Gov. Beverly Perdue signed another batch of bills Friday afternoon leaving five remaining unsigned bills on her desk.

The six remaining are:

HB 104: Clarifies which documents produced by lawmakers are exempt from the public records law. Would make requests by lawmakers sent to state agencies exempt from the public records law.

HB 945: The Studies Act of 2009 catalogues a host of items and issues to be studied while the legislature is out of session.

HB 1166: Insurance Law Changes. Makes several changes including a new requirement that to get a license, insurance agents must submit fingerprints for a criminal background check.

SB 947: Provides more opportunity for a homeowner to halt foreclosure if he or she can demonstrate they can pay what is owed.

HB 836: Makes technical corrections to the state budget.

HB 1329: Consolidates various state stautes regulating criminal record expunctions. 

Among the 40-plus Perdue signed Friday are:

SB 167: Prohibits tobacco products and cell phones in prisons. Makes it a crime to provide tobacco or cell phones to inmates.

HB 667: Allows wineries to sell wine during business hours.

SB 138: Bans the recreational use of salvia divinorum, an hallucinogenic herb. Still allows the mint-like plant to be used in landscaping.

SB 786: Authorizes capital projects on University of North Carolina system campuses. The projects have a funding stream to repay debt for the projects. List includes $21.8 million for a parking deck at N.C. State University, a $10 million renovation of the Carolina Inn at UNC-Chapel Hill, $35 million for a Partnership, Outreach and Research for Accelerated Learning Building at UNC-Charlotte.

SB 464: Requires statistics on race to be kept to help identify and prevent racial profiling by law enforcement. Also requires that a law enforcement officer ensure a child is in safe hands if the child's parent gets arrested. The last provision would have prevented a case last year in which three children were stranded on Interstate 85 in the middle of the night for eight hours when a sheriff's deputy arrested the children's mother, an illegal immigrant.

Correction: Perdue had six bills to sign, not five as we previously reported. Dome regrets the oversight. 

A bill that calls for a surcharge on homeowner insurance policies across the state if a catastrophic storm wreaks havoc along the North Carolina coast was tentatively approved by a wide margin by the state House.

The bill, which must be voted on again before it moves to the Senate, calls for homeowners to bail out a state-created insurance plan known as the Beach Plan if a storm generates more claims than the Beach Plan can pay, David Ranii reports.

In that event, homeowners would be assessed a surcharge of  up to 10 percent of their annual premiums.

Currently, insurers who offer homeowners policies can be assessed to cover damages the Beach Plan can't pay on a prorated basis, based on how much business they have in the state. Nothing in state law permits insurers to recover any of that money from their policyholders.

The bill proposes capping insurers’ exposure at $1 billion, which supporters — including the insurance industry — say is necessary to avoid insurers fleeing the state.

Bill sponsor Hugh Holliman, a Lexington Democrat, noted that, given the Beach Plan’s current surplus and level of reinsurance homeowners wouldn’t be liable for a surcharge until damages topped $2.4 billion.

So far, the most the Beach Plan has paid in claims for a single storm is $150 million.

The state's insurance companies want to raise auto insurance rates.

The North Carolina Rate Bureau, which represents auto insurance companies, has requested a 1.4 percent increase of the statewide average for 2009.

Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin will review the request before he sets the state's rates, his office announced in a news release. The industry is currently fighting in court over a rate cut ordered by former Insurance Commissioner Jim Long who cut rates by 16.1 percent. 

If Goodwin and the insurers cannot agree on a rate, Goodwin will call for a hearing on the issue. The last hearing ended with the insurers taking the state to court. They disputed Long's cut and instead raised rates by 9.4 percent, according to Goodwin's release. 

The difference between what Long ordered and the rate insurers are charging has been placed in an account. The money would be paid to insurance customers if the state wins the court case, Goodwin said.

LONG GONE: The sudden death of longtime Insurance Commissioner Jim Long cast a shadow over the week. Legislators wore red tie stickers in his honor; others gave praise. Ironically, he was going to spend his retirement fighting for stroke prevention.

BILLS BILLS BILLS: Legislators pitched a flurry of new bills to expand sex ed options, extend public financing, teach about the 1898 race riots, require murder interrogations be videotaped, and reduce copays for chiropractors. Leaders will now seek to bury half and rewrite the rest.

SUPER FIGHT: Schools Superintendent June Atkinson threw down her glove. After remaining quiet while Gov. Beverly Perdue sought to pull even more power from her position, Atkinson demanded legislators to decide once and for all who runs the schools.

IN OTHER NEWS: A tough budget year hasn't stopped legislators from asking for more money. As of Thursday, special appropriations bills totaled $95 million, or about 5 percent of the $2 billion shortfall. ... Sen. Kay Hagan wants to limit CEOs getting federal bailout money to the same salary as President Obama. Watch for executives to start arguing the president is underpaid. ... State Sen. Steve Goss said he'd never had any trouble with blogs as he filed a bill that would make them more liable for libel. By the end of the day, bloggers rectified that.

A bill to require insurers to cover chiropractic services at the same rate as primary-care doctors has a tough climb.

Former House Speaker Jim Black included similar legislation in the 2005 budget, but legislators later stripped it when it was revealed that Black had received illegal cash payments totaling $30,000 from chiropractors.

In addition, insurance companies argue that it is more effective for people to see a primary-care doctor first and then, if necessary, get a referral. That practice puts chiropractors in the position of specialists who have a higher copayment. 

In 2007, Blue Cross officials estimated the change cost them $8 million in less than a year. But backers say they're hearing from constituents in favor of the move. 

"Chiropractors perform a valuable service," said Rep. Cullie Tarleton, a Democrat from Blowing Rock who sponsored the bill. "Even our U.S. Olympic teams have a chiropractor." (N&O)

A legislative study committee did not come up with a plan for beach insurance.

Instead, after months of effort, the committee decided to let the General Assembly decide whether and how much homeowners should pay to help bail out the Beach Plan if a major hurricane strikes.

The state-created plan offers insurance to coastal homeowners.

The committee also punted on the issue of whether insurers should have a cap on the amount they can be assesed for damages that go beyond the plan's financial resources.

It is recommending legislation that would limit Beach Plan homeowners' insurance coverage to a maximum of $750,000, half the current level.

The goal is to limit the Beach Plan's potential liability if a devastating storm occurs, although the committee couldn't put a dollar figure on how much the plan's liability would be reduced. (N&O)

Insurance premiums could rise in North Carolina to pay for storm-damaged beaches.

The N.C. Rate Bureau, an insurance company association that recommends insurance rates to the state commissioner, released a proposed increase on homeowners premiums by an average of 19.5 percent.

The rate jump would be higher on the coast, with potential increases of as much as 50 percent in the Outer Banks and 70 percent in coastal counties.

State Rep. Bruce Goforth, an Asheville Democrat who sits on a legislative committee that heard the proposal, objected to the idea that the rest of the state should pay higher insurance to help the owners of beachfront mansions.

"They've got th emoney to pay for the insurance they should be paying," he said.

Officials with the Rate Bureau said the proposed hikeis needed to stabilize the Beach Plan, a government-created insurance program that is the dominant coastal provider. (N&O) 

Doctors around the state say a rising fervor over illegal immigration may scare illegal immigrants away from seeking health care.

In Alamance County, a recent case where medical records may have been used to prosecute a library worker who was in the country illegally has prompted many doctors to speak out about what they see as a breach of doctor-patient trust.

"Whether you're legal or illegal, it's always been assumed that your medical information is private and can't be used against you," said Dr. Christopher Snyder III of Concord, president of the N.C. Academy of Family Physicians. "The doctor-patient relationship is sacred, and I'm not sure that has really been challenged until now. We're in uncharted territory."

Snyder said that if the trend continues, infectious diseases could spread, infant mortality could rise and emergency costs could increase.

Immigrants often have a high rate of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and often do not have health insurance. (N&O) 

State driver's licenses have been restricted in the past decade.

In the late 1990s, a group of officials in Gov. Jim Hunt's administration worked with Latino leaders to address the problem of illegal immigrants driving on state roads.

Their solution was to expand the ways that the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles could determine residency, including accepting utility bills and lease agreements. The goal was to get immigrants to drive legally and get car insurance.

After the 9/11 attacks, concerns about security led lawmakers to turn instead to the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which is issued to anyone working in the U.S. regardless of immigration status.

Though that added a new hoop for some illegal immigrants to get a license, it did not make it impossible. Over the following three years, the DMV issued about 179,000 licenses to people who only had taxpayer ID numbers.

In 2004, the DMV went a step further. Facing concerns about fraud and identity theft, it stopped accepting the matricula consular, a form of identification issued by the Mexican government, among other foreign documents.

And in 2006, legislators ordered the agency to stop accepting taxpayer ID numbers, making it impossible for illegal immigrants to get a state driver's license. However, they stopped short of ordering a recall of older licenses issued with the numbers.

When those licenses expire, drivers will not be able to renew them.