RALEIGH — Two men who call themselves conservatives are vying to represent House District 51, a district that spills roughly equally over the Lee and Harnett county lines.
Democratic challenger Bill Tatum is adamant that “I’m more conservative than most Democrats and some Republicans.”
That’s not the sort of campaign point one might expect a Democrat to make. But that approach makes sense in this contest.
Although the newly drawn District 51 is 42.8 percent Democrat and 32.4 percent Republican, with 24.6 percent of voters unaffiliated, it leans Republican, according to the N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation.
Freshman Republican Rep. Mike Stone won the seat in 2010 by defeating Democratic incumbent Jimmy Love Sr. when the district favored Democrats. Stone also boasts of his conservative credentials to an electorate that is 78.3 percent white, 16.7 percent black, and 5.1 percent “other.”
Stone was presented a “Defender of Liberty” award for scoring 100 percent on the American Conservative Union 2011 State Legislative Rankings, and the Civitas Institute ranked him third-most conservative member of the state House in 2011.
Although he chaired the Lee County Board of Education for six of his eight years of service, Tatum said education reform was not his top priority for the General Assembly.
“No!” he said emphatically. “The economy is job one.”
With unemployment at 12.7 percent throughout his district, he is passionate about getting people back to work, he said. He faults his opponent for talking the talk but doing nothing during his tenure to get the economy humming.
Stone, who described himself as “an entrepreneur and small business owner,” disagreed, referencing his support of a House bill creating a tax exemption on the first $50,000 in net income to spark private-sector job creation.
If elected, he said, he “will continue to get rid of unnecessary regulations that hurt job growth and small business.” In his next term of office, he would like to simplify the tax code, working toward the ultimate elimination of corporate and, perhaps, personal income taxes.
The candidates disagree on the impact that targeted tax breaks and other economic development incentives would have on job creation.
Stone said there is no statistical correlation between positive economic indicators and government incentives, a word he believes to be a misnomer. He argued if government were to “get out of the way and stop the immature process of picking winners and losers, we wouldn’t have to apologize for high taxes and unemployment by using incentives.”
Tatum doesn’t think fiscal conservatives’ arguments against the practice are correct. He doesn’t view the subsidies as shifting the tax burden disproportionately onto full payers. Yes, they are tax breaks, he said, but “John Deere came here and created 700 jobs, and my tax bills didn’t go up one penny the entire time.”
If elected, he said, he is committed to doing about anything to get the people back to work.
Neither candidate claims to be a fan of big government.
Tatum, a retired businessman, claimed experience working with tough budgets. He is interested in cutting government waste and right-sizing its operations, noting state government has not undergone a structural overhaul since 1977.
In spite of support for government incentives, he acknowledged it is ultimately the private sector that creates jobs. Government, he said, can only help by developing fair policies that are competitive with those of other states.
While serving in office, Stone supported bills that would require 65 percent of school funds to be used in the classroom, resist the implementation of Obamacare in the state, and restrict the use of eminent domain and involuntary annexation.
He also supported measures to rein in state spending, terminate the land transfer tax, reduce corporate income taxes, and cap the gas tax. He has a tendency to support bills in tune with the concepts of protecting the rights of the innocent while getting tough on those who violate them.
Last year, Stone received substantial media coverage for publicly airing outrage over a letter written by his 8-year-old daughter as a classroom assignment in support of more education funding.
“I don’t know that at any time we should use our third-grade students as lobbyists,” he said at the time, further stating it was “unconscionable” to pit a daughter against her father for political purposes. The letter read: “Please put the budget higher dad.”
The school superintendent reportedly responded by telling Stone, “If you’re not interested in receiving letters from people in your district, don’t run for public office.” Many similar letters were sent from classrooms across the Lee County School District to state lawmakers and Gov. Beverly Perdue.
Tatum had a different take from his view as Lee County school board chairman.
“It was just that. A story,” he said. Tatum said there was no intention for those letters to ever leave the classroom, and Stone’s wife came to school leadership to apologize.
On broader education issues, both candidates support localizing classroom control. For example, Stone would support legislation to create more charter schools, and Tatum is open to the idea.
While serving on the school board, Tatum supported several innovative, rubber-meets-the-road academic initiatives, and he definitely supports increasing school funding, he said. Stone, however, said, “students have fallen behind under three ‘education governors’” who called for more spending.
Leslee Kulba is a contributor to Carolina Journal.