The Senate gave final approval Friday to its proposed state budget, setting the stage for what could be some of the most intense budget negotiations between the House and the Senate and between lawmakers and the governor in years.
Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, compared budget negotiations to the NBA playoffs after a long regular season, and those games could be a bit more chippy this year with the loss of Republican veto-proof majorities in the House and the Senate and a Democratic governor eager to finally push some of his agenda through.
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Outside of the Legislative Building, Friday was the last day of the job for state elections director Kim Strach, who was recently pushed out by the Democratic-controlled State Board of Elections for the stated reason of putting more emphasis on elections administration. Strach was a longtime campaign finance investigator, while her successor, Karen Brinson Bell, is a former elections director in Transylvania County.
Bloomberg News reported that Aldona Wos, a former secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, is being considered as the next U.S. ambassador to Canada. Wos, a major Republican donor, served as ambassador to Estonia under former President George W. Bush.
Finally, a federal judge has tentatively set a September date for the bribery trial of mega-donor Greg Lindberg, North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes and two Lindberg business associates.