Day in the life of a legislator

The Free Press shadowed LaRoque for much of the day Wednesday, sitting in on committee meetings, strategy sessions and a session of the full N.C. House of Representatives. What follows is a day-in-the-life account of the workings of the state legislature.

RALEIGH — It’s 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and Lisa Kennedy, legislative assistant for Rep. Stephen LaRoque, R-Lenoir, has already been at work for two hours.

Much of what she has been doing this morning involves answering telephone calls and reading emails from people across the state, responding to her boss’ recent comments regarding the NAACP and his publicized email exchange with an unemployed Goldsboro woman he hired to do yard work at his house for $8 an hour.

“We've gotten nasty phone calls, which are uncalled for,” she said. “It's pretty bad when I get called names.”

Many responses came from the Wilmington area — well out of LaRoque’s district, which includes southern Wayne, western Lenoir and all of Greene County — after the Wilmington Star-News ran an editorial in Wednesday morning’s paper.

“It's clear from the patronizing tone of his emails that he views jobless workers as shirkers who prefer scraping by on a skimpy unemployment check to actual work,” the newspaper editorialized. “That philosophy apparently prevails in Raleigh, judging from bills that would require drug tests and community service work as conditions of unemployment compensation. In other words, if you are among the state's 400,000-plus unemployed residents, you are little better than a criminal or a welfare cheat.”

The Star-News published LaRoque’s office phone number and email in Raleigh.

Kennedy patched through a call from a woman in Wilmington, who told LaRoque over his speakerphone she was willing to do yard work for him.

“I don’t have any problem doing any hard work,” she said.

LaRoque reminded her that his yard is in Kinston — a two-hour drive from Wilmington — but thanked her for her interest.

“We had people sending us resumes asking us for work,” Kennedy said later.

On Wednesday, she showed stacks of printed emails that have come in since LaRoque characterized the N.C. NAACP as racist, after chapter president William Barber accused state Republicans of making war on minorities and the poor with their proposed budget cuts.

The stack of emails supporting LaRoque’s view of the NAACP was about an inch high; there were about five to 10 emails against, and Kennedy said some in the negative stack were duplicates.

Mostly positive response

The Free Press spent Wednesday shadowing LaRoque in Raleigh as he moved from one committee meeting to another, before he spent six hours on the House floor with his fellow legislators, debating a variety of pieces of legislation.

As he moved to and fro in the Legislative Office Building throughout the morning, legislators, House staffers, lobbyists and other visitors discussed his comments with him.

“I am so proud of what you said on TV,” one staffer told LaRoque as they got off the elevator.

“We’re all part of one race,” he told her. “It’s the human race.”

Different opinions

Not all of LaRoque’s colleagues were in favor of his recent headline-grabbing actions.

“The NAACP was appealing for justice, fairness and mercy with respect to the budget,” said Rep. William L. Wainwright, D-Craven.

Barber and six fellow activists were arrested about two weeks ago as they staged a protest on the floor of the House.

“They were expressing the views of many citizens of this state who felt that the legislation and budget matters were not in their best interest, and for that reason the characterization as stated by him was very inappropriate and unfair,” said Wainwright, who represents western Craven and eastern Lenoir County.

Wainwright had served as speaker pro tem until this year, when Republicans replaced Democrats as the majority party in the House and Senate. He is now deputy minority leader.

Rep. Garland Pierce, D-Scotland, took a neutral stance on the issue.

“This is America,” he said. “Everybody has freedom of speech.”

Pierce, who has been in the House for eight years, knew LaRoque when he served from 2003 to 2006.

“We’re accountable to the voters, so it’s up to them to judge us on our behaviors,” he said.

House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, acknowledged LaRoque’s actions have been unconventional for a state legislator, but he encouraged House members to speak their minds.

“He had that reputation when he was here before,” Tillis said of LaRoque, whom he called a “bulldog.”

“I was aware of that and still was comfortable with appointing him as one of my Rules (Committee) chairs,” the speaker continued.

A long day

The controversies were far from the top of LaRoque’s priority list on Wednesday, though, a day that started in Raleigh at 9 a.m. and ended about 12 hours later. He also drives to and from Raleigh each day, an hour and a half each way — meaning LaRoque’s legislative days last about 15 hours.

His first committee meeting was at 10 a.m. with the Business and Labor Subcommittee, part of the Commerce and Job Development Committee.

LaRoque and Rep. Darrell McCormick, R-Yadkin, the subcommittee chairman, introduced HB 654, an amended version of the Homeowner/Homebuyer Protection Act, passed last year to protect homeowners and homebuyers by governing real estate transactions more closely to help avoid foreclosure.

LaRoque met with members of the N.C. Real Estate Investors Coalition to hear their concerns before the subcommittee meeting.

Liz Wiederhold, president of the coalition, told committee members the current regulations “have left us basically strangled in being able to do business.”

Al Ripley of the N.C. Justice Center urged members not to support changes to the law, though.

“These protections are very important, especially in the market we have today,” he said.

Harriet Worley, an assistant attorney general with the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office, said any loosening of the protections in the current act “basically provide a road map for scam artists to avoid the act.”

The subcommittee gave LaRoque and McCormick’s bill a favorable report, though, and sent it to the House floor. It passed its second reading in the House on Thursday.

The war room

Back in LaRoque’s office, HB 654 was one of 39 bills he has introduced, written on a whiteboard mounted on a wall.

Each bill was written in a different color designating whether it was in the House — and what committee it was in — the Senate or had become law.

Of those 39, as of Wednesday, 16 had been passed by the House and moved to the Senate, and six more had become law or were set for a voter referendum, such as the Kinston Mayoral Veto bill.

“This is my bill board, or my war board, or whatever you want to call it,” he said.

LaRoque then moved to a strategy session with representatives of eBay and Ticketnetwork and their attorneys, to discuss proposed legislation reforming the regulations regarding the resale of admission tickets.

LaRoque is mediating between groups on both sides of the issue.

Exceptions to the rule

Following a quick lunch of salad and crackers at his desk, LaRoque headed across the hall to another meeting room, where he introduced an amendment to HB 117 before the Public Utilities Committee.

That bill, sponsored by Wainwright and Rep. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston, originally prohibited municipalities from transferring electric revenue to their general funds to balance the budget; the revenue had to be used to pay down debt or lower rates.

Kinston and other cities spoke against the legislation, though, stating it will force them to either raise taxes or cut spending to make up the difference.

LaRoque’s amendment removed Kinston from the bill, and Wainwright later asked committee members to remove New Bern, so the bill ended up applying only to cities in Daughtry’s district.

“It’s going to raise our property taxes, and we need to come up with a better solution other than you can't use any money,” LaRoque said of the transfers.

The amended HB 117 was passed by the House on Thursday and moved to the Senate.

Just dropping by

As the clock ticked toward the 2 p.m. House session Wednesday, LaRoque received a number of visitors at his office, such as Lenoir Memorial Hospital volunteers Barb Paderick, director of volunteer services at LMH, and Carol Cauley, president-elect of N.C. Hospital Volunteers.

They and their husbands were part of a larger group of hospital volunteers from across the state who visited the state capitol Wednesday.

While conservatives such as LaRoque are typically against unions, at least one labor lobbyist maintains a good working relationship with LaRoque.

Suzanne Beasley, a lobbyist for the State Employees Association of N.C., dropped by to tell him her organization and its allies would oppose portions of labor-related legislation LaRoque is working on, portions that would require the opening of state employees’ personnel records.

Beasley said that would expose employees’ personal information to the public.

“That was my heads up that there will be a lot of opposition, and he’s aware of that,” she said. “It’s a professional courtesy; we like to get it from the other side.”

LaRoque also worked with his intern, Teresa Heath, to prepare a speech for him to read before the full House on HB 503.

That bill, which he is sponsoring with Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, would require the State Board of Education to develop nutritional guidelines for “competitive foods,” or foods not purchased by local schools through the federal school lunch program.

It is part of a larger effort by LaRoque’s office to develop a grant program allowing schools in Lenoir and Duplin County to purchase fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers to fight childhood obesity.

Heath, a native of Deep Run and a senior at N.C. State University, prepared the speech for LaRoque.

“I love it,” Heath said of her time in the legislature. “You never know what you’re going to expect. It’s either going to be super crazy, or kind of dead so you can work on things, but overall it’s just super interesting.”

She added: “And every legislator is a different personality and it’s interesting to see them collide.”

The big dance

LaRoque walked out of the Legislative Office Building into the Raleigh heat. He crossed a pedestrian bridge and then walked into the coolness of the Legislative Building and the House Chamber.

There are 120 members of the N.C. House of Representatives who meet daily in a room that boasts golden chandeliers and gold arched doors, plus a vaulted ceiling.

Spectators, including the hospital volunteers in their pink shirts, watched the proceedings from the second-floor gallery.

LaRoque and Heath made last-minute preparations before Tillis called the House to order, rapping an oversized wooden gavel.

The members of the body went on to debate 19 separate bills over the next six hours.

The chiller that served the building’s air conditioner developed problems partway through the session, making the chamber stifling, and Tills announced he was suspending rules regarding dress codes for members, allowing them to remove their suit coats.

LaRoque sought passage of his child nutrition bill, which the House approved 91-24, with two not voting and three absent.

Strange bedfellows

Much of the session was taken up with tort reform legislation sponsored by Rep. Jonathan Rhyne Jr., R-Lincoln.

Members proposed 10 amendments to HB 542; LaRoque submitted two of them.

The first called for a change proposed by Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, the House Republican majority leader and an attorney.

 Stam had previously submitted an amendment to the overall bill that would transfer the majority of punitive damages won by a plaintiff to the state, similar to funds seized during criminal cases.

Punitive damages are currently capped at $250,000 or three times the compensatory damages, whichever is greater.

Stam’s proposal would require 75 percent of any amount of money more than the first $100,000 — which would go to the plaintiff — to go to the state to support education and other functions.

LaRoque’s amendment reversed Stam’s proposal and kept the awarding of punitive damages as it is now.

That amendment passed with a majority vote, despite Stam’s calls to vote it down.

“What Rep. Stam has put on this bill is a 75 percent tax rate,” said Rep. Joe Hackney, D-Orange, the former House speaker. “This simply is very unfair to the person who is spending all the effort (to sue).”

The second amendment he proposed called for a 30-day “cooling off period” following an accident — attorneys and insurance companies would be barred from immediately sending any solicitations to accident victims.

Rhyne protested the amendment, though.

“This is not really tort reform . . . it doesn't reduce costs and it doesn’t make the administration of justice more efficient,” he said.

A number of House members supported it, including several who are attorneys.

But, after consultation with the leadership, LaRoque agreed to withdraw the amendment and submit it as a separate bill.

Legislative session ends

The full session ended shortly after 8 p.m., and many members, including LaRoque and Wainwright, had to attend committee meetings.

“It’s not uncommon around here to put in 12, 14-hour days,” Wainwright said, sitting on the House floor after session.

The chamber was quiet after a raucous session in which members debated bills and talked business with each other as fellow members presented or debated on a bill.

Representatives went in and out of the chamber, worked on their laptops, answered cell phone calls, which they took out of the chamber — Tillis had to rap his gavel multiple times for quiet, after which legislators went right back to talking.

LaRoque acknowledged such behavior is disrespectful, but session is the time when members get work done they can’t do other times of the day.

“I can get a lot of work done in session because everybody’s there,” he said. “I’m up and down all the time but when I go somewhere it’s for a purpose.”

Legislators will put in long days this month as session ends and everyone tries to get their bills passed — two concurrence votes were scheduled for the state budget, one Friday, and one for 12:01 a.m. Saturday, now that the Senate has completed its final budget.

Tillis said after Wednesday’s session, if the budget was passed Saturday, the legislature would have completed a budget “in record time,” and it will then be up to the governor to approve it.

Past negotiations have dragged on well past the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

Back to Kinston

LaRoque, satisfied with a good day’s work Wednesday, made the 90-minute drive back to Kinston.

He said he typically goes to bed after midnight, and sometimes sleeps as little as an hour a night. Thursday, he was up around 5:30 a.m. and ready for another day in Raleigh.

 “I don’t think I know anybody who does it for money. . . . The goal should be to improve the quality of life for the folks we represent and across the state, but understand we can’t do everything for everyone,” LaRoque said.

David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.

Breakout:

The audio of Wednesday’s session can be heard online. Visit ncleg.net, click the link for “Audio
 at the top of the page, then click the link for “House Audio Archive,” then “06-01-11.”