'DEADLINE' IS A STRONG TERM: The House and Senate missed their July 15 deadline to adopt a budget. So, proving that it's good to be the ones who make the laws, they gave themselves more time. Meanwhile, the state court system, unsure over whether it can make payroll next month, sure would like to see a budget.

BILLS, BILLS, BILLS: There's no budget yet, but that doesn't mean the House and Senate aren't working. Key votes came this week on bills to shore up the Beach Plan, to allow challenges of racism to death sentences and to stop requiring sexual assault victims to pay for rape kit exams.

SOFT ON CRIME?: Judges were in giving moods this week. First U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt released Sam Currin, a former judge, federal prosecutor and state Republican Party chairman, who had served a fraction of his sentence for money laundering and obstruction. Then Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens decided that former House Speaker Jim Black can serve his state time concurrently with his federal prison sentence.

IN OTHER NEWS: Attorney General Roy Cooper says he will work to get money that was diverted away from crime victims. Unemployment in North Carolina has hit African Americans especially hard. Attorney and Senate hopeful Kenneth Lewis has hired Joe Trippi, who ran John Edwards last presidential campaign to help with fundraising.

The House and Senate agreed Wednesday afternoon to extend the budget deadline to July 31.

The bill allows the state to keep operating while budget negotiators lock horns over a final spending plan. Democrats, who control both chambers, say they need to raise as much as $1 billion in new taxes to avoid painful cuts to education and social services.

Republicans say the budget can be cut further without serious damage to the lives of state residents. Rep. David Lewis, a Dunn Republican, noted that the temporary spending bill allows the state to operate at 84 percent of the last year's budget. 

"We do have the $17.6 billion that this authorizes us to spend," Lewis said. "Maybe the state government can join and share in some of the belt tightening that's going on in homes all over this state." 

The Senate wanted to extend the budget without a deadline. House Democrats, believing a deadline helps spur negotiators forward, insisted on one. Of course, the last temporary spending plan expired today and negotiators are still deadlocked. 

The House rejected the Senate version of a stop-gap spending plan because it doesn't contain a deadline.

Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat and chief budget writer in the House said he had a problem with the temporary spending bill-which allows state government to run while the legislature works to finish a budget — because it had no built-in deadline.

The current temporary spending plan expires Wednesday. It originally had no expiration date. Of course, the deadline didn't force negotiators to finish their work.

Senate leader Marc Basnight said he does not believe the legislature will hit the July 15 deadline to adopt a budget.

Basnight, speaking to reporters Tuesday, said the House and Senate are too far apart to finish the budget before the current continuing resolution expires.

Lawmakers would have to adopt another temporary spending plan.

Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat and senior budget writer in the House said it's "fairly likely" that lawmakers will miss the deadline and have to adopt a so-called "continuing resolution" which authorizes state government to continue to function in the absence of a budget.

"It looks like the Senate is flagging a lot of stuff that we've been doing," Michaux said, of the budget conference, the meetings in which House and Senate budget writers negotiate a compromise.

Michaux said the continuing resolution would likely authorize state spending at the level of the current year minus a certain percentage to accomodate the steep drop in revenue.

Continuing resolutions, which are technically bills and not resolutions, are nothing new, even in years when the state is enjoying surpluses, said Gerry Cohen, director of the Legislative Drafting Division.

The legislature missed the fiscal year deadline in seven of the last 10 budget cycles.

More after the jump.

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