Democrats in the State House are crying foul over the way the new majority in the legislature has appointed new members to the UNC system's Board of Governors.

House Republicans elected a new slate of eight members to the governing board Tuesday amid a protest from Democrats claiming the process was corrupt.

As Jane Stancill reports today, the 16 new members of the 32-member board include 13 white men, 2 white women and 1 man of Indian descent.

Seeing no need to cast votes that wouldn't matter, House Democrats turned in blank ballots and later voted "no" on a roll call vote on the list approved by Republicans.

Since members of the UNC board are political appointees, the majority power always has the option of stacking the deck to its liking.

But as we reported last week, previous legislatures have kept some level of gender and racial diversity on the board.

The board is now clearly far more conservative than it has been in prior years. But as newly re-elected board member Brent Barringer points out in today's story, the board has traditionally not operated in a particularly ideological or political manner.

By that, I mean that in discussions of higher education issues - tuition increases, approval of academic programs, the hiring of chancellors - the board very rarely divides along party lines.

In fact, there have been very few contentious, split votes in recent memory.

Perhaps that will change. We'll see.

While the legislature has now made its 16 appointments, not all members will be new. There are several re-appointments, including Peter Hans and Ann Goodnight on the Senate side, and Barringer and Leroy Lail on the House side. Those members have experience with board issues and are up to date on the UNC system's ongoing struggles with budget cuts, clearly the top issue facing the university right now.

Two more of the new appointees are prior members - John Fennebresque and H. Frank Grainger. So it's not all new blood.

Still, there will be challenges. When the new members take their seats on the board later this year, the budget situation may still be unclear. And the UNC President, Tom Ross, is new in his role as well, having taken over at the start of the year for Erskine Bowles, who retired after a five-year run.

Here's the slate appointed by the House this week:

Brent Barringer, a Cary lawyer (re-elected)

Leroy Lail, a Conover businessman (re-elected)

Mary Ann Maxwell, a Goldsboro business owner

Ed McMahan, a Charlotte businessman and former state legislator

Hari Nath, a Cary information technology consultant

David Powers, of Winston-Salem, a vice president with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

Richard Taylor, a Lumberton insurance, real estate and auto dealer

Raiford Trask III, a Wilmington developer

Happiness had a chance to talk to "Dancing With the Stars" pro dancer Mark Ballas today. He's coming to town soon as part of "Burn the Floor" at the Progress Energy Center, for a limited engagement starting Nov. 30.

We talked about that show, but we had to ask him some DWTS questions too.  It's elimination night, after all. A few excerpts from our chat:

On people who don't believe his partner Bristol Palin should still be in the competition: "I don't care what people say. I like to be positive, and keep an upbeat attitude. It's a dance show, not a political argument. Bristol is a 19-year-old, plucked out of Alaska. She's the only one on the show who is not an entertainer. She's the most normal person. People watch and say 'You know, if I was on the show, that's how it would be for me.' I've had people come up to me and say 'I'm 100 percent Democrat and I vote for Bristol because she's the most relatable.'

Here is another installment of letters on the health-care reform debate. The first one is pretty funny, but Mr. Koch already has had a letter in the past 30 days, so that disqualifies this one from publication.

Our Nov. 16 story "Winds of patriotism renewed" brought quite a response from readers. We've run several letters this week, and more will appear on Sunday Forum, Page 17A, this Sunday. Included in these 20 online-only letters and also in Sunday Forum is a letter from Ronnie Chapman, right, the gentleman who was featured on the front page last Sunday and who has been the object of some criticism since.

Every Monday in October, TriangleMom2Mom.com, The N&O's Web site for moms, is featuring local politically active moms who are supporting either McCain or Obama for president. The first mom, Katy Benningfield, is featured today. Benningfield, the mom of a three-year-old boy, is an active blogger and conservative.

Read more about Katy by clicking here. 

Two General Assembly candidates, Democrat Paul Luebke and Libertarian Sean Haugh, face off at 6 tonight at the Southwest Branch Library, 3605 Shannon Road. The public is invited.

Haugh and Luebke are rivals for the House District 30 seat, which represents a wedge of Durham County extending from Walltown west to the Orange County line and from Little River Road south to U.S. 15-501.

Abby Alger, a 20-year-old rising senior at Duke, has a simple political philosophy. She believes there are plenty of people her age with conservative beliefs. They're Republicans, she says. They just don't know it yet.

That's the idea behind her new blog, which she created in an attempt to create political conversation among college-age people perhaps put off by the traditional Republican talking points.

Read more here.