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The Senate made fast work this week of Sen. Neal Hunt’s proposal to raise the top speed limit on North Carolina highways to 75 mph. Hunt, a Republican from Raleigh, filed his proposal April 2. It zoomed through a committee Wednesday and the full Senate on Thursday, without debate.

“It’s a reasonable idea to let the professionals decide if traffic can move a little faster than we let it go now,” Hunt said Thursday. “It’s not mandatory, but if DOT thinks it’s appropriate to go that fast, then it’s OK with me.”

Sen. Dan Blue, a Democrat from Raleigh, cast the only dissenting vote. He told the Associated Press later that he just wanted to know more about how DOT would decide which roads qualify for faster speeds than 70 mph, the current maximum.

Hunt, 70, knows what it’s like to go faster than DOT thinks is appropriate. His driving record includes five speeding convictions in five different counties between 1988 and 1998. A legal limit of 75 mph would have helped him in a couple of cases, but officers clocked him driving a little faster than that on three occasions. “Be sure to point out that I haven’t had a speeding ticket in 14 years,” Hunt said.

Asked whether he was driving more slowly these days – or just lucky, he chuckled and said: “No comment.” --Bruce Siceloff, staff writer

Sig Hutchinson, a prominent Raleigh Democrat and environmental advocate, filed paperwork to run for the state Senate this week, lining up a challenge against incumbent Neal Hunt, a lead Republican budget writer.

“This legislature has become misdirected in creating an environment for high paying jobs instead focusing on penalizing teachers and education. It’s now all about special interests and there is no doubt we can do better,” Hutchinson said in a statement.

Asked by the legislature to consolidate schools for blind and deaf students, state Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson has come up with a plan that would keep all three  residential schools open while combining administrative jobs for two of them. The plan includes bringing in revenue by leasing space on the campuses. 

The three schools serve a total of about 200 students, and the legislature was looking to save about $5.5 million a year by closing one of them and transferring its students. Each of the schools has ardent backers who argued vociferously for a favorite.

Legislative reactions to DPI's range from slightly irritated, ("It appears they didn't want to make the tough decision and kicked it back to us," said Rep. Mitch Gillespie of McDowell County) to pleased ("Sounds like a very positive step to me," said Sen. Neal Hunt of Wake County.)

Gov. Bev Perdue said in a statement that Republicans shouldn't be looking to close a school at all.

“The Republican budget is full of extreme, short-sighted and unnecessary cuts to education," she said. "It’s hard to understand in North Carolina why the General Assembly pitted deaf children against blind children in a fight to keep their school open. North Carolina must find ways to reduce spending, but our future demands that we also make investments in our people. Our constitution guarantees a quality education for all, and that includes deaf and blind children.”

UPDATE: Democratic U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield praised the decision to keep open the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf.

He and Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones wrote DPI last month supporting the Wilson school. 

Butterfield said today all the schools should be supported.

"Each of these institutions are essential to their communities and the population they serve," Butterfield said in a statement.

And, Wake Superintendent Tony Tata told school board members today that he's been talking with the state Department of Public Instruction for the past two months about leasing part of the Governor Morehead School campus, staff writer T. Keung Hui reports.

Tata said it could be a "win-win scenario" for both Wake and the visually impaired students.Tata said there's no agreement yet, but he'll present it to the board when it's ready.

The move to pardon impeached and deceased Republican Gov. William Holden is on hold, maybe permanently.

The state Senate pulled back on an attempt to pardon Holden, a governor who was impeached by a Democratic legislature in 1871 after he stood up to the Ku Klux Klan.

After two Klan murders in Alamance and Caswell counties, Holden sent in the militia. The troops took control of two courthouses and arrested more than 100 accused Klan members. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus for some of those involved in the insurrection.

Sen. Neal Hunt, a Raleigh Republican who sponsored the resolution pardoning Holden, said he still wanted it, but some in his caucus argued against it.

"Apparently, there are still some raw feelings back in those districts," Hunt said.

"I want to bring it up," Hunt said. "It's wounded, but it's not dead."

Sen. Dan Blue, a Raleigh Democrat, said Democrats were eager to pardon Holden, "to undo an injustice to a Republican governor."

If the Senate does bring the bill back, it will be after a full committee hearing, said Senate Rules Chairman Tom Apodaca.

"A lot of us don't know which direction to go, and we want to be careful," he said.

A backgrounder on Holden quoting white supremacist historians was distributed anonymously to senators yesterday.

Apodaca said the camera in the Senate chamber was not working, so the person or people who distributed papers has not been identified.

UPDATE:

It may be too late, but Holden's biographer sent a statement to the legislature today supporting his pardon.

William C. Harris, an N.C. State University retired history professor, said today's historians of Reconstruction believe the impeachment was "strictly politically motivated and was predetermined once the Conservative Democrats gained control of the General Assembly."

He goes on to give another view of the work of historian Joseph G. de Roulhac Hamilton, whose work was used by an anonymous opponent of the pardon to bash Holden.

White supremacist Democrats used Holden's impeachment and exaggerated crimes of Reconstruction to maintain control and disfranchise blacks, Harris wrote.

"No one was more biased than Joseph G. de Roulhac Hamilton in his book on Reconstruction in North Carolina, published in 1914 at the height of segregation in the South. Hamilton grossly mischaracterized Holden's administration as 'highly partisan' and corrupt, which Hamilton also wrongly claimed, influenced Holden to institute a 'reign of terror' in the state."

Sen. Doug Berger, a Franklin County Democrat and a co-sponsor the pardon resolution, said Senate Republicans are bungling what should have been an easy issue.

"It's a softball piece to project themselves as racially progressive," Berger said. "They're fumbling it."

Three of North Carolina's ex governors have signed a letter urging a legislative pardon of Reconstruction Gov. William W. Holden, who was impeached because he tried to suppress the Ku Klux Klan.

A letter signed by Democrat Jim Hunt and Republicans Jim Martin and Jim Holshouser urged legislative leaders to correct “a 140-year old wrong.”

“Bi-partisan support passage of it will serve the best interests of our citizens by correcting a grievous wrong that occurred during the partisan divides that plagues our state during the tragic Civil War and tumultuous Reconstruction eras,” the governors wrote.

Holden, a Raleigh Republican and a newspaper editor, was impeached in 1871 in a straight-line party vote by Democratic lawmakers after he sent the state militia into Alamance and Caswell County after several Klan political assassinations.

The resolution was introduced by state Sen. Neal Hunt, a Wake County Republican, but has the backing of Democratic Senators Dan Blue of Raleigh and Doug Berger of Youngsville.

Legislative leaders have talked about an ambitious schedule for passing a recession-era budget. Now they've put it in writing.

According to the budget calendar, it will pass June 1 and be on its way to the governor for her signature nearly a month before the fiscal year ends.

The House, Senate, and compromise versions of the budget will be published three days before scheduled votes.  The House vote is scheduled April 22, the Senate vote for May 13, and the final votes for June 1.

Budget subcommittee chairmen got their marching orders this morning for putting together their pieces of the puzzle.

Some of the rules:

No "expansion items," which essentially means no new programs.

No negative reserves and no "management flexibility." Sen. Neal Hunt, one of the lead budget writers, said they want subcommittees to say what cuts they're proposing.  

No special provisions that spend money or change policies or laws, unless the changes are directly connected to the budget.

Republicans are generaly pro-privatization, but a couple of their key decision-makers aren't so sure about selling the ABC system.

The state is considering getting out of the liquor business, where a state commission operates a warehouse and liquor is sold from local government stores. The move to sell the operations is triggered by the state's need to raise money and county ABC board scandals.

Those who want the state to keep control argue liquor revenue is among the highest in the country, while per capita consumption is low. The ABC system turns over millions of dollars to the state and local goverments each year.

House Majority Leader Paul Stam, who is rarely ambivalent about anything, said he hasn't drawn any conclusions on selling the system.

"I feel very strongly on both sides," he said.

State Sen. Neal Hunt, a future budget writer, said selling the system would be a "one-time fix," raising money in one year while losing out on future revenue.

"When you've got something that's working well, why change it?" he asked.

The main budget-writing team in the state Senate will include two Republican legislators from Wake County.

Sens. Richard Stevens of Cary, Neal Hunt of Raleigh, and Pete Brunstetter of Forsyth County will be chairmen of the Senate Appropriations Committee next session, likely future Senate leader Phil Berger announced this morning.

Stevens was considered a front-runner to make it on the team because he has experience writing the education budget.

Stevens and Hunt are interesting choices, though, because the next budget could include significant state employee layoffs as legislators try to fill a $3.7 billion hole. State employees represent a major constituency for Wake County legislators.

"Fixing North Carolina's budget crisis will require new leaders with conservative principles," Berger said in a statement. "Senators Brunstetter, Hunt and Stevens have the conservative principles and budgeting experience necessary to lead us out of this crisis."

The bill meant to change the state's election law to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporate expenditures sparked a fierce partisan debate in the Senate.

The bill strikes the parts of the state law that prohibited corporate and union election expenditures. Those prohibitions are now unconstitutional. The bill also requires corporations and unions to disclose their activities.

First, Sen. Neal Hunt, a Wake County Republican, moved to exempt nonprofit, 501(c)3 corporations from the requirement, since as Hunt said such corporations are prohibited by federal law from engaging in electioneering.

Sen. Dan Clodfelter said that amendment would give nonprofit corporations a license to break the law since they wouldn't have to disclose any information about their illegal electioneering.

Sen. Clark Jenkins, a Tarboro Democrat, raised the stakes with a substitute amendment that lowered the threshold for electronically reporting expenditures from $10,000 to $5,000. That amendment passed, which not only shot down Hunt's effort, but made the requirement tougher on nonprofits.

Other Republican amendments failed until Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat moved to cut off debate.

"We've had enough of this," Hoyle said.

The bill cleared the Senate 28-18.

UPDATE: Post corrects that the lower threshold refers to requirements for filing disclosures electronically.

Charles Malone, a 62-year old state employee active in Democratic politics, has announced that his plans to challenge Republican state Sen. Neal Hunt of Raleigh.

Malone, who has been campaigning for months, said he will stress kitchen-table issues, such as reducing unemployment, small business failures, bankruptcies, and home foreclosures, Rob Christensen reports. 

He said he would work across party lines. “We need a person who will bring a new perspective to the N.C. Senate by putting people before political party loyalty,” Malone said.

Malone is the equal opportunity director in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. He has worked in several businesses and campaigns. Although regarded as a swing district, Senate district 15, which includes parts of North Raleigh and Wake Forest, has long been in Republican hands.

Neal, a real estate manager and former Raleigh City council member, has represented the district since 2004, when he defeated Republican incumbent John Carrington in a primary.