News

CAMPAIGN FORUM: State House

By Bill Moss, Published: October 25, 2014

Candidates for two state House seats answered questions during a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

The candidates are state Rep. Chris Whitmire, a Republican from Transylvania County, and Norm Bossert, a Democrat from Pisgah Forest, for House District 113, and state Rep. Chuck McGrady, a Republican from Hendersonville, and Shelby Mood, a Libertarian from Edneyville, for House District 117.

What is your stand on Medicaid expansion?

Whitmire: "Not expanding Medicaid was a very thoroughly debated item. We had a system that had tremendous mismanagement and inefficiencies and overruns. At the end of the day to expand a broken system, we can provide access to care in a much better way than what was being proposed. With that, that is probably where ground zero the 2015-16 session will go in terms of health care reform. Yes, we need to get give people access to health care but on the other hand we need do it in a responsible manner."

Bossert: "The Budget and Tax Center here in North Carolina reports that we are going to lose $51 billion of returned tax dollars — dollars that you are already sending to Washington, D.C. The Budget and Tax Center also estimates that this expansion will also grow some 25,000 jobs in this state. That's a lot of jobs, everybody. That's a lot of opportunity for our state. But forget about money. We have an obligation as human beings to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. I support the expansion of Medicaid. I think it would serve our citizens well, especially those making less than $20,000 a year."

McGrady: "The last speaker has stated the Democratic position on this issue and I disagree. Medicaid right now is not completely broken but it's broken and these things don't come freely. The only set of activities that are coming to the General Assembly right now relate to Medicaid. Everyone understands that it's broken. If we can fix Medicaid... then I'd look at (expansion) again."

Mood: "This money that we got from the federal government eventually would have come out of all our pocket. The state's broke. Medicaid's broken. Putting more money into a broken system doesn't work."

Would you be willing to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries?

McGrady: "I'm in favor of improving teacher salaries but I'm going to do it without raising taxes."

Mood: "Absolutely not. I will never vote to raise taxes of any kind."

Whitmire: "This year's significant teacher pay increase, which was the most significant without raising taxes, is the beginning of a framework to make some improvements that began many years ago. In the short of it, our state on the heels of reg reform and tax reform and growing more business and jobs coming here, we can do that and do it right without a tax increase. But yes, teacher pay is something we made a significant first step on in an ongoing framework that we will continue to address."

Bossert: "I think there's some serious issues out there that might not agree with Mr. Whitmire that they did a great job on a pay raise for teachers. I believe it's possible to reallocate the way we spend money in this state so that teaching and education take their proper place in terms of funding. And I don't think necessarily you have to raise taxes to make that happen."

Can anyone cite a case of voter fraud?

Mood: "I'm sure there has been. I couldn't give you an exact one. The real question is, Is voter fraud affecting the outcome of elections? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. No. For the state to chase down 130-year-old voters or 17-year-old voters or homeless voters and try to exclude all these groups, mostly poor and often minorities by the way, I think is really very misguided. I couldn't cite one but let's get back on track. This isn't affecting our elections. It's really just a way to limit the vote."

How many cases of voter fraud have been attributed to students?

McGrady: "I have no earthly idea."

Whitmire: "As far as fraud, do we define fraud as one that's through a conviction or is it one that walks like a duck and talks like a duck and probably is a duck. Here's a couple things to think about. Twenty-eight states compiled this information, and 765 voters had exact match of first and last name, date of birth and the last four of their Social Security number, registered in North Carolina and another state and voted in North Carolina and another state. We also have death records of people who voted after they passed away... There are multiple reasons to give validity and need and purpose to the voter ID and election reform House Bill 589."

Bossert: "I've seen the exact same figures that Mr. Whitmire shared in documents that have been sent out on Facebook and other places. Problem is that since those figures were released there's been an exhaustive effort to find people who have actually committed fraud. You'll notice it's been very quiet in the newspapers. It's been quiet because they haven't really found evidence of people who were cheating. This business about voter fraud is a joke. It is not happening and there is no evidence of it that demands the kind of attention that some of these folks want to pay to it."

What is your opinion on Common Core?

Mood: I completely oppose Common Core. Common Core is a classic example of bureaucrats telling teachers how to run their classrooms, what books to use, what to teach. If we want to get the most out of our teachers — and we want to get the most out of our students as well, we really need to free the chains of iron dictators and allow them to approach students with materials and knowledge of their choosing instead of politicians from Washington dictating to us what action is and isn't important."

Bossert: "Common Core is not a curriculum, that's No. 1. It's a set of standards that were organized back in the (George W.) Bush presidency and put together by business people, by people from university systems and other entities to make our students nationally competitive and internationally competitive. As a school principal and educator, when I walked into a school, I didn't care what curriculum people put into my hands. I said, 'Thank goodness I've got a job, tell me what to teach, I'm going to teach it.' If the state chooses to change Common Core I'm OK with that, I'm not going to lose sleep over that. The state Department of Public Instruction is going to tell me, Here is what I expect from teachers. The other thing I should say is the state does not direct school systems about what materials and what to do with instruction. They don't tell school systems what strategies to use to meet those curricular goals."

Whitmire: "What was passed (on Common Core) was giving the state the latitude to exercise our judgment on what's best for kids, and we'll likely have even more rigorous standards. I don't want to have something that is politicized, where folks are caught in the crossfire. But with that, will we put ourselves subject to interests far away from here and get further and further away from local and state level interest? That's the state (role), and we fixed that in the Common Core bill."

McGrady: "I voted for Senate Bill 812, and we're going through a process right now of putting forth North Carolina standards. We need some standards by which we can compare North Carolina schools to South Carolina schools to Alaska schools to German schools. I think we've done the right thing in reconsidering Common Core as it was set forth but also making sure that we're going to have standards in place."

The average cost of winning most legislative races in North Carolina is now well over $100,000. Are you concerned about the rising cost of elections?

McGrady: "You can't live in Western North Carolina and watch channel 13 right now and not be concerned about the rising cost of elections. They're going to spend somewhere between a half million and a million dollars on one or two House races up in Buncombe County. That's criminal. It's wrong. We don't know where the money's coming from, we don't know what it's going to be used for. Something is very wrong. Unfortunately I would tell you this is not a state issue. This is caused by the federal government and the U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and we're very limited in what we can do. I make between 13 and $14,000. To think that we are going to spend over a half million to a million dollars on several legislative seats in this state, something's out of whack here."

Mood: "I agree with Chuck McGrady completely on what he just said. Look, I'm a third party candidate. This affects me more acutely than anyone else sitting up here. I'm a working dad, trying to put on the table. My campaign account has $200 in it right now."

Whitmire: "In 2012, according to the Raleigh (News and) Observer, I had the biggest upset in the state in the primary. I was outspent 9-to-1. I had to run a very efficient campaign. When it comes to expenditures, whether it's a local, state or national level election, the amount of money it takes to win some of these seats to me takes away from normal people going — whether it's town hall, Raleigh or Washington, D.C. — to actually represent the folks that need it the most. I wish it were different. I don't know if we can fix that."

Bossert: "Yes, I'm concerned about the rising cost of elections. It's one of the reasons I was so disappointed that we did away with public financing for our judges races, which I believe to be totally nonpartisan. They don't look so nonpartisan anymore and I bet everybody in this room would agree with that. I believe we're spending too much money on election. I can tell you that I struggle every day wondering how am I going to get more money to run my campaign, to get my name out there so people can find out more about me and where I stand on issues."