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Doug Dickerson, AARP's state director, recently wrote a letter to the sponsors of Senate Bill 89 urging them to reconsider their stance.

"AARP is concerned about the effect that payday loans have on the lives of indigent senior citizens, struggling families and the cash-strapped unemployed and under-employed," Dickerson wrote. "This legislation would legalize high-interest payday loans that by design keep borrowers in debt."

Dickerson also argues that payday lending is counter-productive from a macroeconomic point of view.

An issue-advocacy poll from the AARP shows that more than half of North Carolina voters want the state to accept the new money from the federal government to cover an expansion of Medicaid to low-income residents.

AARP commissioned the survey for obvious reasons: it's one of the leading groups fighting a Senate bill that would prevent the state from expanding Medicaid coverage to as many as 648,000 residents and block the health insurance exchanges under the federal health care law.

But the poll -- conducted by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm -- is a signal as to how far the group is willing to push the issue and arms critics with message-tested lines.

In any issue advocacy poll it's important to look at the questions -- which can often be slanted toward one side or the other. The automated phone survey was conducted Feb. 1-3 and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

See the questions from the poll and the results below.

The Senate considers a bill to block the expansion of Medicaid to roughly 500,000 uninsured North Carolinians but AARP of North Carolina is focusing its attention on Gov. Pat McCrory.

The group ran full-page advertisements in the Raleigh, Charlotte and Winston-Salem newspapers Monday (see link below) to urge its members and supporters to call the Republican governor and tell him: "Don't turn your back on hard working North Carolinians. Support Medicaid expansion."

Mary Bethel, a lobbyist for the AARP, said called the bill in the Senate a freight train moving fast down the tracks. But she hopes the governor will feel pressured to influence the action in the N.C. House and possibly quash the bill. McCrory has yet to take a position on the bill but he recently said expansion is not a possibility until existing problems with the system are corrected.

Document(s):
AARP.pdf

UPDATED:A pair of advocacy groups that have long challenged power companies are urging Gov.-elect Pat McCrory to cede his constitutional powers to appoint regulators to the N.C. Utilities Commission.

N.C. WARN and the state branch of the AARP are concerned that McCrory, a former Duke Energy employee and ex-mayor of Charlotte, will stack the commission with utility-friendly appointees who will side with the Charlotte power company on rates and other key issues.

Their concern is that McCrory has vowed to name regulators who view their job as providing a customer service to the companies they regulate. That concern is exacerbated by the fact that the commission recently concluded a contentious 5-month investigation of Duke, which ended with a settlement that will restructure the company's executive ranks.

An elections forum focused on topics important to senior citizens will be held Monday evening in Raleigh.

Sam Donaldson of Retirement Living TV (and formerly of ABC News) will moderate the forum to be held at 7 p.m. at Peace College Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The forum will be in three segments: important issues, policies that matter, and the state of the races. Political consultants, policy analysts and journalists, including the N&O's Rob Christensen, will participate.

Social Security, Medicare benefits, retirement age, education, the environment, immigration and the national deficit will be addressed.

Retirement Living TV, Time Warner Cable, AARP N.C., and the N.C. Center for Voter Education are working to put on the event.

A recording of the forum, along with additional elections coverage, will be available on Time Warner Cable's Carolina On Demand Channel 1047.

Salaries, bonuses, personnel guidelines, ethics rules and other policies vary from one local Alcoholic Beverage Control board to the next, a further example of North Carolina's unique and oft-criticized patchwork system for liquor sales. State officials are taking their first look at what ABC stores pay managers. (N&O)

PAPAL MESSAGE: An e-mail message to a Wake County school board member suggests that Republican power broker Art Pope engineered Republican majorities on the Wake County school board and board of commissioners. Democrats also pushed an agenda in the elections. (N&O)

AARP LEADER: The chairwoman of the national board of AARP, an important voice in the health care debate, is a retired state employee from Raleigh who lives with many of the issues facing older Americans. (N&O)

A poll conducted last month by the Raleigh-based Civitas Institute found that about four of five respondents supported stricter licensing requirements for older drivers.

The question, included in a multi-topic survey by the conservative-leaning think tank on July 14-17, asked: "Would you support or oppose a law requiring drivers to renew their license every three years beginning at age 75, and be required to take a new driver's test beginning at 85?"

The question reflected the provisions of a bill sponsored last session by Rep. Ric Killian, a Charlotte Republican, Thomas Goldsmith reports. The bill fell by the wayside in committee hearings following strong opposition from AARP and others.

And older respondents were almost as likely to support the changes, according to the poll. Seventy-three percent supported stricter regulations, compared to 79 percent among all those who answered.

The debate over older drivers has resurfaced after an 83-year-old driver killed a six-year-old girl this week.

E-mail Lesson #27: If you are going to forward a YouTube video, watch it first.

An administrative aide to state Rep. Laura Wiley learned the hard way, after she sent out a video critical of President Barack Obama featuring pictures of German SS officers at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, Joe Neff reports.

The email, sent from a General Assembly e-mail account, eventually landed in the inbox of Adam Searing, the director of the Health Access Coalition at the N.C. Justice Policy Center.

Searing, an advocate for affordable and universal health care, said he was offended for professional and personal reasons.

"My great uncle on my mom's side — Everett Peterson — died on Omaha Beach on June 6th 1944 in Normandy fighting those guys in the photos," Searing said. "He didn't die so that 65 years later somebody could equate the evil he fought and defeated with a policy proposal to expand health coverage."

More after the jump.

A bill would set tougher standards for older drivers.

Rep. Ric Killian, a Charlotte Republican, filed a bill to require more frequent drivers license renewals for people 65 and older and mandate road tests for people older than 85.

He cited an academic study that shows the oldest drivers have more crashes per miles traveled than anyone except younger teen drivers.

The bill would require drivers older than 75 renew their licenses every three years instead of every five.

"There's clearly a connection between a person's age and their ability to operate a motor vehicle," he said.

The state office of AARP is ramping up opposition to the bill, asking its 66,000 active state members to call legislators about it. (N&O) 

A second poll shows support for mandated sick leave.

A survey for senior advocacy group AARP found that 79 percent of North Carolinians thought employers "should be required to provide a minimum number of paid sick days to full-time employees."

Eighteen percent said no and three percent said they didn't know.

The survey is being cited by a North Carolina coalition advocating for paid sick leave to rebut a recent poll by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that showed little support for mandated sick leave.

The difference in the two polls could be attributed to methodology and question wording. The PPP poll referred to mandates and added the alternative that it be left up to employers and employees "on an individual basis."

The AARP survey of 800 North Carolina households was conducted by Alan Newman Research from Oct. 19 through Nov. 4, 2007. Responses were weighted to reflect gender and employed people over the age of 30.

It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.