The House voted for bills requiring the state to recycle thermostats and prohibiting the sale of lottery tickets at check cashing sites.

HB 1287: Requires the state to recycle items from state-owned facilities that contain mercury, such as thermostats or flourescent light bulbs. The bill requires the state to remove those objects and recycle before demolishing buildings.

HB 1289: Prohibits the sale of lottery tickets by business whose primary purpose is to cash checks. The bill doesn't apply to grocery stores or other similar businesses that also cash checks. The idea, supporters say, is to limit lottery sales in a place that serves people who may have financial problems.

"In these check-cashing places, they sell almost nothing else," said Rep. Ruth Samuelson, a Charlotte Repubilcan.

With state Sen. Kay Hagan touting her bipartisanship, Dome decided to take a closer look.

One measure is the number of Republicans who signed onto legislation she sponsored.

In the 2007-08 session, the Greensboro Democrat was the primary sponsor of 33 bills. Of them, 15 had no cosponsors, 10 had only Democratic cosponsors and eight had Republicans.

But the Republican-cosponsored measures tended to have a number of supporters. Overall, her 83 cosponsors included 55 Democrats and 28 Republicans, or about a two-to-one ratio.

The most frequent GOP cosponsor was Sen. Stan Bingham of neighboring Davidson County, who signed on to Hagan bills on creating license plates for soccer and juvenile diabetes, funding a Triad crime lab and allowing the student member of the UNC Board of Governors to vote.

The UNC bill was the most bipartisan, with 14 Democratic and 15 Republican cosponsors, including Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger and former gubernatorial candidate Fred Smith.

Hagan also had Republican cosponsors on bills on computer equipment recycling, real estate settlement protection, rental car fee reform, and funds for the Children's Discovery Center.

A crop of new laws takes effect next week.

Adopted children will find it easier to get information about their birth parents. No smoking will be allowed inside buildings owned or leased by the state, and counties will find it easier to restrict smoking.

Jailers must ask everyone arrested if they are here illegally.

Bars and restaurants will have to submit a plan for recycling to get an alcohol permit. Lenders will find it harder to issue a shaky loan. Twenty cents from every rabies tag sold will go to a fund to spay and neuter pets.

Anyone running for office will have to answer if they have have ever been convicted of a felony. Lying in the response is a felony. (N&O)

Chris Hayes wonders why he can't recycle at the beach.

In a post on conservative group blog Red Clay Citizen, he notes that vacationers at the Outer Banks don't have a place to put their bottles and cans. 

Here I was in the home county of Mr. Clean Environment himself, Senate President Pro-Tempore Marc Basnight (D-Dare), the same legislator who pushed through the ban on construction of new landfills, and there wasn't a recycle bin in site. Not on the beaches, not at curbside pickup of all those rental houses and condos.  Nowhere.

Hayes said this gives a bad impression to out-of-state visitors, who think they can send their "Yankee trash" to North Carolina's landfills.