Incumbent Appointee Younts Defends House District 80 Seat Against Watford

One reason Sam Watford is running in the Republican primary for state House District 80 is the controversial manner in which the incumbent ascended to the General Assembly. Former 12-term Rep. Jerry Dockham, R-Davidson, was appointed to serve on the North Carolina Utilities Commission in July 2013. He resigned, and Roger Younts was appointed his successor. Younts is running for re-election.

District 80 covers the eastern portion of Davidson County, and is classified by the North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation as a strong Republican district with 49 percent of its voters registered Republican. Pat McCrory received 75 percent of the vote for governor in 2012, and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney received 72 percent of the vote.

Just 26.5 percent of registered voters are Democrats. No Democrats filed to run for the office, so the winner of the GOP primary would claim take the seat, barring a write-in or unaffiliated candidate in the general election.

Watford objects to the way Younts was appointed. Younts, a 30-year-old former trust analyst for BB&T, is a graduate of Wake Forest University. He was an aide for U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th Distcit, and he worked on the campaigns for 8th District U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest.

Younts also was serving as treasurer of the Davidson County Republican Party executive committee when the vote for Dockham’s successor took place. Younts voted for himself. Two other executive committee members also supported Younts. It upset some Republicans that Younts did not recuse himself.

Moreover, Dwight Story, a member of the executive committee, was out of town on a church trip, but documents show that prior arrangements had been made for Story to vote by phone. When the appointed hour arrived, a 3-2 majority of the committee members present voted to deny Story from voting if he was not at the meeting. Younts was one of the three who voted against Story’s participation.

Younts tends to offer brief answers with little elaboration to questions about his stands on the issues. In some cases, his comments were terse, such as “I oppose Obamacare Medicaid expansion,” and “I am against green energy subsidies.”

Younts said he would like to see a draft of a Taxpayer Bill of Rights before commenting on the merits of the proposal. The so-called TABOR would enact into law a provision limiting the growth of government tax revenues to the rate of population increases and inflation, unless voters passed a referendum to raise them higher.

Younts thinks redistricting should be nonpartisan, currently an impossible task that could be improved upon by empowering legislative staff to draw the maps and then subject them to an up-or-down vote by the General Assembly.

Locally, his focus would be drafting legislation to impose a statute of limitations on how long plans for new highways may remain active. An expansion of Highway 109 in his district has been in the proposal process for years, Younts said, limiting the sale of or development on property in the construction corridors.

“They won’t say where or when, leaving a lot of residents in limbo,” he said.

Asked to distinguish himself from his opponent, Younts said he is much more conservative.

“[Watford] voted to increase taxes. He voted against the marriage amendment. He’s not pro-life,” Younts said. “I’m a strong conservative. I’ll always stand with conservative principles when working on [citizens’] behalf.”

Watford is a three-term Davidson County commissioner, and he had a good showing in a former state Senate District 33 race. A 60-year-old civil engineer, he is the owner of Watford Construction Company. He previously served on Davidson County’s Planning and Zoning Board, and he has held leadership positions with the Jaycees and Shriners.

Although visibly still agitated by the way Younts was appointed, Watford said he is more concerned about pragmatism than esoteric “hypothetical questions.”

Although he spoke twice with Carolina Journal for this article, he has chosen not to answer the overwhelming number of candidate surveys he had received because, he said, issues have to be integrated in greater context.

“I don’t want somebody holding me to something I said on a survey. I can tell when I read a final bill what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said. “I’ve been a commissioner for three years. The people in this district know where I stand.”

Having served as a county commissioner, he approaches state issues from the local perspective. He is aware of the burdens state decisions can impose on counties. He therefore would lean toward Medicaid decisions that would not create havoc with county budgets.

He opposes the idea of corporate welfare in theory, but fears the disruption that revoking a mandate to add more renewable energy to the power supply would cause to those who already have invested in the renewable industry.

“Had I known what I know now, I wouldn’t have voted for [the mandate],” he said. “But I don’t know how we’d backpedal with our landfill and solar farms. There’s no turning back, now.”

Watford supports the continued awarding of economic development incentives to keep the state competitive.

On what distinguishes him from the opposition, Watford said he has age and experience with community involvement. He describes himself as being less partisan than the leaders in the General Assembly.

Younts had $2,697 campaign cash on hand at the end of 2013; Watford had $1,445.

Leslee Kulba is a contributor to Carolina Journal.