Not to compare Bev Perdue with Rod Blagoyevich, but both have shown how the sudden power of the executive branch can frustrate the legislative branch.

Blagoyevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to Barack Obama’s Senate seat was a stroke of evil genius. The already-arrested, to-be-indicted and probably to-be-removed-from-office governor flummoxed the President-elect, the United States Senate, the Illinois legislature and the U.S. Attorney.

The poisoned tree produced an untainted apple. Then Obama’s old nemesis Bobby Rush played the race card. Burris went on television as the voice of sweet reason. Presto, Senator Harry Reid had to cave in this week.

The North Carolina legislature got the same lesson with Perdue’s first executive orders. At least two of them fly in the face of what the legislature considers its province: Board of Transportation members voting on road projects and a take-it-or-leave-it budget-reform commission.

The orders led Rep. Jim Crawford to fume that the legislature made a mistake giving the governor veto power back in 1996.

Legislators like to say that, while governors propose, they ultimately dispose. But even though Perdue is a product of the legislative branch, she has already shown legislators that she knows the power of executive action.

Legislators who last week were bemoaning Mike Easley’s distant, hands-off style may soon be missing him.

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