THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100527
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
If North Carolina's governor had had the power to veto legislation in the 1960s, would East Carolina University have a medical school today?
Not in its present form, opponents said Thursday of a bill that would let North Carolina voters decide in 1996 whether to give the governor the authority to veto legislation.
But despite this and other reservations about changing the state Constitution, the veto took a major step forward when House members approved by almost 5-1 a measure that could give the veto to the governor by 1997.
A compromise among Republican lawmakers and their Democratic counterparts in the House and Senate - as well as Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. - helped the GOP gain the needed Democratic support to approve a watered-down version of a bill granting the governor the veto.
The House voted 95-19, with four members not voting, on the final reading of the bill.
Eastern North Carolina legislators in both chambers of the General Assembly were split on the measure.
Voting for the bill in the House were Reps. Zeno L. Edwards, R-Beaufort; L.W. Locke, D-Halifax; and W.C. ``Bill'' Owens Jr., D-Pasquotank, and R. Eugene Rogers, D-Martin. Voting against it were Reps. William T. Culpepper III, D-Chowan, and Howard J. Hunter Jr., D-Northampton.
In the Senate, which approved its version of a veto bill over a week ago, Sen. Frank W. Ballance Jr., D-Warren, was the only northeastern North Carolina senator among three dissenters.
On the House floor, Owens spoke in favor of the bill that would let the state's voters decide whether to give the governor the authority to reject legislation.
``We're talking here today as if we were voting on the veto,'' he said. ``We're giving the people the right to vote on the veto.''
``I'm confident that the people from this state can make an informed decision on this issue,'' Owens said.
North Carolina is the only state in the nation that does not give its governor the right to veto legislation.
Proponents of the veto tout the change as a means of holding governors more responsible for enacting their agendas for the state and as a means of promoting more responsible spending by the General Assembly.
But veto opponents say it will not result in stronger state finances and will likely tilt the balance of power away from the people of the state to special interests that can easily gain the governor's ear.
And, in floor debate on Thursday, legislators opposed to the veto said easy access by special interests could result in some unwelcome consequences for the state.
Former Gov. Dan K. Moore, a Jackson County Democrat, said earlier this week that if he had had the power to veto bills from 1969 to 1973 when he was governor, he would have vetoed legislation that created the medical school at East Carolina University in Greenville - today one of the largest medical centers in eastern North Carolina.
Rep. John J. ``Jack'' Hunt, a Cleveland County Democrat and a veteran of the legislative battle to fund the medical school at ECU, said there would not have been enough support among state lawmakers at the time to override a veto by Moore.
Next week the measure will be sent back to the Senate for that chamber's consideration. by CNB