THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260408
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
Manteo Democrat Marc Basnight brushed aside a Republican challenge and was re-elected as president pro tem of Senate when the North Carolina General Assembly began a historic session Wednesday.
Basnight, a 47-year-old contractor, was re-elected president pro tem over Republican challenger Betsy Cochrane of Davie County 26-23, in a vote strictly along party lines.
Any spirit of bipartisanship in the Senate and House evaporated minutes after the legislative leaders made their acceptance speeches.
After talking since the Nov. 8 election of the similarities between the Senate agenda and the Republican's pre-election contract, and the cooperation he expected to enjoy with the Republicans in the Senate and the House, Basnight and his Democratic colleagues voted to strip power from Cochrane and give Basnight more power over the way business is handled in the Senate.
Basnight said the action to downgrade Cochrane's power was an attempt to preserve an ideological majority on Senate committees, not as retribution against her.
``We believe the majority should be making the decisions,'' Basnight said.
Cochrane, named minority leader by Senate Republicans, disagreed.
She said after the vote that she had anticipated some effort by the Democrats to punish her for her challenge but she was surprised by the swiftness and severity of the reaction.
``I always thought Marc had better intentions than that,'' she said. ``He's shown me a different side today.''
While Basnight was fighting off the challenge by the Republicans shortly after noon in the Senate, the GOP took control of the House.
Rep. Harold J. Brubaker, a Randolph County real estate appraiser and cattle rancher, became the first Republican to be elected speaker of the House since reconstruction in a largely symbolic race against Democrat Rep. James B. Black of Mecklenburg County. The vote was 80-38.
The Albemarle-area delegation split over the vote for speaker. Reps. William T. Culpepper III, D-Chowan, Zeno L. Edwards, R-Beaufort, L.W. Locke, D-Halifax, and W.C. ``Bill'' Owens, D-Pasquotank, voted for Brubaker and Reps. Howard J. Hunter Jr., D-Northampton, and R. Eugene Rogers, D-Martin, voted for Black.
While House Republicans have regularly offered challenges to Democratic candidates for speaker, Senate Republicans have not challenged the Democratic nominee for president pro tem in recent years.
Republicans said privately they decided to nominate Cochrane, in a largely-symbolic challenge to Basnight, after he had rebuffed offers of support from the GOP in exchange for assurances that their members would be appointed to some key Senate posts.
In the Senate, partisan bickering began immediately after Basnight's 30-minute acceptance speech, when Republicans tried to block a package presented by Sen. Tony Rand, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, that will govern the way legislation is handled during the next two years.
One key change gives Basnight more control over the membership of Senate committees and means he will be able to give Senate Democrats a comfortable edge on those committees.
The rules in effect last year gave the minority party in the Senate membership on committees in the same proportion as their numbers in the Senate and gave the minority leader the authority to name the senators to fill those committee slots. The new rules let Basnight determine the number of members of each political party of each committee but still allow Cochrane to designate specific senators to fill GOP slots.
The rules in effect last year allowed Basnight to attend each committee meeting but did not give him a vote. The new rules allow Basnight to serve as a member of each Senate committee and subcommittee and allow him to vote on bills being considered by those committees.
In over an hour of heated debate, Republicans bashed the proposed changes.
``This is a bad way to start of business,'' said Sen. Donald R. Kincaid, R-Catawba, during floor debate over the changes. ``If this is a vision, North Carolina's going to be left in the dark.''
Partisan debate also broke out in the House on the largely-ceremonial opening day of the General Assembly as House Democrats, now a minority in that chamber, opposed the new rules proposed by the Republican majority.
The rules, which will govern the way legislation in that chamber is handled during the first days of the session until they can be replaced by permanent rules, limit members to 10 public or non-local bills during the session and give the chairman of the House Rules Committee more authority in scheduling bills for floor debate on a given day.
``This is simply a way for us to try to control the flow of legislation, not to create a tsar,'' said Rep. N. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston.
The General Assembly which took office Wednesday bears little resemblance to the body of lawmakers it replaced. Republicans hold 90 of 170 seats in the House and Senate to 78 seats for the Democrats. (Races for one House seat and one Senate seat are still undecided and those seats were vacant on opening day).
The historic nature of the day was not lost on some eastern North Carolina Republicans amid partisan debate.
Before the opening gavel, Edwards, the first Republican representative from Beaufort County since Reconstruction, handed out silver-wrapped cigars to his GOP colleagues and relished his party's rise from the oblivion in the back rows of the House to control in the chamber.
``It's without a doubt, the most exciting thing I've ever participated in,'' said Edwards before the session began. ``I'm so excited when I hear them talking about some of the changes they'll be bringing in.''
Meanwhile, Rep. John M. Nichols, a sophomore Republican from Craven County, pondered the changes in the General Assembly while he relaxed in his office, surrounded by photographs of national GOP leader Jack Kemp and U.S. Sens. Lauch Faircloth and Jesse Helms.
``The idea of having my thoughts count means something,'' Nichols said. ``Now I know my bills have a chance.''
Partisan wrangling on the floor of the Senate did not, however, dampen the spirits of nearly 50 residents of Basnight's 1st District who traveled to Raleigh to watch him take control of the Senate for another term.
While Democrats and Republicans slogged it out in the Senate chamber, the opening-day visitors were treated to a buffet of seafood and desserts from Basnight's home district that were laid out on two long tables just off the Senate floor. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, hugs his wife, Sandy, after taking the
oath as president pro tem of the Senate. Basnight held off a
challenge from Republican Betsy Cochrane of Davie County.
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY LEGISLATURE by CNB