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After a raucous campaign season the results are in (almost) and the North Carolina General Assembly will be a very different place indeed. Click here to see the Associated Press election results of the North Carolina Legislative and Congressional races.

It will take a while for the implications of this election to be clear, but here are a few things that we do know about the North Carolina General Assembly:

• The North Carolina House is likely to end up split right down the middle—60 Republicans and 60 Democrats. Needless to say, control of the House is a toss up and who will be elected the next Speaker is anyone’s guess. Look for some very creative deal making to occur.

• In the Senate, the Democrats retained a majority but the margin is much smaller, with 28 Democrats and 22 Republicans (a change from the 35-15 margin before the election). Sen. Marc Basnight will likely stay on as Pro-Tem of the Senate but may find himself having to do more deal making than he has been used to.

• The most striking change will be on the "big" appropriations committees in the House and Senate. Individuals on these committees make the final decisions about what goes in the state budget and all of them are gone. Sen. Lee lost in the primary, Sen. Plyler didn’t run, and Sen. Odom lost his re-election bid. In the House Reps. Easterling, Thompson, and Oldham didn’t return and it appears that Rep. Redwine, who was so supportive of MH/DD/SA budget issues this past year, may have lost his re-election bid.

• A number of key supporters of MH/DD/SAS have returned. Rep. Verla Insko and Sen. Steve Metcalf, co-chairs of the MH/DD/SA Legislative Oversight Committee were re-elected. Most of the co-chairs of the Human Resources Appropriations Committees were re-elected, Reps. Edd Nye and Beverly Earle on the House side and Sen. Bill Purcell on the Senate side (Sen. Bill Martin lost in the primary for a Congressional seat and will not return to the NC Senate). Rep. Jim Crawford, chair of the House Mental Health Committee and Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, chair of the Senate Children and Human Resources Committee also were re-elected. What is not known is whether these individuals will retain their leadership positions on these committees.

The General Assembly will convene on January 29, 2003. But with the close margins and the questions around leadership in the House, it could be quite a while before the General Assembly gets organized, can name committees, and begin its work. They will convene facing a budget deficit that may approach $2 billion. As advocates, we have a lot of work to do to educate new members, encourage returning members, and defend and promote funding for the services that support individuals with mental illness and their families.

Stay tuned. Be prepared. This should be a very interesting session.