Editor’s note: Smoky Mountain News reporter Becky Johnson spent two days in Raleigh last week covering local representatives at work in the General Assembly. Johnson’s reporting of the activities in Raleigh covers the gamut, from the omnipresent professional lobbyists to citizen groups trying to build support for their special projects, to elected officials trying to juggle dozens of large and small tasks in a day to the passage of the all-important state budget.

It was a big week in the legislative building in Raleigh last week.

The House of Representatives would vote on its version of the budget, prompting a great deal of last-minute wrangling by those who hadn’t gotten what they wanted. The budget is written in sundry committees: education, prisons, courts, natural resources, social services and so on.

It’s past time to keep rehashing the same old arguments about whether having a state lottery is a good idea. It’s on the books and operating now, and it’s impossible to imagine ever going backward.

By Michael Beadle

As the opening date approaches for the North Carolina Education Lottery, local retailers in Western North Carolina are gearing up to sell the first batch of tickets.

At the Cullasaja Exxon outside of Franklin, owner Ronnie Setzer is ready.

By Michael Beadle

The North Carolina Education Lottery might be seen by state officials as a boon for public education, but it’s already becoming a frustration for some school officials in Western North Carolina.

Advocates of charter schools have launched a statewide campaign to correct what they claim is an inequality in the way lottery money will be doled out for education.

North Carolina legislators passed a lottery this year. The revenue will go toward education, with a large portion designated for school construction and capital outlay. While charter schools are public schools, they won’t get a piece of that school construction money, however.