THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508060018
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
When state legislators left town last weekend, they ended a historic 188-day session that saw North Carolina's state government shift substantially to the right.
Amid repeated questions about the GOP's readiness to lead the state legislature, Republican Harold J. Brubaker, a Randolph County real estate appraiser and cattle rancher, took control of the House as speaker. He ended a century of Democratic domination of that chamber and promised the ``dawn of a new day in North Carolina.''
Brubaker and House Majority Leader N. Leo Daughtry, a Johnston County Republican, kept a tight rein on the chamber's 68 Republicans and powered through most of the items on the Republican contract with North Carolina and many issues promoted by the party's extreme right.
And as a result, North Carolina women will find it harder to get abortions; the state's governor is on the verge of gaining veto power; more North Carolina residents will be able to carry concealed weapons; schoolteachers, in sex education classes, will emphasize abstinence before marriage and, in the lower grades, teachers will instruct their students on weapons safety.
``We came to town with an agenda. We delivered on that agenda,'' Brubaker told reporters after the legislature adjourned last week.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Dare County's favorite son, Marc Basnight, kept control of a two-vote majority and held that chamber's Democrats together as tightly as the House Republicans.
``We prepared ourselves well,'' Basnight, the president pro tem of the Senate, said last week. ``We agreed that we would work together as a unit on issues that we thought were right.''
Basnight and the Senate led the call for education reform - in his remarks to the Senate on opening day of the session, he proposed a 50 percent cut in the Department of Public Instruction - a plan that was approved, with modifications, by the House. And in one of its first moves, the Senate, as it had done several times earlier, approved a bill calling for a referendum on the gubernatorial veto.
``The session represented a shift in the House leadership to the right,'' Basnight said. ``I believe the Senate was already there.''
But as the House Republicans began to move on their conservative agenda, the state's moderates and liberals looked to the Senate for help in modifying some of the GOP's proposals.
The Senate eased proposals that would have mandated a moment of silence in the state's schools, required schools to display the flag and school students to recite the pledge of allegiance - all of which probably would have been challenged in court. And some of its members worked to modify a bill requiring minors to get their parents' consent to have an abortion.
Despite often intense political pressure from the far right, the Senate tempered these and other Republican measures.
Besides a record number of Republicans, the General Assembly had a large number of freshmen legislators: In the House, 33 freshmen legislators took the oath of office in January, while in the Senate, 12 newcomers joined the ranks.
And occasionally during the session, those freshmen stumbled.
Republican freshman Rep. Henry Aldridge, a Greenville periodontist, made national headlines early in the session when he said during a discussion of the state's abortion fund that women who are ``truly raped'' don't get pregnant.
And another freshman, Republican Rep. Ken Miller of Mebane, a marketing director, also made national headlines when a female page from Johnston County said Miller had made unwanted sexual advances toward her.
Perhaps the state politician most affected by the changes in the legislature was Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.
For the first time in 10 years as the state's chief executive, Hunt, a Democrat from Wilson, found himself in the unfamiliar role of relying on Republicans to pass his legislative agenda. And for a while, Brubaker skipped the traditional once-a-week breakfast with Hunt and Basnight, saying the meeting wasn't productive.
In a statement released from Raleigh last week, Hunt said that while the 1995 General Assembly made some important progress on his proposals to provide tax relief for working families, fight crime and help children and families, the lawmakers didn't do enough.
``In my State of the State address . . . I issued two challenges to the legislature,'' Hunt said. ``I challenged them to cut taxes, fight crime and help children. And I challenged them to put people before politics.
``Democrats and Republicans in the legislature have worked together in these areas, but they could have done better,'' Hunt said.
For Basnight, the greatest disappointment of the session was the granting of only a 2 percent raise for state employees. A Senate proposal to also grant a one-time bonus was turned back by the House.
But Basnight said there were victories as well: A funding package for the state parks system, public education reform that will turn more control over public schools to local school boards, and funding victories for the state's university system.
Still, after the Republicans left their stamp on state government in 1995, life around the legislative building in Raleigh and in state politics will never quite be the same again, Basnight said.
``It's a new time in politics in North Carolina,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Dare County's favorite son, Marc Basnight, kept control of a
two-vote majority and held that chamber's Democrats together.
by CNB