watt as saying that the legislation passed by the committee could hamstring the Fed.

"Everybody would like to beat up on the Fed and call them the bad guy," Reuters quoted Watt as saying. "(But) are we going to so substantially castrate the Fed so it cannot do what it was set up to do?"

Gov. Bev Perdue was in Winston-Salem Monday where she delivered the 4 millionth meal since the Meals on Wheels program began there in 1962.

Perdue, 62, joked that she may be getting food from Meals on Wheels by the time it hands out meal 5 million. She also talked about how the state's fiscal crisis had kept the state from doing as much as she had hoped to better senior citizens' lives.

At Hooper's house, family members all gathered around as the governor and television cameras descended.

Hooper told Perdue she was grateful for the meal, but declined her offer to take it to the table so she could start eating.

"I'm not going to eat it until all this is settled," Hooper said.

TANK INSURANCE: A new state report says it is time for businesses with underground gas or oil tanks to buy insurance to cover the costs of any cleanup needed because of leaks. The state has a backlog of more than 6,500 leaks that will take another 25 years to get to, according to a report from the program evaluation office at the state legislature. (N&O)

LIFERS FIRE BACK: Three inmates serving life sentences have filed papers to be released despite Gov. Bev Perdue's insistence that the inmates must stay behind bars. The inmates were sentenced when state law defined "life" as 80 years, and if good behavior credits are applied, their sentences would be complete. (N&O)

PALIN'S FANS: If President Barack Obama's fans love him because he is who they believe they can be, Sarah Palin's fans, like the 1,000-plus who went to a book signing at Ft. Bragg Monday, love her because she is who they are. (N&O)

N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Rick Elmore has announced he will run for re-election in 2010, reports Mandy Locke.

Elmore was initially elected to the court in 2002. Prior to that, he practiced law in Greenboro, specializing in criminal defense and real property law. He represented indigent clients in state and federal courts.

Elmore is being challenged by Leto Copeley, a lawyer in Chapel Hill who specializes in workers' compensation, personal injury and sexual harassment and abuse cases.

Copeley has 26 years experience as a lawyer and practices in both state and federal court in the areas of workers’ compensation, personal injury and sexual harassment/sex abuse.

Update: Post now includes information on Copeley.  

The folks at the Civitas Institute have declared a winner in their "bad bill of the year" contest.

Senate Bill 848, which would allow illegal immigrants to enroll in the state's community colleges, defeated House Bill 120, which would allow public financing of municipal campaigns, to win the crown as the worst bill of the year.

Neither bill passed, by the way.

The contest, modeled after the now famous college basketball brackets of "March Madness," was staged on Civitas' Web site. But it's got a long way to go to match the thousands upon thousands who fill out NCAA basketball brackets.

The final vote in the Civitas bracket was 63-37 - a total of 100 votes.

Update: Chris Hayes of Civitas informs us that the 63-37 mentioned in their release was not the number of votes, but the percentage of the outcome. He said there were about 400 votes in the final match-up, and more than 10,000 votes in the entire competition.

Former Republican state House member Louis Pate wants a rematch.

Pate, a former mayor of Mount Olive who served eight years in the House, has announced he is running for the Senate seat held by Democrat Don Davis, Lynn Bonner reports.

Davis beat Pate for the seat last year by 6 percentage points in the campaign to replace longtime office-holder John Kerr. The district that includes Pitt, Wayne and Greene counties.

Pate said the outcome could be different next year when Davis won't get a boost from President Barack Obama.

The N.C. Republican Party has rejected a proposal to ban unaffiliated voters from participating in its primaries.

Meeting over the weekend in Raleigh, the party's Executive Committee voted by a wide margin to reject a plan to bar independents.

Among those strongly opposing the effort were the leaders of the state Republican legislative caucus who noted that polling shows that most unaffiliated voters regard themselves as either conservative (38 percent) or moderate (37 percent), Rob Christensen reports.

"For a Republican candidate to win an election in North Carolina," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the committee, "the candidate must build a coalition with unaffiliated voters. Barring unaffiliated voters from participating in Republican primaries will make building that coalition more difficult."

House GOP leader Paul Stam of Apex estimated that the committee rejected the the measure by a 4-1 vote.

The proposal was intended to ensure candidates emerging from primaries are truly conservative since they would only have to appeal to those registered as Republicans.

On recent trip to the Middle East, U.S. Rep. David Price said he was impressed in Pakistan and Afghanistan with a certain segment of their parliaments: women.

"We paid special attention to women members of parliament — who are a pretty aggressive group," said Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat. "Women members are, I think, very much in the vanguard of developing the institutions."

The speaker of Pakistan’s parliament is a woman, Price said, and was interested that Congress' House speaker also is a woman, Nancy Pelosi of California, reports Barb Barrett.

The congressional delegation Price led was made of members of the House Democracy Partnership, formally known as the House Democracy Assistance Commission, which mentors new democracies around the world. Price said the group included two women, U.S. Reps. Lois Capps of California and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

The new state Senate majority leader is in a key position to advance ethics reforms this year.

State Sen. Martin Nesbitt, an Asheville Democrat, is not only the majority leader. He is chairman of a committee where three ethics bills are awaiting action, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

Advocates for the proposals hope he makes them more of a priority than they were this year, when the committee he chairs didn't vote on any of three ethics bills that landed there.

"Nobody's holding those bills," said Nesbitt, of Asheville, who said they would get hearings next year.

"We just ran out of time."

The bills cleared the house last year. They would require state employees to wait before becoming lobbyists, ban office holders from awarding contracts to big campaign contributors and require political appointees to disclose fundraising activity.

Members of the N.C. Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism said they are "saddened" by Sen. Kay Hagan's decision to withdraw her support from a judicial nominee.

Hagan asked the White House earlier this month to withdraw Superior Court Judge Calvin Murphy's name from consideration for a federal district court judgeship because he ruled in favor of a company in which Hagan's husband holds an interest. Hagan said Murphy did nothing wrong but she wanted to avoid the appearance of favoritism.

The Judicial Response Committee of the professionalism commission issued a statement last week praising both Hagan and Murphy and defending Murphy's record and actions in the case.

"I am disheartened when conflicts arise by coincidence, which were unknown and unavoidable, which then result in claims that imply some wrong doing occurred," wrote commission member E. Fitzgerald Parnell III.