Republicans are in control of the state House and Senate in North Carolina for the first time in over a century. The governor is a Democrat with the power to veto any legislation she finds unacceptable.
That combination, along with a sputtering economy that forced cuts in government spending, led to a historic legislative session this year. The session is not technically over - legislators will return to Raleigh this summer to work on redistricting, constitutional amendments and other issues. But the passage of a state budget and several other pieces of legislation will change how things are done in North Carolina.
But what, specifically, will it mean for North Carolinians? How will they feel the impact of the decisions made by legislators?
We posed those questions to two NC State experts who follow government and politics in North Carolina. We spoke separately with Michael Walden, the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor & Extension Economist, and Andrew Taylor, a professor of public and international affairs, and asked them what they considered to be substantial measures to come out of the legislature.
Both said the results may not be as severe as the heated rhetoric between Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue and Republican legislative leaders might indicate. They pointed out that government had already been absorbing spending cuts over the past year in response to declining revenues and that state and local governments will shuffle resources to mitigate the impact of smaller budgets.
“We’ve actually had to downsize the budget in a gradual way,” Walden said. “Now that downsizing has been codified, or ratified, in the budget.”
But Walden and Taylor also said the legislature made substantial changes, some of which may still be vetoed by Perdue. Taylor said the legislature clearly moved public policy in North Carolina in a more conservative direction.
Walden focused on the budget, noting that spending will be cut throughout government as overall state spending takes a rare dip. Walden pointed out a few specific areas where changes may be more obvious:
The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources took a big hit, with many positions cut and others shifted to other state agencies. The result, Walden said, is that there will not be as much public oversight of the environment. Taylor said that was part of a larger effort to roll back regulations on business.
Consumers will get some relief at the cash register after legislators declined to continue what was supposed to be a temporary one-cent increase in the sales tax. Perdue wanted to keep the tax increase to provide more money for education.
Capital spending - on buildings, roads, etc. - will be in short supply. With the state short of cash, legislators chose not to put a lot of money into construction projects.
Taylor talked about some non-budget items that will lead to big shifts in public policy in North Carolina:
The political process will undergo significant changes as the result of bills requiring voters to show identification, making judicial elections partisan and changing the time allowed for early voting.
Legislators made changes in abortion laws, requiring women to have an ultrasound and wait 24 hours after a counseling session before getting an abortion, and may ask North Carolina voters to weigh in on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.
Taylor said divided government may become a fixture in North Carolina for years to come. He said North Carolina is not clearly a red state or a blue state.
“We’re very much a purple state, something we should get used to,” Taylor said.
(Photo courtesy of Marc Hall, N.C. State Communication Services)
Women from around North Carolina gathered Wednesday at the Jane S. McKimmon Center to kickoff the Family and Consumer Sciences centennial.
The Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) program is a part of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.Begun in 1911, the program began with McKimmon working as a demonstration agent, going into homes of primarily rural women and assisting them with issues like nutrition and poverty relief.
Today the program works through outreach to help families in counties throughout the state understand issues associated with energy efficiency, finances, education, literacy, and health care.
Attendees were treated to a rich tapestry of artifacts that depicted domestic life in the state throughout the last 100 years:washboards, Singer sewing machines, Aristocrat canning cookers and quilts dating back a century.
Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Service, a book chronicling the history of FCS, was unveiled at the event. “The book takes and tells a story from every county in North Carolina,” says Marshall Stewart, program leader for FCS at NC State. “When you read it, you can see the history of North Carolina taking shape.”
The celebration also recognized 25 inaugural members into the McKimmon Hall of Fame, some of whom were asked to describe the program’s legacy.
Judy Mock ’82 EDD: The power of education, particularly for rural women. We enable people to be responsible and raise their quality of life. We’re still tied to our roots. The programs are never going to go away.
Sandra Zaslow ’87 PHD: The foundation is Jane McKimmon and all the people in the counties. It’s always been a people-driven program.And that has continued unbroken.
Juanita Hudson: Everything changes, but it’s a growing opportunity. [FCS] has endured because of the research at NC State.
The program has reached out to North Carolina families since 1911. The program has provided hot lunch programs to rural schools and electricity to rural citizens. It began with home demonstration canning clubs.
Today, the program provides families with information about budgeting, credit use, health care costs and financial planning.
“What families need now is the same as what they needed in the past – credible information and practical skills to improve their economic opportunity, educational excellence, health and well-being, thus improving their lives and the communities in which they live,” said Marshall Stewart, program leader for FCS at NC State. “Families have the will. FCS has the way.”
Two events will be featured at the McKimmon Center.The first event, from 5-6 p.m., will unveil Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Service, a book that focuses on the program’s history and discusses the role of home demonstration clubs in North Carolina counties.
Dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will include a dramatic reading by women in period costume representing four decades:the 1920s, 1940s, 1960s and 1980s.
The program will also induct 25 inaugural members into the Jane S. McKimmon Hall of Fame.
The Krispy Kreme Challenge raises more than $100,000 for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital…Three people are chosen to receive the Watauga Medal, the university’s highest nonacademic honor…NC State premiers new energy-efficient transportation services…NC State assistant professor of materials science and engineering receives a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation…A computer researcher at NC State identifies a security vulnerability in the latest version of the Google Android…An NC State research team creates a gallium nitride (GaN) device, used in power electronics like electric cars, that can handle a lot more power…NC State linguistics researcher uncovers how the Southern accent is changing…NC State research aims to extend the “vase life” of roses with celery gene…
In the Autumn 2010 issue of NC State magazine, we talk with Industrial Extension Service (IES) executive director Terri Helmlinger Ratcliff ’78, ’05 PHD about her organization and what it does. Above is a video that details how IES helped health departments make their operations leaner.
You can check out IES’s research and white papers here and its blog, NC State of Business, here. You also can follow IES on Twitter at @NCStateIES.
The Abstract, NC State News Services’ research blog, wrote yesterday about research led by Ben Chapman, an assistant professor and food safety specialist. The researchers put video cameras in commercial kitchens and found that risky food preparation practices happen more often than previously thought.
Chapman has a real passion for food safety (he calls himself a “nerdy dinner companion”), and he regularly publishes infosheets on food safety. He’s also the co-founder of the always fascinating Barfblog. Don’t worry, it’s way more interesting than it is disgusting. It’s a really accessible blog about food safety that will have you washing your hands a lot more often than you do right now (be warned . . . there is some barfing).
We caught up with Chapman yesterday and talked to him about restaurants and some ways to avoid food poisoning.
What do you look for when you eat in a restaurant?
Living in North Carolina, I look for sanitation grades. That’s one of the pieces of information I look at, [but] you have to put a whole picture together. I check out what people are doing and . . . look at what their practices are. As with a lot of stuff around food, a lot of it is trust-based and reputation-based and experience-based. Every meal I have — whether I make it at home or . . . when I go out to eat — I’m always sort of trusting someone’s not going to make me sick. I definitely look at the historical scores of our favorite restaurants. That tells me more than that 96 or 91 or 94 when I walk in. That’s why I love some of the [systems that counties] have in North Carolina. I can go back and look at inspection reports if I want to know a lot about [a restaurant]. The second thing I do is ask a lot of questions, which maybe makes me a nerdy dinner companion. I’m always interested in hearing what people do for food safety, what they think about it, [how they respond when I ask] about it.
How reliable are those sanitation grades?
They’re not indicators of whether I’m going to get sick. They’re this window into when the inspector showed up. We know from research that when inspectors show up, people do things differently. They try to be on their best (more…)
County extension agents from all around North Carolina pose for a photo in front of Holladay Hall in January 1925. (Photograph courtesy of Special Collections, NCSU Libraries)
NCSU Libraries’ Historical State site has thousands of images in its online database that you can view.
Do you have an NC State photo you think might make a good photo of the day? Send it to us at alumniblog@gw.ncsu.edu!
Virginia Wilson of the Agricultural Extension Service conducts a cooking school for the wives of married students at the West Campus Branch of the YMCA in Vetville. (Photograph courtesy of Special Collections, NCSU Libraries)
North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service’s 
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