State Auditor Les Merritt wants North Carolina’s professional licensing boards to give greater flexibility to National Guard members and Reservists who are deployed.

Merritt has submitted a resolution on the matter to the Council of  State, which meets Tuesday.

Deployments can make it impractical or impossible for Reservists and National Guard members to keep up with professional license requirements, Merritt said.

“North Carolina’s men and women who are already sacrificing a great deal in service to our State and our Country should not be put at a professional disadvantage when they return home,” Merritt said in a news release today.

The labor commissioner race had the lowest turnout on May 6.

Among the nine statewide races in the Democratic primary, the race between John C. Brooks and Mary Fant Donnan drew the lowest number of voters.

At 1.2 million votes, it was about 76 percent of the turnout of the presidential race. 

In order of turnout, the presidential race was followed by governor, U.S. senator, lieutenant governor, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, auditor, insurance commissioner and labor commissioner.

Attorney General Roy Cooper, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Agriculture Commissioner candidate Ronnie Ansley did not have primary opposition. 

Mary Fant Donnan says she will now focus on getting out the vote.

The Democratic candidate for state labor commissioner said that with a recount off the table, she is going to spend her time trying to raise awareness of the upcoming primary runoff.

"The number one issue will be getting out the vote," she told Dome. "For me, the challenge remains getting people to know my name and my message and getting them to to come to vote in the summertime."

She also responded to her opponent, former labor commissioner John C. Brooks, who noted that he has 16 years of experience in the job.

"I have the recent, relevant experience that qualifies me for this job, and I bring a lot of fresh ideas and approaches," she said. "The Council of State work I admire, but it is a very small portion of the overall work of running the Department of Labor."

She said she will take a new look at the "core functions" of the department and "take them forward in ways that are relevant to the 21st century." 

John C. Brooks will run on his experience.

The former labor commissioner said today that he will focus on his 16 years in office in a primary runoff against Mary Fant Donnan to regain his old job.

Brooks, who served from 1977 to 1993, noted that the rest of the Democratic slate for Council of State positions will have only 32 collective years of statewide experience, counting Attorney General Roy Cooper's and Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue's eight years, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall's 12 years and Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson's four years. 

(That's actually a little generous, since Atkinson didn't take office until August of 2005.)

Brooks said he would add more experience to the Democratic ticket.

"Their cumulative experience on the Council of State is the lowest it's been in the last 75 years," he said. (Partly because of the loss of more than two decades from Insurance Commissioner Jim Long, Dome would like to note.) "If I'm added to the slate, I'll add 50 percent more experience." 

Needless to say, Donnan has never held statewide elected office.

The Council of State won't budge on its approval of the state's revised execution protocol.

Attorneys for the council responded Monday to a group of five condemned inmates who appealed the council's approval of the protocol. Attorneys with the N.C. Department of Justice filed the response in Wake Superior Court, Titan Barksdale reports.

The inmates have said the council's approval in February 2007 was improper because it didn't hear from their attorneys first.

The council contends that the inmates don't have the right to challenge the protocol in court because the state Department of Correction offers inmates a way to challenge it. The council, a group of the state's top elected officials, added that the prisoners have failed to show they are harmed by the execution protocol.

"Injury only occurs if the execution protocol is improperly implemented," the council's response said.

More after the jump.

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Republicans don't have as many Council of State primaries as Democrats, but they also remain undecided on who to vote for as Election Day approaches.

The latest survey from Public Policy Polling found that 69 percent of those surveyed don't know who they will vote for in the Republican primary for state superintendent of public instruction, and 59 percent don't know who they will vote for in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor.

Eddie Davis can't get anyone on the Council of State to pay attention to him.

Davis, president of the N.C. Association of Educators, is seeking a seat on the Council of State as a candidate for superintendent of public instruction. He is running in the Democratic primary against incumbent June Atkinson.

But his problem has come since he began trying to get the Council of State to pass a resolution marking the 50th anniversary of the integration of public schools in North Carolina.

Davis said in a letter released today that no one on the Council of State is responding to his call.

"To say the least, I am highly disappointed, particularly because I have worked with most of you on a multitude of issues over a wide span of years," Davis wrote to Gov. Mike Easley, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, state Treasurer Richard Moore and other members of the Council of State.

Davis said in his letter that he wondered if they were not responding because he is a candidate for public office and that his actions are considered "overly political."

"If that is the rationale," he wrote, "then to totally ignore a constructive concept that comes from a political candidate, thus, creates a political statement in and of itself."

Eddie Davis is trying to bring more attention to the 50th anniversary of the integration of public schools in North Carolina.

Davis, a Democratic candidate for superintendent of public instruction, sent a letter today to Gov. Mike Easley and other members of the Council of State asking them to use their meeting next month to pass a resolution honoring the "students who taught us the lessons of inclusion a half century ago."

Davis also asked that the Council of State work with the legislature and the State Board of Education to invite Dorothy Counts, Josephine Boyd Bradley, Gwendolyn Bailey Coleman and "other living integration pioneers" to Raleigh in June to honor their actions.

Jim Long's hand is going to get hot soon.

First, the longtime insurance commissioner passed the torch to his handpicked choice for successor, deputy commissioner Wayne Goodwin, at a last-minute filing Friday.

Then, he took the torch back so he could pass it again at this morning's Council of State's meeting, taking a moment of personal privilege to introduce Goodwin to the other top statewide elected officials, who probably remember him from his 2004 run for labor commissioner.

"It's time to move on and pass the torch to the younger generation," Long said.

He then introduced Goodwin, who waved to the audience.

The actual torch will be passed after the contested Democratic primary, in which Goodwin faces David C. Smith, and the November election, in which the winner will face John Odom.