Triangulator

Monday update: Senate Bill 34, the Castle Doctrine makeover covered below, passed the state Senate tonight 35-13. It heads to the House for further debate.

Spurred by the Republican takeover of the N.C. General Assembly, gun lovers are pushing to to loosen a range of state gun laws.

Bills have been filed to expand the number of places people can carry a concealed weapon — including restaurants that serve alcohol — and to ensure business owners can't prohibit employees from keeping guns locked in their cars at work.

But first up is a potential expansion of the state's "Castle Doctrine," which lays out where you're allowed to shoot a potential robber or assailant without fear of arrest.

Currently that's limited to your home. But a bill scheduled for debate Thursday in the state Senate would expand that to your car and work place. The measure, Senate Bill 34, would also shift the legal balance significantly toward homeowners and drivers fending off potential assailants.

Instead of having to show police that someone was actually trying to hurt you when you shot them, the new law would generally presume you had "a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily harm." It also rolls back a "duty to retreat" when your life isn't necessarily in danger, and that has gun control advocates particularly concerned.

Gov. Bev Perdue would keep most of a temporary sales tax increase in place and use other cuts and shifts to protect teacher jobs in a budget she released Thursday.

Now the Republican-run legislature will pick away at the governor's $19.9 billion plan, starting, quite likely, with the sales tax. An extra penny-on-the-dollar was put in place two years ago to help balance the budget, and it's supposed to expire later this year. Perdue proposed leaving three quarters of that penny in place, giving the state $826 million in the coming year.

Perdue said she'd use that money to avoid cutting any state-funded teaching jobs in K-12 schools. But legislative Republicans campaigned on a promise to let this tax increase sunset, and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger quickly accused the governor of "breaking her promise to end the taxes she raised."

The governor's budget does cut 10,000 state jobs across a variety of departments. But only about 3,000 of those positions are currently filled, according to Charlie Perusse, the governor's budget director. The state will also offer $10,000 and $20,000 early retirement incentives to nudge higher-paid employees into retirement and there's $30 million included in the budget to pay severance costs.

Though teaching jobs appear to be protected, K-12 schools are not held harmless. There are continued cuts for textbooks, teacher training and school technology purchases. Funding for school clerical and custodial positions would be cut by 15 percent, potentially eliminating some 1,700 positions. Dropout prevention grants would be eliminated. The state wouldn't buy any new school buses, saving $56 million, and it would shift other costs to local systems as well, including worker's compensation responsibilities.

Combined, these cuts could push local systems to shift millions around in their own budgets, potentially affecting teachers. They could also raise local taxes or simply go without new computers, buses and some jobs.

Gov. Bev Perdue promised Monday not to cut a single teaching job in the budget she'll roll out later this week. She also called for a corporate tax cut and new statewide scholarships for two-year college degrees.

Perdue, in her state-of-the-state address, didn't say how she plans to pay for all that, though she did promise her new budget will recommend shedding "thousands and thousands" of state jobs. She also lowered the state's expected budget deficit for the coming year, which will provide some budgetary relief if the new estimate proves accurate.

Last week that projected deficit went from $3.7 billion to $2.7 billion on the strength of higher revenue projections and spending cuts. Now it's $2.4 billion, Perdue said Monday, without explaining the change.

Details on the governor's various proposals will come Thursday, when Perdue's fiscal 2011-12 budget is released, the governor's office said. But Republican leaders in the House and Senate — who will likely overhaul that budget before sending it back to the governor — questioned Monday how Perdue can pay for her promises without raising taxes.

"Great ideas," said Speaker of the House Thom Tillis. "It's all a matter of where's the money now."

That aside, Republicans heard a lot they wanted to hear from the Democratic governor Monday. They've complained for years about the state's corporate tax rate, which Perdue said is the highest in the southeast, even though North Carolina routinely ranks near the top in annual lists of business-friendly-states.

Cutting the rate from 6.9 percent to 4.9 percent in the coming budget would make it the southeast's lowest, Perdue said.

It's not yet known, though, how much revenue that would cost the state, a Perdue spokeswoman said after the governor's speech. There's also no word yet whether Perdue wants to extend temporary tax increases put in place two years ago to help balance her new budget.

Perdue has hinted that she might back such an extension, though Republicans controlling both the House and Senate have said they won't go along with that. Tillis and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger reaffirmed that after the governor's speech Monday evening.

In her speech, the governor also:

• Promised not to cut a single state-funded teacher or teacher's assistant position in her coming budget. She also said the state will demand quality from teachers and administrators "or we will replace them." The details of that process are not set, but there were some new teacher evaluation proposals included in the North Carolina's "Race to the Top" application, which won the state some $400 million in new federal education funds.

• Proposed free two-year job training or college degrees for any North Carolina high school student that signs up for a new "career and college promise" program and meets academic requirements. This would build on an unimplemented proposal the governor put forward during her 2008 gubernatorial campaign.

• Said her budget would shed "thousands and thousands" of state jobs. Early retirement packages will be offered to "as many as a thousand" state employees, she said. The budget would consolidate 14 state agencies into eight, as Perdue has previously announced, and privatize some services. Perdue did not name those services Monday, but has previously said the state's technology functions could be privatized. Perdue said her budget would also continue the state's current hiring and salary freezes, with exceptions for "critical" jobs.

With the GOP controlling the state legislature, House Majority Leader Paul "Skip" Stam's bill laying out $2,500 tax credits for families who sent their kid to private school might seem like easy legislation to pass. Especially since it only applies to families making less than $100,000 a year.

Legislative support for this bill has been assumed to the point that attention has turned to whether or not the House and Senate will be able to override an eventual gubernatorial veto on the bill.

But not so fast. The bill is in committee, and will make it to the House floor for a vote, Speaker of the House Thom Tillis said today. But Tillis also noted that the scope of Stam's bill is different than a similar tuition tax credit bill last year, and that the scope will be discussed.

Tillis, addressing my question on the bill today during a press conference, then moved to other questions without elaborating.

If the bill clears the House, it heads to the Senate, where state Sen. Tom Apodaca chairs the rules committee. He is, as The News & Observer puts it, "the person who helps decide where bills go — whether they live or die."

And here's what Apodaca said about Stam's bill earlier this week:

"I don't know how far that's going to go. ... It hasn't crossed my radar. Not like the Charter Schools (bill)."

Stam confirmed that, saying he hasn't pitched the bill to senators.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said he'd wait to see "if it comes out of the House," and noted that he has "in the past been supportive of scholarships in limited circumstances." But that means scholarships for at-risk students, not a broader tax credit that many public school supporters see as a nose-under-the-tent measure meant to pave the way for full-blown private school vouchers.

So it is indeed to early to tell on this measure, but the lack of full-throated leadership support on an issue that is generally a hallmark of Republican education policy is worth noting.