A committee convened to look at televising debate at the state House of Representatives recommends broadcasting on the Internet, assuming the legislature can afford it.

The committee has all but finished a report on the issue and has set out a series of recommendations guiding how to start and run the House show. The plan would be to wire certain committee rooms and the House chamber and install broadcast quality video cameras. The video would be broadcast on the Internet with lower quality, but television stations would have access to video for news casts.

The catch is all that buying and setting up all that equipment could cost $1.3 million. It's a small fraction of the state's $21.5 billion budget, but lawmakers are bracing for a deficit next year that could be as high as $3 billion. 

House Speaker Joe Hackney is keen on getting the House on television.

"As soon as there is money for it and as soon as it can get done, the Speaker wants it done," said Bill Holmes, a spokesman for Hackney.

The committee recommended that the House begin with Web-only broadcast, but work toward finding a place on television for them. Policies governing the broadcasts, such as editorial policies, would be set out by the speaker, and the minority and majority leaders, the committee recommended.

Delivering video of state House of Representatives sessions to computers would cost $1.3 million in the first year and another $500,000 after that.

The bulk of the money for creating the House show would go to equipment, wiring and set up costs, according to legislative staff research. The recurring costs would pay for maintenance, closed captioning and staff time.

The goal, said state Rep. Cullie Tarleton, is an open, accessible government.

"All of us want total, complete openness and transparency," said Tarleton, a Blowing Rock Democrat.

Tarleton is chairman of a House committee studying what it would take to broadcast or webcast video of the House's work. Committee members on Wednesday said they supported starting with video on the Web, but buying equipment that would make it easier to eventually show sessions on television. The higher-end video cameras would also allow the news media to use video clips.

Of course, the projected state budget deficit of $2 billion or more might make the House's video plans a tough sell. The other problem, at least for now, is that the Senate has no parallel effort in place.

So broadcasting House sessions would only make state government 50 percent transparent. More like opaque, really.

More after the jump.

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