The May 8 primary is winner-take-all for Republican candidates vying for the N.C House District 59 seat.
That’s because during last year’s redistricting, district 59 was redrawn to favor Republicans. The current representative, Democrat Maggie Jeffus of Guilford County, was drawn into the same district as Rep. Pricey Harrison, also a Democrat from Guilford County.
Jeffus did not wish to oppose Harrison in a Democratic primary, so she announced earlier this year that she would not seek re-election. No Democrat filed to run in the redrawn 59th District. As a result, the winner of the Republican primary will take the seat.
Three candidates are competing in the primary: Jon Hardister, Sharon Kasica, and Timothy Cook.
Both Hardister and Kasica are Guilford County natives who operate small family businesses.
Hardister is vice president of his family-owned mortgage business, First Carolina Mortgage, while Kasica is owner of Kasica Healthcare Solutions, which, according to her website, “provides strategic solutions on healthcare efficiencies.”
Both candidates are running on strong conservative platforms. According to his website, Hardister says he will “oppose wasteful spending and work to lower the tax burden on our citizens.” Ways to create growth, opportunity, and jobs in North Carolina include zero-based budgeting, reforming the tax code, and legislation to cap state spending at the rate of population growth and spending, Hardister said.
Kasica’s issues include reducing corporate taxes and regulation to attract employers, reducing state and local taxes for individuals and small businesses, and reducing the size of government through restructuring and improved efficiency.
Republicans took over the General Assembly after the 2010 election and have enacted many-business-friendly reforms. As a result, a pressing question for many Republican voters is what potential lawmakers would do to make the legislature even more business friendly.
“The Republican majority has done a good job. They had a tough job with the budget, and they did what they had to do to cut spending and lower taxes,” Hardister said in a phone interview. “What can be improved on? You have to continue to bring a responsible approach to the state budget. We have to continue to bring a cost-benefit analysis to every program and figure out where we can save money. We have to do this from here on out.”
Kasica agreed that Republicans in the General Assembly made solid strides, but she added “there’s still work to do.”
In a phone interview, Kasica said that the Republican majority “laid a good framework,” adding “a lot of the bills they passed were good, because they unraveled other bills that required a lot of regulation, which we know places a lot of cost on businesses.”
Still, many issues linger. Both candidates believe there is still too much government regulation that hamstrings small businesses.
Hardister cited as an example in Red Oak Brewery, which operates in House District 59.
Red Oak is growing, producing more than 17,000 barrels of beer per year. They can produce more, but state law dictates that breweries hire a wholesaler to distribute their product once they reach a certain volume, and Red Oak simply doesn’t want a third party involved.
“That’s the kind of regulation I think should be eliminated. I don’t know why it exists in the first place,” Hardister said.
Kasica agrees there is too much government regulation, but her focus is on health care, given her 20-year career in the industry.
Kasica told the story of meeting with the state’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C. as ObamaCare was being debated and the phones were “ringing off the hook in opposition.”
That experience inspired her to start her own company.
“It was very impactful for me,” she said. “It became very apparent that I needed to focus my education on health policy to help other companies navigate the regulatory nightmare that this legislation was going to impose.”
If ObamaCare is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, then the state will have some difficult decisions to make, given that “you’ll see more and more people on the Medicaid rolls,” Kasica said.
Kasica also said the legislation will expand “poverty rolls exponentially, so more and more people will qualify for Medicaid.”
Both candidates believe in free market solutions to the country’s healthcare crisis, including the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines.
Both candidates believe funding is most definitely not the problem in North Carolina’s public education system. Rather, the problem is exactly where the money is going. The system is too top-heavy, they both say.
“The lack of progress is not because of a lack of funding,” Hardister said. “It’s a systematic problem where you have too much bureaucracy. We need to channel more of our resources to the classroom.”
Hardister, who sits on the board of the Greensboro Academy Charter School, believes the cap on charter schools should be lifted and that tax credits for school choice should be made available.
Kasica agrees that funding isn’t the problem in education.
“The problem is all the money is being sucked up at the top,” she said. “It seems like the teachers — the most important employees in the school systems — are always the ones suffering. Teachers are saints in my mind.”
Regarding energy policy, Hardister cites the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) as an instance of government involvement that hurts consumers by driving up the cost of energy.
Kasica says she hasn’t “seen anything — and I’ve paid attention — that can replace natural gas or oil,” adding the state “has a lot of resources out there that we can tap into immediately and start being energy independent as a state and a producer for the country.”
Cook does not have a website, and Carolina Journal was unable to contact him for a phone interview.
Sam A. Hieb is a contributor to Carolina Journal.