The League of Women Voters of North Carolina is urging the state's two U.S. senators to support strong climate change legislation.

Judie Burke, former president of the state league, was part of a delegation in Washington that met with the staffs for Sens. Kay Hagan, a Democrat, and Richard Burr, a Republican. Women around the world are disproportionately affected by global warming, Burke said in a written release.

"The message brought to the Senators today is that their support of strong climate change legislation is important to both North Carolina and our country," Burke said, according to a release from the league. "Without immediate action, the impacts on our state will be devastating. Global warming will cause, and has already caused, more intense heat waves, more frequent heavy rainstorms and changing conditions that will threaten many native species.”

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Beverly Perdue has committed to five debates.

The Democratic gubernatorial nominee said today that she would appear at five events before the November election, including three in the Triangle:

June 21: N.C. Bar Association, Atlantic Beach

Aug. 19: WTVD, Durham

Sept. 9: WRAL/Capitol Broadcasting, Raleigh

Sept. 19: Public School Forum on Education/Everybody's Business Coalition, Cary

Oct. 15: Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters/ WSOC/WTVI, Charlotte

"I look forward to the debates and the opportunity to have a real discussion about the issues facing North Carolina," she said in a statement.

Kay Hagan has declined to participate in the only televised debate her campaign was considering, frustrating her chief rival for the party’s nomination.

The campaign of Jim Neal responded sharply, saying the state senator from Greensboro is trying to buy an election victory with television ads and is avoiding a discussion of the issues in the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, the Associated Press reports.

"Sen. Hagan's cynical and disingenuous refusal to debate flies in the face of her claim to be a candidate of change," said Neal spokesman Curtis Ellis.

The Democratic front-runners have only participated one debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters and Public Radio East late on a Friday night last month.

Hagan campaign officials said they didn’t want to attend the debate hosted by WTVD-TV because the station wasn’t going to extend an invitation to all five candidates. WTVD wanted to limit participation to candidates who had at least 10 percent support in a recent poll.

That would exclude longshot candidates Duskin Lassiter, Marcus Williams and Howard Staley.

"Using one poll as the indicator of who the voters should hear from in the Democratic primary, quite frankly, defeats the point of a primary," said Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan.

Beverly Perdue wants to set up an endowment for gubernatorial campaigns.

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate proposed creating the Endowment for Positive Gubernatorial Campaigns — a $50 million trust fund that would pay for campaigns that avoid negative ads, address "major issues" and agree to a series of debates.

"The people of North Carolina, like the rest of the nation, are losing trust in the political system," she said in a statement. "The perception of corruption and a 'pay to play' environment has led to the belief that ordinary citizens do not have as much influence in politics as the rich and powerful."

The proposal is based on former state Sen. Wib Gulley's 1995 bill, which was praised by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, and a similar endowment for Congressional campaigns proposed by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and Vice President Al Gore.

A bipartisan board of 12 individuals appointed by legislative leaders would run the endowment, select the major issues and determine if candidates had qualified with signatures and small donations.

Participating campaigns would not be allowed to use personal wealth or spend additional money on advertising.

A Senate committee approved a bill to allow voters to register three days before an election.

The bill, which originated in the House, would allow North Carolinians to register at one-stop voting sites up to the Saturday before an election.

Currently, state law requires counties to close the voter rolls 25 days before Election Day.

Advocates, who included Democracy North Carolina and the League of Women Voters, said that the measure would increase voter turnout and be more secure than mail-in registration.

Sen. Phil Berger, the Senate Republican leader, said he thought it would make some voters more likely to decide to try to register illegally.

"I think there are more (election fraud cases) than anyone wants to acknowledge, and in a close election, one could make a difference," he said.

But John Gilbert, chairman of the Wake County board of elections, said trained election workers would check each registration against a computer database.

"In a certain sense it's even more secure than our current methods," he said.