Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510090066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Long
When the revolution came to North Carolina last fall, even its commander was stunned.
Harold Brubaker, an Asheboro real estate appraiser who had spent 18 years as a backbencher in the state House of Representatives, picked up the telephone at 12:30 a.m. and got a two-word summary of the night's election results.
"Mr. Speaker ..." began the voice at the other end of the line.
Not in the North Carolina GOP's most fanciful dreams had party members expected to move in one election from a 42-seat minority in the 120-member House to a 68-seat majority, nor to come within two seats of Senate control. But they did, elevating Brubaker and setting off an explosion of policy changes that could point the way if a similar takeover occurs in the Virginia General Assembly - where Democrats hold slim majorities in both houses and Republicans are pushing to win control in next month's elections, when all 140 seats are up for grabs.
In a six-month session ending in August, North Carolina lawmakers passed $364 million in tax cuts primarily benefiting businesses, the middle-class, and the well-to-do. The cuts were the largest in a single year in state history.
Rewriting the budget, they added $76 million for 2,000 new prison beds, sliced by one-third the education department's administrative budget, and put the brakes on spending for Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt's major initiative for preschool children, called "Smart Start."
They slashed the state fund for abortions for poor women from $1.2 million to $50,000, passed a bill requiring parental approval for underage girls to get abortions, and lifted a cap on the number of inmates in the prison system.
They raised tuitions at state colleges by up to $475 a year, barred school boards from denying students a moment of silent prayer, and enacted a law encouraging schools to display the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
According to an analysis by the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, lawmakers increased education spending only 1.1 percent at a time when other states were raising education spending more than 5 percent on average. Even a priority such as prison construction got a smaller increase - 7 percent - than the average increase in other states - 13 percent, according to the analysis.
"It's changed things drastically here," concluded Ted Arrington, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, noting the changes in the legislative leadership and the flurry of policy shifts.
But Arrington also suggested a second truth: It takes more than one year - perhaps much longer - to alter a state to the point where most residents feel the difference.
"Some things didn't change," he said. "The business community has always been the dominant element in the North Carolina legislature. They're still in control. They just call themselves Republicans."
Ask Wanda Goode, a 37-year-old elementary school teaching assistant and single parent of two, how her life has changed, and she'll struggle for an answer.
"It hasn't hit me yet if they did change anything," said Goode, even though at least one budget change might have affected her life substantially had it been made a few years ago.
Goode lives in a low-rent apartment complex in south Raleigh, built in part through financing from the state's Housing Trust Fund. Before moving there, she paid $420 a month for rent. Now she pays $360. The difference has put a new sofa in her living room and enabled the family to eat out each week.
Last year, the trust fund got a $4.1 million appropriation. This year, it got nothing.
Such savings went in part to finance a package of tax cuts that would put about $260 a year in the checkbooks of a middle-income family of four. An "intangibles" tax on stocks and bonds also was eliminated, giving extra money primarily to retirees and individuals in mid- to upper-income brackets.
"A lot of the benefit of that [cutting taxes] is psychological," said Dan Gurley, who's 31 and single. He works in the travel business in Raleigh and applauds the shift. Even though his own income has risen only by about $100 a year because of the tax cuts, "that's $2 a week more I can spend or save," he said. "Either way, it benefits the economy" when combined with similar savings for millions of North Carolinians.
Perhaps surprisingly, one of the most cautious estimates of the GOP's impact comes from the John Locke Foundation, a 5-year-old conservative Raleigh think tank whose members describe themselves as "unabashed free-market capitalists."
"Those lawmakers who believe in fundamental change did not prevail in this session," wrote foundation authors John Hood and Don Carrington in a summary of legislative activities.
Among the complaints of hard-line conservatives: The state's $10 billion budget will continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate, over the next two years. Even though conservatives fought off a move to reduce the sales tax on food, the legislature left intact corporate income tax rates that are the highest in the Southeast.
Conservatives stopped plans to reduce class sizes in the 10th grade, but they did not stave off funding for a reduction in first-grade class size, from 26 students per teacher to 23.
They did not adopt term limits for lawmakers, as the Locke Foundation advocated. Nor did they approve $1,000 tuition tax credits for parents who send their children to private schools, or provide for experimental "charter schools" with reduced regulations.
And the Senate delayed changes in welfare, partially because a House-passed bill would have counted food stamps and housing subsidies as income when deciding who's eligible for Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Critics said that would have driven thousands of women off AFDC roles, giving North Carolina one of the nation's most restricted welfare caseloads.
"What we don't have here is a George Allen driving the agenda," lamented Marc Rotterman, president of the Locke Foundation.
While Hunt responded to last fall's election by proposing an even larger tax cut than the legislature passed, his overall legislative program runs the philosophical gamut.
After serving two terms as governor beginning in 1976, Hunt lost a U.S. Senate race to GOP Sen. Jesse Helms in 1984. Hunt won a third term in 1992. His willingness to shape his agenda to changing times results in his being labeled a pragmatic problem-solver by friends and a chameleon by enemies.
Nor is Brubaker - whom Rotterman and others describe as a consensus politician - the sort to push the state further to the right than a legislative majority appears ready to go.
The biggest difference between North Carolina and Virginia, should the GOP take control, is that "at the top in the governor's mansion, you have an ideologue, and you're not going to get Allen to back down much at all," Rotterman said.
Another difference is that the Republican Party in Virginia has had longer to prepare. The rise of the GOP in the Virginia General Assembly has been in steady increments over the last decade, allowing for stronger candidate recruitment and broader experience in the legislative process. The ascent in North Carolina was almost overnight.
One result, noted University of North Carolina political scientist Thad Beyle, was that some of the freshman Republicans seemed unprepared for prime time. "Some of the new members are good," noted Beyle. "Some are OK. And some, you ask, 'Where the hell did they come from?'''
There have been perhaps two low points. One was when GOP newcomer Rep. Henry Aldridge, a Greenville periodontist, told a legislative committee during a debate over state-funded abortions for poor women who are raped: "The facts show that people who are raped - who are truly raped - the juices don't flow, the body functions don't work and they don't get pregnant."
Even Ann Landers took note.
Another is an ongoing investigation of allegations that Rep. Ken Miller, an Alamance County freshman Republican, made inappropriate remarks to and licked the hand of a 16-year-old female page.
In statewide elections next fall, North Carolina voters will either endorse the changes or give Republicans a reality check.
Rep. Dan Blue, a Raleigh attorney and the deposed Democratic speaker, says he is praying it will be the latter.
While it's easy in a time of economic plenty to cut government spending, the better policy is to "set aside the seed corn," Blue said. North Carolina should be investing in schools, housing, and other infrastructure needs while the state's economy is strong, he said.
Otherwise, "within the next generation, you're going to start paying the price," he said.
But Brubaker remains convinced that legislative Republicans represent the state's political mainstream. "The people of North Carolina were saying, `Get government off my back,' and we've started the wheels in that direction," he said.
Anyone with complaints that he is moving too quickly or too slowly should remember that there is more to come, he added. "We're not going to make all the change in the first six months."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB