#NCGA: Drive-by disagreement on GOP “chaos”

In this morning’s dispatch from Low-T state HQ, the shih-tzu is lamenting this “never-ending session” of the North Carolina General Assembly.  I am sure the fact that the session has not ended is frustrating to Mr. Drescher’s lap dog and his leftist fellow-travelers. The “chaos” throws a monkey-wrench into the Moral Monday-BluePrint spin about a unified GOP effort to starve children and throw grandmas off the cliff.  

But IS it so unusual to still be in session the first week of August?  WRAL’s Binky — the shih tzu’s regular partner-in-journalistic-tomfoolery — shed some light on the matter: 

A House resolution filed this week forecasts that lawmakers will leave town on Friday, July 25. If that date were to come to pass, it wouldn’t make this session a terrible outlier.

In odd-numbered years, such as 2013, lawmakers start work in January. In even-numbered years, work begins in May for the legislative “short session.” In both cases, there is no hard-and-fast limit on how long they can meet, although a pre-July 4 adjournment is generally considered expeditious. 

Even throwing out 2001, the year lawmakers didn’t adjourn their regular session until Dec. 6, there are plenty of July, August and September dates on the list of adjournment dates.

In 2011, lawmakers adjourned on June 18 but then held a series of special sessions throughout the year, stringing out the work that normally would have been done in late June and July. Last year, lawmakers adjourned July 26.  

Hmmm.  The shih tzu is distressed that the NCGA is still in session. Binky says it’s NO BIG DEAL.

Wow. A December adjournment in 2001.  Which party was in charge then?  Let’s see.   We had governor Mike Easley, Speaker Jim Black, and Senate president pro tem Marc Basnight.  All Dems.