The House is ready for a full calendar.

At the start of session today, Speaker Joe Hackney announced that rule 12 (d) has been suspended. That rule states:

Food or beverages shall not be permitted on the floor of the House during the first two hours of the daily session.  

The House adopted a bill today that would ban smoking in restaurants and workplaces across the state.

The bill would not ban smoking in most bars. It cleared the House 72 to 45 and now moves to the Senate, reports Benjamin Niolet.

Supporters fended off an amendment that would have made enforcement nearly impossible.

Under the current bill, business owners would get two warnings before a fine would be issued.

The bill was amended today to allow smoking in private, nonprofit clubs such as country clubs or VFW halls.

On Wednesday, the bill, which was proposed as a near total public smoking ban, was weakened to allow smoking in most bars and nightclubs.

That change drew the opposition of a restaurant group that fears bars would draw customers away from restaurants. The group says it will now fight the ban.

Eight members of the UNC Board of Governors were elected today by the state House.

Re-elected to the board were: Dudley Flood, a public speaker and educational consultant from Raleigh; Charles Mercer, Jr., a Raleigh attorney; Fred Mills, Sr., a Raleigh construction executive; Dr. Al Roseman, an endodontist from Wilmington; and David Young of Asheville, an Asheville business owner and chairman of the state Democratic Party.

New members elected were: Walter Davenport, a Raleigh accountant and trustee chairman at Elizabeth City State University; Bill Daughtridge, a Rocky Mount businessman and former House member; and James Deal Jr., a Boone attorney and trustee at Appalachian State University.

The Senate voted on its slate of eight members last month. The UNC Board of Governors makes policy and sets tuition at the state's 16 public universities and the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics in Durham.

The N.C. House adopted a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to give or sell a cell phone to an inmate.

The bill is in response to reports that cell phones have been found in prisons, including twice on death row. An earlier version of the bill made passing cell phones to inmates a felony.

Lawmakers reduced the penalty because they didn't want to make it even tougher for prison guards who would already be fired to find another job, said Rep. Ronnie Sutton, a Pembroke Democrat.

Also sending a former guard to prison puts the guard in danger and makes it tougher for the state to deal with a dire shortage of prison beds, Sutton said.

The bill passed the House 117 to 0. It next goes to the Senate.

N.C. House Republican leader Paul Stam hasn't voted for the House rules since 1989.

Stam, an Apex Republican, says the House rules don't allow full debate for the minority party. On Wednesday, Stam tried a different approach in making his case. He still complained that the rules would give Democrats overwhelming influence on the state budget. 

But he added a morsel to encourage Democrats to see things his way. Stam pointed out that whoever writes the state budget will be responsible for making difficult and unpopular choices.

"If I was the majority party, I would want to share that pain," Stam said.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Joe Hackney said Stam's complaints are "noise."

Does it matter if your bill is first?

When legislation is introduced at the General Assembly, it is numbered, with House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1 starting things off.

Dome wondered if there was a correlation (probably not a causation) with the first bills filed. Perhaps they were more likely to be well-prepared or have some favor with leadership.

The first bill in each chamber simply lays down the rules they'll follow during the session. But as it turns out, being the second, third, fourth or even fifth bill doesn't do much good in the House.

In 2007, H.B. 2 failed to incorporate the community of Corolla, H.B. 3 failed to add a tax credit for long-term care insurance and H.B. 4 did not amend one-stop voting days. Only H.B. 5 passed — and all it did was honor the late Rep. Bernard Allen.

Things were a little different in the more tightly controlled Senate.

That same year, S.B. 2 did not change the lottery formula, but S.B. 3 successfully promoted renewable energy. While S.B. 4 collected more data on race and public health, S.B. 5 did not change laws on methadone and second-degree murder.

The lesson? Representatives, take your time. Senators, get a move on.

When the legislature returns to Raleigh in January, the Senate will take a bold technological leap into 1992.

For the first time, senators will be allowed to have laptops at their desks. They won't have e-mail or access to the Internet, but they can have laptops. The computers would allow Senators access to the information available on the legislature's Web site. Senate leader Marc Basnight changed a long-standing rule banning electronic devices.

"There's been some discussion for a while of allowing access to information by computer," said Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for Basnight. "There has also been the concern of the tradition of the Senate session and any disruption. This represents a compromise."

The laptops would allow Senators to find a statute or bill quickly. But they won't have much else (sorry, no Minesweeper or solitaire). Senators will have to request the machines, which will stay in the chamber. The computers will be refurbished from older laptops the legislature already owns, so the rule change won't cost taxpayers anything, Johnson said. The plan also means senators will likely be wrestling with computers that are long past their prime.

The House has no rule banning computers and laptops are common in the chamber. As far as Dome knows, there have been no reports of House members reading Perez Hilton during sessions.

The state House will push to Thursday a vote on a anti-bullying bill that would include gay students in a list of potential harassment targets. It had been scheduled for yesterday, then today.

Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, said the House is trying to coordinate its vote with the Senate, which has put off its vote to Thursday.

The anti-bullying bill would require local school sytems to develop policies to combat bullying. At issue is a description of bullying targets that includes "sexual orientation" as a reason school children might be targets.

Socially conservative groups oppose the bill, saying it is a way to get gays into state law as a protected class. Senators have reported receiving hundreds of cards and emails from opponents in the last few weeks. The Christian Action League this week asked people on its mailing list to keep up the pressure on senators.

The bill's supporters deny the claim that it would give certain groups special rights, saying that specific language guarantees that no new protected classes will be created.

Supporters say about two dozen state school systems that have adopted anti-bullying policies similar to the legislative proposal.

State House members this morning killed an effort to repeal a law that gives counties the authority to hold referendums to increase the real estate transfer tax.

House Minority Leader Paul Stam, an Apex Republican, sought to have the law repealed by amending the House's $21.3 billion state budget proposal, reports Dan Kane.

House Speaker Joe Hackney, an Orange County Democrat, ruled that the amendment was out of order and should not be taken up in the budget.

Stam sought to suspend the rules, but lawmakers narrowly defeated his request by a 59-54 vote.

Stam argued that since the real estate transfer tax law was part of last year's budget bill, it should be up for amending in this one, which is actually an adjustment to last year's budget. (In long sessions, lawmakers pass a two-year budget bill, then use the short session to make adjustments to it for the second year.)

Hackney said the real estate transfer tax was part of a larger effort to remove the counties' share of Medicaid expenses and could not be removed without a reworking of that effort. He also said the amendment was not germane to the budget and was a local government issue.

So far, no county has passed a referendum to raise the real estate transfer tax to .4 percent. It has been rejected in 20 counties.

Update: Hackney said the effort to reconsider the issue was not close. He said the House rules require a two-thirds majority to suspend the rules. 

House budget writers don't want newly-released pedophiles, rapists and other sex offenders staying temporarily in hotels at public expense.

Last night, the House Appropriations Committee changed a provision in the House budget bill that allows the Correction Department to pay for temporary housing for felons released from prison who are on parole, probation or some other form of post-release supervision, Dan Kane reports. The department can use its budget to place felons in a homeless shelter, halfway house, or other housing provider that is under contract with the federal government to provide housing for offenders.

The provision specifically bars the department from sending felons to "a hotel, motel, nursing home, adult care facility, group home containing the physically or developmentally disabled, or residential facility where minors are housed."

Lawmakers also said that the temporary housing can last no more than 30 days, and ordered a study into the feasibility of setting up temporary housing for released felons who can't find a place to stay.

The Correction Department sought the provision after finding it difficult to place sex offenders. New laws that prevent them from being within 1,000 feet of a school or child care center and local ordinances that have banned them from parks have given sex offenders limited. In some cases, they have opted to stay in prison to serve out their maximum sentences, which correction officials say is much more costly than paying for temporary housing until a permanent residence is found.

The original provision would have allowed the department to place felons in hotels, which correction officials said they would do if other options such as homeless shelters were unavailable.