Politics

GOP takeover benefiting Henderson County

In the glare: Governor's office letter editing cast Sen. Tom Apodaca into role of investigator, attracted coverage from Raleigh press corps..

By Bill Moss, Published: July 3, 2012

RALEIGH — Tom Apodaca is headed into a high-profile scene.

As chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, he would, in about an hour, lead the questioning of a top aide to Gov. Bev Perdue, who had been caught faking a letter from a state highway official to try to steer money to two turnpike projects Perdue favored.
It was the Raleigh scandal of the week, and all eyes would be on Apodaca and his committee. You wouldn't know it from his easy manner. He had the same air he's always had. He doesn't scare easy. A former bail bondsman, he's used to lawyers and liars and hucksters, and there is no shortage of those in and around the state Legislature.
He might have been gone by now if not for the 2010 election. That November was a historic high-water mark. North Carolina voters handed Republicans decisive control of the state House and Senate. The stunning victory, coming as it did in the election before the decennial redrawing of the legislative boundaries, sets up the GOP to retain power for years to come.
Apodaca, who was a deputy leader of the minority Republican caucus in the state Senate, became Rules chairman in January 2011, vaulting him into the second or third most powerful position in Raleigh. As the chief traffic cop controlling the flow of legislation onto the Senate floor, Apodaca says what bill has a chance to become law and what goes into legislative purgatory, technically alive but practically dead.
His role subjects him to constant beatings from interest groups, he says, but he says so with a chuckle. It would be a hard to invent someone better equipped to take a pounding. Barrel-chested with a cop's haircut and a gleam in his eye, he is more prone to make a wisecrack and slap your back than to snarl. He learned a lot, he said, from Tony Rand, the last Democratic rules chairman and a master legislative strategist. Rand may have been hyper-partisan, and fiercely loyal to longtime Senate leader Marc Basnight, but he didn't make enemies of the other side.
A gun rights group that wants the Legislature to take up a bill allowing guns in restaurants has flooded Apodaca's Senate office with letters and emails. He brushes them aside.
"I told 'em they've gotten more Second Amendment rights in the past 24 months (of Republican power) than in the last 24 years," he said.
He settles back in his chair and takes about a half-second to reflect. "I'm working harder than I've ever worked in my life," he says. "I was on the back row for eight years. It's been a lot more fun the last two."

Landing Sierra Nevada
Fun is not the whole game, though Apodaca is the first to admit there is no small amount of blood sport to legislative politics.
He points to the accomplishments he's been able to make from a position of power. He and state Rep. Chuck McGrady, his House counterpart from Henderson County, were able to work quickly during a special session last November to make changes in state law that the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. wanted it committed to building a $107 million brewery in Mills River. A graduate of Western Carolina University and former trustee there, he helped land a WCU engineering branch at Biltmore Park. He was able to make sure that the TVA and the Appalachian Regional Commission included Western North Carolina in grants.
"Tom in the Legislature is Henderson County's voice in really every important decision that will be made in the state," says his longtime friend Peter Hans, who was just elected chairman of the UNC Board of Governors. "He has the ability to get things done that'll make a difference for Western North Carolina. I don't think people could ask for a better regional and local advocate than Sen. Apodaca."
As the state population continues to shift to urban areas of the Piedmont, "their influence is only going to grow," Hans says. "To have Tom in a position of leadership to make sure that Western North Carolina gets remembered will be important."
McGrady is a freshman House member but one with a deeper knowledge of legislative politics than your average rookie. A lawyer and a former national president of the Sierra Club, he helped get major projects done on the Henderson County Board of Commissioners that had been stalled for years. He won election without opposition when he filed to run for the seat that Carolyn Justus vacated in 2010.
McGrady says there's no question that the power shift has worked to the benefit of Henderson County.
"We've had a very successful term," he said. "Every bill that was sought either by Henderson County or the municipalities have all been introduced and passed. We find ourselves in a very different position than Tom and Carolyn found themselves in two years ago."
McGrady recalled that he and Apodaca first began working on a bill to allow Southern Appalachian Craft Brewery in Hendersonville sell beer without having to be a private club. Suddenly a small change in state alcohol law became a much more urgent project with huge stakes. The change, allowing the breweries "to operate in ways that are consistent with how they operate in other places," helped bring Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and the Oskar Blues breweries to the region, McGrady said.
"I think it's good for Henderson County that when Henderson County and the municipalities are seeking legislation to assist them or address some issue we've been successful in doing that," he said.

Vote count is secure

Apodaca, surrounded by print and broadcast reporters, is giving a post-game interview about the Rules Committee questioning of the Perdue aide. He patiently answers, finds a way to inject some humor into the back-and-forth, eases out of the cluster and heads for his next task. He has to orchestrate the flow of legislation on the Senate floor.
From his desk at the front of the chamber, Apodaca half listens as state Sen. Martin Nesbitt warns the Senate chamber of the bad precedent it is about to set.
Apodaca is the Senate sponsor of a bill that will strip the city of Asheville of its authority to regulate zoning and building at the Asheville Regional Airport, the airport that Asheville city voters had started with a bond issue decades earlier.
Apodaca, and the House sponsors of the bill, McGrady and Tim Moffitt of Asheville, have talked about regional cooperation, Nesbitt says.
"You don't encourage cooperation by taking what the other fella has," he says, referring to a part of the bill that forces Asheville (and Henderson and Buncombe counties) to cede property to the new independent airport authority. "This is a terrible precedent for us to set."
And the airport is just the beginning, he goes on. Nesbitt next attacks a House study committee that looked last summer at a regional takeover of the Asheville water system.
"You know what that does to people? How comfortable would you feel if I brought two or three guys over to your county and started talking about what I was going to do with your water system," Nesbitt says. "It scares 'em to death. They've fought wars over this stuff."
Apodaca doesn't flinch. He could sit calmly because of where he is seated. It doesn't really matter how threatening Nesbitt makes the airport sound, how unfair he says it is to Asheville.
"This idea was brought to us by the (airport) authority," Apodaca replies calmly. Apodaca and the House sponsors say the legislation is not the big power grab that Nesbitt depicts. Modern airports are totally controlled by the Federal Aviation Administration, they say, and cities and counties have little influence.
The Airport Authority will be made up of two members each appointed by the Asheville City Council, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and the Henderson County Board of Commissioners, with a seventh appointed by six-member board.
"Five of the seven would be Buncombe County residents," Apodaca says.
He finishes by telling his colleagues that he would urge their support of the bill, and of course they do. The 11 no votes won't matter. Apodaca's Republican colleagues know better than to embarrass him by voting no on a local bill, however vigorously Nesbitt denounces it as an illegal taking of property. What matters is that Apodaca controls the spigot that lets their bill reach the floor.
John Hood, the president of the conservative John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, has observed the power shift and Apodaca's rise.
"Whenever you've got a powerful member of the Legislature who represents your community, that's going to be a net plus," he said. "With Sen. Apodaca playing such a critical role in leadership that clearly redounds to the benefit of Henderson County and the surrounding communities."