A coalition of non-partisan, government watchdog groups joined with Republican legislators Thursday to push for televising the state legislature.
North Carolina is among the few holdout states that don't broadcast video of their lawmakers by the Internet or television. (Audio streaming is available on the Internet for House and Senate floor sessions and limited committee meetings.) Two Republicans, Sen. Eddie Goodall, of Union County, and Rep. Ric Killian, of Charlotte, said state government remains out of reach to most North Carolinians.
"My constituents," Killian said, "They can see their school board...their city council...their county commission and...their federal government on TV, but they can't see their state government."
Many cities and counties broadcast local boards and commissions on local access cable channels, and Congress is the star of C-SPAN. A House study commission last year reported favorably on the idea of televising the legislature, which could cost more than $1 million to start up. Representatives of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform and the Sunshine Center at Elon University back the plan.
Connie Book, who heads the Sunshine Center and is associate dean at Elon's school of communications, underscored that televising the legislature, making it more accessible to the public, is more important now that the news media is shrinking and devoting fewer resources to covering government.
"The end result," Book said, "is a lack of oversight."
Update: House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight both said through spokesmen that they fully support televising the legislature but the state can't afford to pay for it in the midst of a deep recession. The House recently began archiving recorded floor sessions on its Web site.
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