Mitch Kokai warns not to make too much out of crossover.

In a post on The Locker Room, he says that the deadline for legislation to pass the House or the Senate is artificial.

Legislative leaders can still gut a bill to create a vehicle for their own legislation or insert a special provision in the budget, he notes.

Good and bad bills still have life in them; if they've not crossed over, that life now depends on the preferences of the people who wield the gavels.

Gerry Cohen cleared up a few misconceptions about crossover.

In a post on his N.C. Bill Drafting blog, he wrote a few simple rules for understanding the legislative deadline that passed yesterday.

Essentially, Cohen writes that a bill may be resurrected later in the session if the sponsor can attach a tax, fee or spending to it by the time it passes the House or the Senate.

The biggest misconception? That there is a list somewhere of bills that have to pass by crossover.

Who would have time to make up such a list? Perhaps it is hidden in the Great Pumpkin?

Cohen would know. As director of bill drafting, he would be the one to draft it, so don't ask.

As always, a number of bills didn't make it past Speed Week.

Although it's possible for a bill to be resurrected — either as a study or part of the budget — most bills that didn't pass before crossover yesterday are effectively dead.

A quick look at some of those that didn't make it:

Prohibit smoking in restaurants and other public places. Put a constitutional ban on gay marriage before voters. Ban spanking in public schools. Suspend executions for two years. Penalize owners of stolen guns who fail to report them promptly. Ban cell phone use while driving. Open state ethics hearings.

Click here for a fuller explanation of the bills.

A bill to allow collective bargaining for public employees did not pass before yesterday's crossover deadline.

North Carolina has barred state workers from negotiating contracts through their unions for nearly 50 years. Most states allow it.

Labor unions and public employees associations worked hard to promote the bill, giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the N.C. Democratic Party.

Rep. Dan Blue, a Raleigh Democrat, said he thinks he could still bring the bill up before the session ends. But labor leaders like Chuck Stone, director of North Carolinians for Affordable Health Care, were disheartened.

"The Iraqi peoples' constitution guarantees the right to collective bargaining, and we can't even get a legislative committee to vote to guarantee that right for the people of North Carolina," Stone said. (N&O)

A House bill to ban elected officials from signing corporate gag orders died today.

The measure came about after Google required Caldwell County officials to sign strict agreements barring them from disclosing anything about a proposed project there. The company got $260 million in state and local tax breaks over 30 years.

Rep. Paul Luebke said that prevents democracy from working.

"It is a national problem," the Durham Democrat said. "State by state, people realize how they are being blackmailed and coerced by the big corporations that come in."

But rural legislators said the bill would hurt economic development.

Rep. Bill Owens, a Democrat from Elizabeth City, said that companies would go to other states.

"When these clients come to you and they tell you they want it to be confidential and they want to leave it confidential, if you don't agree to do it, they're going to pack their bags and leave right then," he said.

The bill was referred to a committee on a 77-38 vote, effectively killing it because of the crossover deadline.

Did the House contradict itself yesterday on schoolchildren?

On Facing South, blogger Chris Kromm notes that representatives rejected a bill that would have banned corporal punishment, but tentatively passed an anti-bullying bill:

That's an interesting message about protecting school kids from harm: Kids, don't taunt your fellow students. But teachers, whip the kids if you must.

Kromm blamed the "haste" of passing a number of bills during crossover week, though both bills were debated extensively.

The perennial death penalty moratorium bill appeared on a House committee calendar this morning.

It looked as if lawmakers were trying a last-minute effort to get the bill past the crossover deadline.

The bill would suspend executions in North Carolina while lawmakers evaluate possible changes to the capital punishment system. But the bill never came up for discussion in committee.

That didn't bother the bill's sponsor, Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat. He had already changed the bill to include some funding for a study of the costs of the state's death penalty system, which would mean the bill doesn't have to meet today's crossover deadline.

The House just started, with just 12 hours until the end of Speed Week.

That means that legislators only have until midnight to pass a bill in either the House or the Senate in order to keep it alive for this session.

On Capital Beat yesterday, Mark Binker said that so far Speed Week has been pretty friendly:

Compared to the last couple of crossovers I've witnessed, this one seems fairly tame. The House is still working today, but the Senate has headed home. And it's possible the honorable could get out of here before midnight tomorrow, which is the drop-dead, bills turn into a pumpkin deadline.

A total of 153 bills competed in the third qualifying round of Speed Week.

Among the 56 that passed a third reading in either the House or the Senate Wednesday:

Protective orders: A House bill would make it a felony to violate a domestic violence protective order while armed.

Don't feed them: A Senate bill would it illegal to intentionally feed alligators outside of captivity.

Swift Boating: A Senate bill would require 527 groups such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to disclose state campaign spending.

MySpace: A Senate bill would require parental consent for minors on social networking sites such as MySpace.

In other news, a Senate bill would allow off-road bikers on public lands, a Senate bill woul allow prosecutors to keep the name of an informant from the defense, a Senate bill would allow private investigators to have tinted windows, a House bill would allow detention officers to carry guns into courthouses, a House bill would establish Juneteenth as National Freedom Day and a House bill would allow DNA testing for men paying child support.

Before we get to the roundup of Day 3 of Speed Week, here's what we've already covered on Wednesday:

Approved: A House bill would require equal insurance coverage for mental illnesses, a House bill would allow death row defendants to appeal on the basis of racial discrimination, a House bill would study the future of Dix Hill, a House bill would require politicians reveal donors to legal defense funds, a House bill would teach high schoolers about the state's safe surrender law and a House bill would allow Chapel Hill to experiment with publicly funded campaign.

Tentatively Approved: A House bill that would make schools write anti-bullying policies.

Rejected: A House bill that would have banned corporal punishment in schools and a House bill that would have raised the limit of undisclosed campaign contributions back to $100.