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Gov. Pat McCrory is making his concerns known with the Senate budget. In a statement, McCrory said he is "pleased the Senate's budget proposal aligns with some of our major priorities." But his office issued a list of "areas for further review," aka "where the Senate went off-track."

They include: "elimination of Special Superior Court judges; transfer of the SBI; exclusion of drug treatment courts; no salary increases for state employees; no expansion of pre-K; no eugenics compensation; and does not allow for routine legal services in each agency."

The major differences will put the onus on the House to help carry the governor's water, unless the Senate bends to the governor's concerns, which seems unlikely given the tenor so far this session.

A new poll shows a majority of North Carolina voters favor the state's current system of publicly financing the campaigns of candidate for state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

The survey, finding 68 percent favor the program and 23 percent oppose, comes amid warnings that last year's multi-million-dollar campaign for Supreme Court Justice

Paul Newby's seat threatens to remake the campaign financing landscape. Newby won re-election over appellate Judge Sam Ervin IV, with a huge infusion of outside money.

Statewide judicial candidates can accept public financing if they agree to spending limits and refuse political action committee and special interest money. But with the emergence of "super PACs," which collect and spend money independent of candidates, those limits are meaningless.

There will be an attempt to make judicial elections partisan again. A pair of Republican senators filed such a bill on Thursday.

SB39 would require state all Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, superior and district court judges to run by party affiliation. That used to be the case until 2002, when the Democratic-controlled General Assembly made them nonpartisan, the rationale being that judges should be elected based solely on qualifications and not politics.

Republicans contended that the real motivation was that voters were electing Republican judges.

Sen. Jerry Tillman of Archdale, a retired school administrator, and Sen. Thom Goolsby of Wilmington, a lawyer, are the co-sponsors.

The often-overlooked, but nonetheless important, judicial races on the November ballot will get a vetting Wednesday in Raleigh.

The Junior League of Raleigh will host a judicial panel featuring 17 candidate, including state Supreme Court contenders Paul Newby and Sam Ervin IV.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday that President Barack Obama’s policies have led to the economy “growing at an anemic rate,” and voters should decide whether he deserves a four-year extension.

The Florida Republican spoke at a rally for the Romney-Ryan ticket that drew more than 200 people to a steel manufacturing plant near the airport in west Charlotte – part of a series of dueling events held during the day by the two campaigns. Rubio said the GOP campaign is “fighting to save the kind of country” that would create companies like SteelFab and help them grow. Read more here.

More political headlines:

--In the first debate of their congressional race, Democrat Jennifer Roberts and Republican Robert Pittenger disagreed about rail funding, health care and the deficit-reduction plan co-authored by Charlotte’s Erskine Bowles. But it was a dig from Roberts that punctuated the 30-minute debate at the Charlotte Chamber.

A panel appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue to help fill judicial vacancies will hold a public hearing Thursday in Chapel Hill.

The Judicial Nominating Commission is seeking public feedback on the best methods to select judges and the qualities most important in a judicial nominee. Perdue created the commission earlier this year to screen and nominate candidates for the Superior Court, Court of Appeals and Supreme Court vacancies. The meeting is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. at the UNC Center for School Leadership, in room 111.

Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue has named a panel to help screen judicial candidates, but Republicans immediately criticized it as being too laden with partisan Democrats. 

The governor named an 18-member commission, including two people who have served as her lawyers, to advise her on whom to appoint to the bench. The commission will forward three names for the governor to choose from for each vacancy on the N.C. Supreme Court, the N.C. Court of Appeals and Superior Court. (At least nine of the 18 members are ardent Democrats.)

In announcing the creation of the commission last April, Perdue said the Judicial Nominating Commission was an effort to provide well-qualified and fair judges. "There is no place for politics when it comes to choosing the state's most honored and influential legal servants," Perdue said at the time.

But Republicans said the makeup of the panel belies Perdue's words.

"Perdue has chosen to stack the commission with political cronies, Democratic operatives and liberal partisan politicians," said Scott Laster, executive director of the state GOP. "This type of 'bipartisan, for-the-people facade' would make a tyrant blush." Read more here.

Nine months ago, Gov. Bev Perdue issued an executive order to form a Judicial Nominating Commission to reduce partisan influences in the appointment of judges.

But the list of committee members released Wednesday includes a number of big name Democrats -- including two lawyers who counseled Perdue. The nonpartisan commission will review applicants to vacancies on the state Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals or Superior Court and submit three nominations to the governor to make the final choice.

Attorney Eddie Speas will serve as chairman of the 18-member board. He served for two years as Perdue's general counsel -- a fact that the governor's office left out of biography that accompanied the announcement. (By contrast, Speas tenure with Perdue is prominent on the biography provided by his law firm, Poyner Spruill.)

The governor's office similarly didn't note that another appointee, Joseph Cheshire, a prominent Durham lawyer, represented Perdue as criminal scrutiny mounted about her 2008 campaign.

Among the other prominent Democratic names: Janice Cole, a former District Court judge and U.S. attorney; Harvey Gantt, former Charlotte mayor and President Bill Clinton appointee to the National Capital Planning Association; Tom Lambeth, former Democratic Party operative and executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation; and Burley Mitchell, a Democrat and former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court.

Perdue spokesman Ben Niolet said "party affiliation was not a factor" in the appointments. "The members were chosen because they were the most qualified," he added. For the full list of names from the governor's office, see below.

A couple weeks ago, the state's NAACP chapter highlighted the dearth of black judges on the federal bench in North Carolina.

"It is an obscenity that there has never been an African-American federal judge in the Eastern District, where roughly half of North Carolina's African American population resides," state NAACP President William Barber wrote in a letter sent to U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan, who make judicial recommendations to the president.

The NAACP wants to see a black district court judge appointed -- but that doesn't mean a black judge doesn't sit on the Eastern District bench.

Federal Magistrate Judge William Webb, a Raleigh resident, is a member of the court. Webb, who was appointed in 1999, previously served as deputy secretary in the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

In an interview, Barber said the letter was designed to highlight the appointment process of district court judges, particularly because they handle civil rights matters. 

He said the organization didn't tally the racial breakdown of other judges. "The context of the news release was very specific," Barber said.