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"Attorney General Roy Cooper’s recent dog and pony show was an embarrassment to his office," writes GOP Sen. Thom Goolsby in his blog, Carolina Columns.

"Cooper had gotten wind that Senate budget writers were planning to transfer the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) from Cooper’s control to the Department of Public Safety (DPS). The long-serving Democrat Attorney General wants to keep the SBI. The best excuse he could make was that he needs the agents to fight public corruption.

"Can anyone remember any heavy lifting by Cooper during the investigation of former Governor Mike Easley? What about the investigations of Perdue’s henchmen who recently entered criminal pleas? Cooper, not known as a litigator, needs to come up with a better argument for his case."

NEARLY HALF VOTERS CONSIDER SAY #NCGA CAUSING NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT: One of the more intriguing poll numbers in the latest monthly Public Policy Polling survey due out later today: 45 percent. That's the portion of voters who believe the N.C. General Assembly is causing the state "national embarrassment." The poll question comes after a number of hot-button legislative issues received national attention -- and ridicule. Another 31 percent don't think the state legislature is a blemish and another 24 percent are undecided. (More from poll below.)

TODAY AT THE STATEHOUSE: No rest for the weary this week on Jones Street. The Senate appropriations committee meets at 8:30 to discuss its $20.6 billion state budget. Democrats will raise objections but no significant changes are expected. At the same time, the House Finance Committee will consider a major immigration bill that is drawing increasing fire from the ACLU and others concerned about Arizona-type provisions about stopping and detaining people who did not enter the country legally. At 11 a.m., the House Education Committee will get its first look at a new private school voucher bill. Senate and House floor calendars are light after crossover week's flurry, but the House will give final reading to a bill limiting tolling of existing highways.

Gov. Pat McCrory will meet with the Philippine ambassador at 8:45 a.m. in a private meeting and later attend a N.C. Department of Transportation luncheon. McCrory will speak to a group of under-45 CEOs as part of the southern chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization conference and travel to Charlotte this evening for a forum with the city's other current and former mayors.

***This is the Dome Morning Memo. Read more new exclusive PPP numbers below and get more insights into the state budget. ***

From AP: North Carolina's Democratic attorney general is opposing a state Senate budget provision that moves much of an investigative unit from his department to one headed by an appointee of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.

Roy Cooper spoke against the idea Monday, alongside police chiefs and prosecutors who also oppose moving the State Bureau of Investigation to the Department of Public Safety, which includes all other law enforcement agencies. Opponents argued the move will inhibits the agency's independence from the executive branch, but they stopped short of calling it politically motivated.

Housing the agency under a department controlled by the governor runs counter to the SBI's mission, he added. "Putting the SBI under any governor's administration increases the risk that corruption and cover-up occur with impunity," Cooper said.

But Republican senators argued the unit is better grouped with the rest of the state's law enforcement divisions to enhance coordination among the agencies. The Republican budget estimates $2 million in savings from the consolidation in its second year. "It simply does not make sense for the state's top attorney to supervise the SBI, just like it wouldn't make sense for your local district attorney to supervise your sheriffs or police," said House Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow and one of the chamber's chief budget-writers. More here.

SENATE BUDGET TIME: The state Senate released a $20.58 billion proposed budget late Sunday night that would eliminate class-size limits for the youngest public school students, move the State Bureau of Investigation to a department the governor’s appointee controls and puts various environmental programs under the control of a state agency. The proposal represents a 2.3 percent increase over the current budget and is about $17 million short of the budget Gov. Pat McCrory proposed in March.

Senate budget writers will hold a press conference at 10:30 a.m. to discuss it in more detail. Full Senate votes are expected later this week. More here.

NCGA PROTESTERS CHALLENGE CHARGES: As protesters gear up to assemble again Monday to highlight concerns about welfare cuts, health care funding, voting rights, racial justice, tax reform, environmental deregulation, workers rights and more, legal analysts are raising questions about whether the General Assembly police are within their power to arrest the nonviolent demonstrators. Irv Joyner, a law professor at N.C. Central University who has observed the demonstrations, said legal challenges of the arrests are being drafted. “We think we have clear-cut First Amendment issues,” Joyner said. Full story.

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UPDATED: WHAT THE BUDGET SAYS ABOUT McCRORY: Columnist Rob Christensen -- "It suggested that McCrory is a pragmatic, moderate conservative – not a tea party Republican. The budget colored him an incrementalist with a modest vision of what government can or should accomplish. A governor’s first budget is particularly important because the governor is at the height of his or her power to push an agenda through the legislature. McCrory will never has as much leverage as he has today. So what did he do with his leverage?

"McCrory’s budget offered no sweeping vision of what he wants his governorship to be about. ... This may be sound management, but it is not the stuff of which legacies are made."

REPUBLICANS STACK THE DECK: The UNC Board of Governors elections in the House on Wednesday opened a chasm between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP elected mostly its own kin to the board, sweeping out all incumbents. Democrats voiceferously objected. But House GOP leader Edgar Starnes' response crystalized the debate: "I would just remind you of one thing. The Republicans won the election. We are in control. We intend to elect Republicans and appoint Republicans and we make no apology for it."

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Attorney General Roy Cooper on Tuesday urged that county sheriffs continue to be part of the safeguard of mental health checks when people are applying for concealed weapon permits.

A bill filed in the House last week would take that responsibility away from them, and let the federal instant criminal background check system catch applicants whose mental health records might disqualify them. Proponents of HB 310 say the sheriffs are inconsistent and arbitrary in how they check those records, if they do at all.

But Cooper said they provide a needed check. Sheriffs can request medical records, character affidavits, photographs and other information.

“Sheriffs checking mental health information before issuing concealed weapon permits is a common-sense safety measure that should remain the law,” Cooper said in a statement his office released. “Sheriffs know their communities and they should be able to do background checks on people who want to carry concealed weapons.”

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper issued a statement Wednesday morning giving a push to a bill cracking down on methamphetamine production, which is on the House floor in the afternoon.

“Meth labs threaten our communities with crime, addiction, and even fires, explosions and toxic chemicals,” Cooper said in the statement. “We’re working hard to find and stop these dangerous drug labs, and stronger laws will help us.”

HB29 would make it a felony for someone who has been convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine to possess products containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient of the drug that is also found in cold medicines. It would also impose tougher penalties for making methamphetamine around children, the elderly or the disabled.

Cooper says there has been a recent surge in meth labs in North Carolina, reaching a new high last year in part because cookers discovered an easier method to make the drug in smaller batches. State Bureau of Investigation agents dealt with 460 meth labs in 2012 compared to 344 in 2011 and 235 in 2010, according to the attorney general’s office. So far this year, 70 labs have already been raided.

Update: The House overwhelmingly approved the bill.

The North Carolina Values Coalition has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the definition of marriage that voters solidified in the state constitution last year.

The amicus brief was filed as the Supreme Court takes up California’s marriage amendment and the federal Defense of Marriage Act later this year. The brief seeks to defend the state’s right to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.

“A state mandate to affirm same-sex marriage would have an explosive impact on religious persons who could easily treat all individuals with equal respect and dignity but cannot in good conscience endorse or facilitate same-sex marriage,” the brief says in part.

Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the coalition, said in a statement that her organization filed the brief defending North Carolina’s amendment because Attorney General Roy Cooper has not.

A Durham advocacy group has asked attorney general Roy Cooper to investigate whether Duke Energy and the N.C. Utilities Commission engaged in illegal “backroom deal-making” during talks to settle the Duke-Progress Energy merger probe.

Duke CEO Jim Rogers told the Observer this month that he negotiated the settlement terms, working with commission Chairman Edward Finley. The agreement, approved in December, ended an investigation into the firing of former Progress chief executive Bill Johnson to lead the combined companies.

N.C. WARN, a clean-energy group that has complained of unwarranted secrecy surrounding the merger, says the contact between Rogers and Finley apparently violated a state law against private communication between commissioners and the parties to a case.