RALEIGH – Both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly seem intent on wrapping up their 2005 session this week, though the House is reportedly willing to stay longer into the week than the Senate, where the leaders are insisting on a day or two only. We know they will convene Tuesday to formalize the election of Democrat June Atkinson as state superintendent of public instruction. We can also guess that there will be bills enacted to form study commissions, make appointments, and engineer “technical corrections” in previously passed legislation.

What is less clear is the fate of several controversial proposals that have passed at least one chamber, and in some cases both chambers albeit in different forms. Either conference committees will fashion quick compromises on these matters, or else they will be held over to next year for final disposition.

Here are some of the issues to be watching in this last – or perhaps merely penultimate – week of the 2005 session:

• Minimum wage. The latest proposed increase in the government-mandated minimum would take it up 85 cents, to $6 an hour. Both chambers have express support for this hike, smaller than two previous proposals. The snag is that the Senate version includes some business-oriented tax cuts that the House probably won’t accept. I’d take the tax cuts without the additional wage regulation, but that’s not really an option. The next-best outcome is inaction, which seems most likely.

• Government gambling. The budget bill contained amendments to a lottery bill that the House passed but the Senate has yet to take up. Right now, it still looks like 26 members against, 24 in favor. Look for last-minute attempts to get anti-lottery members to “take a walk” during the vote, or perhaps even to use surreptitious means to retroactively turn the budget bill into a lottery-creation vehicle. A major ad buy and lobbying push by the North Carolina Association of Educators do not seem to have changed the minds of targeted Republicans.

• Lobbying reform. Both chambers have passed bills. Each contained commendable provisions. The Senate bill imposed a dollar cap on the value of annual personal gifts to lawmakers from lobbyists and a useful constraint on the revolving door between public service and lobbying employment. The House bill has the better disclosure requirement. Here’s hoping that final negotiations succeed with the Easley administration over how the disclosure rules will apply to economic-development negotiations.

• Death penalty. The Senate has previously enacted a bill to impose a two-year moratorium on executions while the state studies the criminal-justice system and devises possible reforms. It was the House’s turn this year to start the ball rolling on a moratorium, but two attempts have failed. It may now come down to a study bill by itself, which would almost certainly gain a substantial majority of members who, among other things, just sick the incessant arguing about the issue. Over the many years the moratorium coalition has agitated, a study could have been completed and its recommendations implemented. Of course, most members of the coalition want to abolish the death penalty, period, so study was never the goal.

Should be an interesting few days.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.