Editor’s note: Smoky Mountain News reporter Becky Johnson spent two days in Raleigh last week covering local representatives at work in the General Assembly. Johnson’s reporting of the activities in Raleigh covers the gamut, from the omnipresent professional lobbyists to citizen groups trying to build support for their special projects, to elected officials trying to juggle dozens of large and small tasks in a day to the passage of the all-important state budget.

It was a big week in the legislative building in Raleigh last week.

The House of Representatives would vote on its version of the budget, prompting a great deal of last-minute wrangling by those who hadn’t gotten what they wanted. The budget is written in sundry committees: education, prisons, courts, natural resources, social services and so on.

Land for Tomorrow is a statewide campaign to raise $1 billion in state funds to preserve farmland and forestland, create new state parks and natural areas, restore historic sites, develop local parks and greenways and protect views along scenic highways.