State

The Last Time They Net On Saturday Our Constitution li;i«l snid I ho (icncral Assembly would moot six days a work, and so tlic\v did— in «1 wav— until Ilia! memorable «lav in 1971. By JACK AIMS Almost every session ol the North Carolina General Assembly discusses ways to make the sessions shorter, and the 1987 legislature has seen a bill in¬ troduced to limit the legislative week to three days— Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday— eliminating the typical short meetings on Monday evenings and Fri¬ day mornings. Historically, the sessions were much shorter than they have been in the last couple of decades, but the weeks were longer, running to a full six days. The main reason for the long weeks was a practical one. Poor roads and transportation systems made it so dif¬ ficult for the members to go hack and forth between their homes and the capital that when they came to a ses¬ sion. most simply stayed in Raleigh un¬ til adjournment. But the State Constitution of 1868 also mandated that the Assembly meet Monday through Saturday, so even after roads, bus and rail connections improved, the legislature continued to have six-day weeks, at least officially. They also, however, managed to have something approaching three-day weekends. The members did not meet Mondays until nighttime, went home early on Fridays; and on Saturdays, solitary members of the local Wake County delegation formally convened the House ami Senate, and then quickly ad¬ journed them and went home again. The Constitution Revised It was the major 1971 revision of the Constitution that put the Assembly's schedule fully into the hands of the Assembly, and on June 26 that year the last token Saturday session was held, five days before the new Constitution went into effect. ‘*1 saw it begin and I want to see it end.” said Secretary of State Thad THE STATE. APRll 1987 Eure, who was in the House chamber in the eight-year-old State Legislative Building to witness the last Saturday "session." "I wouldn't have missed this. I've watched these Saturday sessions now since 1925 and that's a mighty long time ago." Eure said from the House floor. He was sitting in Seat No. 6. the seat he had occupied in the old House chamber in the State Capitol in 1929 when he was the representative from Hertford County. Five of the 120 incumbent represen¬ tatives were present; three clerks, in¬ cluding Principal House Clerk Jo Ann Smith; a couple of members' wives, a gaggle of children; the Rev. I). P. McFarland of Raleigh, the Baptist min¬ ister who was executive director of the Christian Action League, who had given the opening prayer, and assorted newsmen. For a Saturday session, it was a crowd. Usually only one representative ami one clerk were there. But the Wake At I he last Saturday session Secretary ot State Thad Eure, "the oldest rat In the Democratic barn" recalled the days when roads were scarce, and legis¬ lators from distant counties seldom went home at all until linal adiournment. In Raleigh, the State Legislative Building was iust eight years old at the time ol the last Saturday ses¬ sion From the 1930 s until the Constitution was re¬ vised in 1971 only token sessions were held on Saturday, and Monday wasn t much busier. House delegation had decided to mark the occasion. Thad Eure Remembers "Back in those days when I was a member, they came to Raleigh and stayed." Eure said. "When my father was in the House tin 1925 and 1927). he only went home once. I didn't go home more than two or three times in '29. "From where we lived, you had to go to Norfolk and catch a train to get here. It was quite an ordeal. Some western members had to go to Atlanta to get a train to Raleigh." In that time, in the 1920s. the Assembly treated Saturday as a full workday, like any other. "Back in those days there wasn't a foot of concrete between there (Hert¬ ford County) and Raleigh." Eure said. "Not a foot. There was one piece of nine-foot (wide) brick road." Sam Johnson, the senior Wake representative, opened the last Saturday session. He suspended House Rule 12(d) because, he said, the absent Rep. P. C. Collins of Alleghany had asked that it be done. That was the rule that pro¬ hibited smoking and Collins had moved its suspension nearly every legislative day for the past 24 weeks. Wake Rep. Bob Wynne introduced two bills, one to update the charter of Wake County Town of Cary . and the other to let police cross the state line when "in hot pursuit" of a felony suspect. It was believed to he only the second or third time in a decade that bills had been introduced on a Saturday. Eure, who was then 7 1 and had been secretary of slate since 1936. was prin¬ cipal clerk of the House for four ses¬ sions beginning in 1931. Weekend Exodus "By the 1930s." he recalled, "we had a few roads in North Carolina and we started having some buses, a verv 9