U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole was very bipartisan in the 2005-06 session.

With the candidates for Senate touting their records of bipartisanship, Dome has been taking a closer look at the number of Democrats who signed on to legislation Dole sponsored.

In the 2005-06 session, the Salisbury Republican was the primary sponsor of 49 bills. Of them, 30 had no cosponsor, nine had only Republican cosponsors and nine had Democratic cosponsors.

Overall, her 63 cosponsors included 29 Democrats and 34 Republicans, or about a one-to-one ratio. (Dome is counting Sen. Jim Jeffords, an Independent, as a Democrat since he caucused with them.)

The most frequent Democratic cosponsor was Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who signed on to four Dole amendments, including a measure to require the National Academy of Sciences study drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune.

Dole also had Democratic cosponsors on bills requiring a report on predatory lending to military families, assist worker retraining programs, encourage collectively bargained retiree health benefits, honoring a black Marine and giving a tax credit for hunger relief efforts.

Previously: Dole's Democratic cosponsors in 2007-08 session.

Jim Neal would be the second openly gay Senate nominee of a major party.

The first was Ed Flanagan, who unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat in Vermont in 2000, losing to then-Republican Jim Jeffords.

In North Carolina, state Sen. Julia Boseman of Wilmington became the first gay person elected to the Senate in 2004. In August, Gov. Mike Easley appointed Judge John S. Arrowood to the N.C. Court of Appeals, making him the first openly gay statewide official.

Nationally, the number of openly gay elected officials has risen from 49 to 380 since 1991.

Still, homosexuality can be divisive in the South. In 1990, U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms attacked his Democratic opponent, Harvey Gantt, for holding fundraisers in "gay and lesbian bars." (N&O)

Thosetactics can also backfire. A Wilmington newspaper withdrew its endorsement of Boseman's opponent when he attacked her sexual orientation. (Char-O)