Published: Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 6:59 p.m. Last Modified: Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 6:59 p.m.

Potential compensation of the state’s victims of involuntary sterilization is tangled in a web of politics and General Assembly rules, putting its passage in question during this year’s legislative session.

As a result, the budget negotiations process between the state House and Senate may be the best if not only hope remaining for living victims of the state’s former eugenics movement who hope to receive cash payments in the coming fiscal year.

“While this isn’t the most desirable outcome, it might be the most politically feasible one that will allow for its implementation this year,” said Sen. Floyd McKissick Jr., D-Durham, a primary proponent of victim compensation.

In an interview with reporters Thursday afternoon, Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said compensation for eugenics victims likely would be among the issues discussed as the House and Senate meet to iron out the differences between their versions of the budget during the next several days. Among the other issues will be Berger’s controversial education reform package.

The Senate budget passed this week without compensation for survivors of the movement, which sterilized thousands of state residents last century. The House budget included money for one-time, tax-free payments of $50,000 per victim. Questions have arisen in both chambers about whether $50,000 is too much.

Berger said he personally would support compensation for living victims but said Senate Republicans have concerns about the timing and the proposed payment amount. Democrats, he said, had years to pay victims when they controlled the Legislature, in better times for the state economically.

“Never once did they pass a bill,” he said. “Never once did they appropriate a dollar. Why now when we’re in the deepest recession that we’ve seen in our lifetimes?”

It also became clear Thursday that there may not be enough votes in the Senate to pass a eugenics compensation bill outside of the budget process, meaning a special budget provision part of a deal between House and Senate Republicans may be the only option. Earlier this month, the House passed a standalone measure to place about $10 million in a fund to compensate victims but the Senate hasn’t touched it.

Republican state Sens. Thom Goolsby and Bill Rabon both said Thursday that they don’t support payments to victims in the coming budget year.

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