Opinions Solons prepare for '86 session RALEIGH - After 24 weeks in Raleigh, legislators no doubt are looking forward to some time at home, at the beach or anywhere else. For many of them, however, there'll be plenty of trips back to the capital before the June, 1986, short session opens. In a couple of weeks, the legislature's "second season" will open as the dozens of study com mittees established by the assembly begin work. No less than 60 com mittees will spend all or part of the next 18 months preparing legisla tion for introduction to the 1987 General Assembly. The growing use of study com missions has sparked a number of controversies. Rep. Martin Lan caster, D-Wayne, for example, said the time demanded by study commissions was instrumental in his surprise announcement not to seek reelection in 1986. Lancaster said the study panels were turning the legislature into a full-time body which working people just could not afford to serve in. Another controversy concerns the money required to run the committees. There will be 17 in dependent study commissions, and they're slated to cost nearly $400,000. The 44 studies planned under the Legislative Research Commission are budgetted at $150,000. Given the expenditure of that kind of money, the value of the study commissions has to be ap praised. Lancaster, in his state ment, noted that their work must often be repeated by standing com mittees of the legislature once a session begins. Several other legislators inter viewed noted that study commis sions are often formed simply as a consolation prize for a legislator who can't get his or her bill through. "They're for bills they don't want to kill, so they send them to a study commission," said Rep. Betsy Cochrone, R-Davie. Sen. Marshall Rauch, D -Gas ton, said, "Sometimes we do too much. A legislator sees that a bill is going to be defeated and rather than ac cept that defeat, he gets it made in to a study committee and that is absurd." But the number of study com missions has grown over the years because they do serve a very useful purpose, legislators say. Cochrane and Rauch, for example, said that the committees are the best way to Watching By Paul T. O'Connor study general areas of legislation like mental health or property taxes. Sen. Lura Tally, D-Cum berland, headed just such a general area committee. "We wouldn't have gotten any of the day care through without the study commit tee," she said of the legislature's major day care changes this year. A study committee gives the legislature and its staff time to really get into an issue. Witnesses are called and they're given enough time to make detailed presenta tions. Staff researchers have the time to see what other states are doing, to find data on what is real ly happening in North Carolina and to read on the subjects. During a six-month session in which a standing committee might only meet for one-hour a week, detailed study is not possible, a number of legislators said. Rep. Anne Barnes, D-Orange, noted that public input is also greater on study committees. Not all the members are legislators. Although there are good ideas behind many of these study com mittees, the usefulness of the com mittees might be subject to challenge. As Rep. Dave Diamont, D-Surry, noted, many of the com mittees come up with grand pro posals and then lack for someone to push them through the assembly. The sponsors may not get reelected or they may find something more pressing. Regardless of their worth, the study committee deliberations begin in a few weeks. Dress For Less.. 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