Citizens who develop a late interest in this fall's municipal elections across North Carolina will be able to act immediately on their piqued political passions under a new law that has won final federal approval.

The law gives citizens the option of registering and immediately voting at one-stop voting sites during the final days of a campaign. Previously, registration was cut off weeks before Election Day.

The U.S. Department of Justice signed off on the plan late last week, and a brief letter formalizing the approval arrived Tuesday, said Gary Bartlett, director of the State Board of Elections.

Last week the North Carolina Home Loan Protection Act (HB 1817) was signed by the state's governor, a law which impacts some of the core mortgage issues now being debated in Washington.

And what does this little law say? According to the Center for Responsible Lending, the legislation:

1.   Bans prepayment penalties that trap homeowners in high-cost loans.

2.   Requires lenders to document borrower income -- a standard practice by responsible lenders through most of the history of mortgage lending.

3.   Requires all broker compensation to be counted when determining whether a loan is or is not a high cost mortgage product.

4.   Strengthens brokers' duties to serve the best interests of their clients.

5.   Ensures that homeowners have the right to pursue legal actions when violations occur. . . .

Truth is, there is nothing in the North Carolina legislation which would have been anything other than standard practice among lenders 20 years ago: Know your borrower, document loans and don't overcharge.

The new law, says the Center for Responsible Lending, has drawn remarkably diverse support. It says backers include regulators, key industry leaders and consumer groups as well as the North Carolina Attorney General and the state's Commissioner of Banks. Other supporters include the N.C. Bankers' Association, the N.C. Credit Union League, the N.C. Justice Center, the N.C. Council of Churches, and the state chapters of the NAACP, AARP and the AFL-CIO.

However, the North Carolina law presents a "problem" in Washington for those who say that progressive legislation is unwanted, unneeded and unnecessary. Plainly that's not the case in North Carolina, and it's not the case anywhere else. . . .

The North Carolina legislation passed 33-15 in the State Senate, 113-0 in the State House and was instantly signed by Gov. Mike Easley. However, like all state financing regulations, the North Carolina law does not apply to mortgages from federally regulated lenders and there will be extensive industry efforts in Washington to assure that federal rules are not changed to parallel the North Carolina standards.

The argument on Capitol Hill will be that "uniform" lending standards nationwide benefit everyone. The term "uniform" is merely a way for lending lobbyists to mask their true goal, which is to use federal legislation to get rid of consumer protections such as those now mandated at the state level in North Carolina.

The government in North Carolina and the wide array of groups that supported HB 1817 ought to be congratulated. Now it's time for regulators and lawmakers in other jurisdictions to pick up the ball. If it can be done in North Carolina, why not elsewhere?

North Carolina remains 31st among the 50 states in the cost of doing business for the second straight year, according to a new survey.

The Milken Institute Cost-of-Doing-Business Index assigned North Carolina an overall cost index of 90.8, with 100 being the 50-state average.  . . .

The index calculates five factors to create the index, including wages, taxes, electricity, industrial rents and office rents.

North Carolina scores most expensively in taxes at 72.2 compared to the national index. Average wages were $37,000.

Lowest costs for North Carolina were electricity, with an index of 6, and industrial rent, at 3.8. The state scored 18.1 in office rents. . . .

North Carolina ranked 30th in the 2005 survey.

The three most expensive states are Hawaii (1), New York (2) and Alaska (3). Lowest cost state is South Dakota.  

1. The free enterprise system is the most effective and just economic system. Economic freedom is essential to human liberty. Denying economic freedom diminishes individual human dignity.

2. Government ought to provide an unencumbered environment for individual initiative and private enterprise. Regulation and taxation reduce and redistribute income; they do not create it.

An anti-regulatory bias in Washington that has for years starved FDA for funds now threatens to place unhealthy meals onto Americans' tables. The Bush administration cut food inspection money by 5 percent in its 2006 budget, for instance. Since then, there have been cases of E. coli in spinach, salmonella in peanut butter, botulism in chili. In response, the administration proposed a 5 percent increase for FDA in its 2008 budget, but costs, population and imports have all increased. The net effect is a further erosion of the ability to police our food supply.

The latest flap involves 1 million pounds of farmed Chinese seafood suspected of contamination with banned drugs and chemicals. Normally FDA inspects only 1 percent of arriving food cargos, but last summer it had evidence that up to 15 percent of Chinese seafood might be tainted, triggering an import alert that is supposed to mean sampling of all shipments. Since then, however, 25 percent of shipments have not been tested. Most entered through Florida and Georgia ports and may have ended up on North Carolina plates.

A former FDA manager admits "the system is outdated and doesn't work very well." How could it? The agency has 450 inspectors assigned to 20 million food shipments annually. You do the math.

Now FDA's food safety director says it will "rely more on state regulatory agencies and other food safety partners to ensure basic public health protections are continued." Why? Because FDA's limited resources make it incapable of doing the job alone.

It makes sense to coordinate federal and state safety efforts and promote best practices, but this smacks of passing the buck to the states. It's one more variant on the unfunded mandate scam whereby administrations averse to spending tax dollars on needed services devise rules at the federal level that states have to observe ---- and pay for. In this case, it's even worse. The standards will be voluntary. This can only lead to crazy-quilt enforcement with some states doing rigorous inspection and others letting it slide.

Americans shouldn't have to play Russian roulette with their health every time they cross a state line. FDA was created in the wake of tainted-food scandals to guarantee a uniform national level of food safety. Now, in the wake of tainted-food scandals, the response is to devolve responsibility to voluntary efforts by 50 states.

This isn't progress. It's an abdication of responsibility. The Bush administration may have a knee-jerk antipathy to almost all government regulation, but Congress has a responsibility to insist that FDA do the job for which it was created and to provide funding adequate to get that job done.