• Now that Janet Cowell (at right) has announced she will not seek a third term as state treasurer, possible successors are making their intentions known (or rumored). Among those mentioned are former GOP state Reps. Edgar Starnes (who now lobbies the General Assembly for Cowell) and Dale Folwell; Republican state Sen. Ralph Hise; state budget director Lee Roberts; Democratic campaign attorney Michael Weisel; and N.C. State economist (and Carolina Journal columnist) Michael Walden. Folwell and Weisel have run for treasurer previously. Walden is registered unaffiliated and could not run in a party primary.
• Rep. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston, who’s spent more than a quarter century in the General Assembly and served as majority and minority leader during his tenure, announced he will retire at the end of the 2016 short legislative session.
• Former Wake County commissioner Lindy Brown, a Democrat who served on the commission from 2006-10, may run for the open state House seat being vacated by the retiring Republican House Speaker Pro Tem Paul “Skip” Stam.
• Two-term state Rep. Paul Tine of Dare County, who left the Democratic Party earlier this year and registered as unaffiliated, is retiring at the end of the session. Tine, who caucused with the Republicans, is the only member of the 2015-16 General Assembly who is registered as neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
