Tax cuts, vouchers, abortion drive western legislative races
Four western legislators are key to maintaining Republican supermajorities in the North Carolina General Assembly. Cory Vaillancourt photo
North Carolina’s four westernmost state legislators are all seeking reelection this year, but their campaigns are about much more than just their individual races. Each one of them is an integral part of the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly, which has a long-term view of what the state should look like in 10 years.
“The end game is for the citizens of North Carolina to have more money in their pocket at the end of the week, end of the month and the end of the year,” said Karl Gillespie, who represents Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Macon counties in the North Carolina House. “Because of a robust economy and people working, they’re going to make more, they’re going to spend more and therefore there’s going to be more tax dollars. The plan is to continue to cut taxes and offset that with revenues that we gain from a very vibrant economy.”
Republicans will indeed continue their ambitious tax policy plans, but Democrats say it’s too much, too fast, and that expanded school voucher spending — along with a litany of social issues, like abortion — could put an end to that supermajority on Nov. 5.
The Republicans
When Republicans took control of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time since 1896 back in 2010, the party began to pursue a regular schedule of individual and corporate tax cuts that have contributed to the state being named the best in the U.S. for business in 2022 and 2023, and second-best in 2024.
The corporate rate, 6.9% when Democrats were in control, was first cut by the GOP majority in 2014 to 6%. Currently, it’s 2.5% but will drop to 2.25% next year, 2% in 2026, 1% in 2028 and zero in 2030.
The individual rate, between 7% and 7.75% in 2010 (depending on bracket and filing status), was stepped down to 4.5% for taxable year 2024 and will drop to 3.99% for 2025.
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“The end game is to continue the route and path we have been on, trying to reduce the income tax for individuals so at some point hopefully it will become zero, and then with the corporate taxes, when they have more money to reinvest in their businesses that opens up more job opportunities for them to hire more people, and so that’s what we’ll continue,” said Mike Clampitt, who represents Swain, Jackson and Transylvania counties in the House.
Clampitt said he’s been trying to recruit microchip manufacturers to his rural district and that tax cuts certainly won’t hurt.
Beyond 2025, a series of revenue triggers will activate half-point individual tax cuts each year through 2034 until the rate reaches 2.49%.
“I think government needs to operate leaner,” said Mark Pless, House rep for Haywood and Madison counties. “I don’t believe we can do that if we just continue to tax and find things that we spend our money on. I think by lowering the tax, that kind of puts a barrier there to what we know what we can count on.”
The state’s 2023-24 fiscal year revenue was certified at $33.69 billion. If the revenue triggers, which begin at $33.04 billion for fiscal year 2025-26 and grow to an even $39 billion in 2034, aren’t met, the rate cuts won’t be activated.
“If you look at other states that have cut their tax rates, they’ve gone in the red because they’ve cut their income. With North Carolina, what we’re looking at has been a growing state as far as population, a growing state as far as business,” said Sen. Kevin Corbin, who represents the eight westernmost counties in the state. “If you look at the health of our economy right now, if North Carolina were a country, we would be the 22nd largest economy in the world.”
Gillespie argues that lower personal tax rates will actually produce more revenue for the state, a position shared by Corbin.
“Hopefully, you’ll put a little bit of it in savings, you’ll give a little bit of it away and then you’re going to spend a certain amount of it that’s going to have taxes associated with it, whether you buy a new car or go out to eat,” Gillespie said. “That will fuel that economy and continue to keep it growing. The key is it will keep the economy growing. If the economy stalls, then that plan will struggle.”
Earlier this year, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians legalized recreational cannabis sales — a new revenue stream. Clampitt recognizes that statewide legalization would help offset revenue loss due to lower tax rates, but as probably the most prominent anti-DUI advocate in the state, he is still a solid “no” on the issue.
Corbin believes that the state’s natural population increase over the next decade will help meet revenue triggers. An insurance company owner who served as a Macon County commissioner for a decade, Corbin knows how the local economy works. He also served as a member of the Macon County School Board for 20 years, so he knows how public schools work.
Although technically unrelated, appropriations enacted by the General Assembly for expansion of the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program — private school vouchers — run roughly parallel to the personal tax rate revenue triggers each year. Even if the triggers aren’t met, voucher spending will increase each year, dramatically.
Voucher appropriations began in the 2017-18 fiscal year at $44.8 million and will grow from $191.5 million this fiscal year to $625,000,000 in 2025-26 and $825 million in 2032-33 and thereafter.
“The voucher thing, to be honest with you, that had really not been a big issue to me,” Corbin said. “I voted for it, but in my district, it’s not been that big a deal. Percentage wise, it’s just not been.”
Corbin has, however, been more of a proponent of public schools than some of his General Assembly peers, perhaps due to his five terms as a school board member. He fought for teacher supplements that help rural counties retain qualified instructors and in the last budget cycle alone shepherded tens of millions of dollars for new public schools in Graham, Macon, Jackson and Swain counties.
Along with Gillespie, Clampitt was a sponsor of the voucher bill, but Clampitt said his goal over the next two years will be to get school funding for Transylvania County. Pless, who secured an appropriation to rebuild Bethel Middle School’s football field, thinks the voucher program holds another benefit — counties are largely responsible for facilities, and if vouchers depress public school enrollment, counties can save money on those facilities.
“It may cause some consolidation, whether we like it or whether we don’t, to where we’re getting into new buildings that are able to handle the number of students that we actually have on a regular basis,” he said.
Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the voucher bill on Sept. 20; however, Republican lawmakers appear ready to use their veto-proof supermajority to override Cooper’s veto on Oct. 24.
When revenue triggers are met, taxes get cut, but with voucher spending increasing each year and the direction of labor and material costs generally trending upwards, the NC Budget & Tax Center — a non-partisan, non-profit fiscal watchdog — warns that the tax cuts are too aggressive, and the state budget could spiral out of control quickly within the next decade.
According to a report from October 2023, the tax cuts will result in the loss of $2.6 billion in revenue in the 2025-26 fiscal year, $4.3 billion in 2026-27, all the way up to at least $13.7 billion in fiscal year 2030-31.
That may not be a bad thing. Waste and fraud are inherent in any massive corporation, which the state essentially is. But when steep declines in revenue and steep increases in voucher spending fully manifest, that could leave only two choices — cut services or raise taxes.
Republicans don’t want to be the party that has to take school vouchers away from parents who will undoubtedly grow quite comfortable with them, and based on past performance Republicans don’t appear amenable to raising taxes, either.
But just weeks before the election, Mother Nature dealt Western North Carolina a wildcard so rare that it’s being called a once-in-a-thousand-year event.
The state has a substantial “rainy day” fund, and boy, did it rain when Hurricane Helene moved inland from the gulf on Sept. 27 — up to 30 inches in some places. The state quickly appropriated $273 million from its $4.7 billion reserve on Oct. 8, and on Oct. 24 will take up another, more substantial appropriation bill, likely from that same pot of money. Corbin told The Smoky Mountain News on Oct. 19 that the bill would likely be in the billion-dollar range (see STATE, p. 12).
Corbin, Clampitt, Gillespie and Pless were all in the General Assembly when deadly flooding struck Canton in 2021, and Pless, as the chair of the House disaster recovery and homeland security committee, has additional experience with extreme weather events like hurricanes Florence and Matthew, which impacted counties down east several years ago.
It’s worth drawing comparisons to wartime leaders, to changing canoes midstream, to fixing an airplane while flying it. Sure, Britons booted prime minister Neville Chamberlain eight months after Adolf Hitler started World War II in September 1939, but significant leadership changes during inopportune moments are rare. The bulk of recovery work in 2021 fell squarely on Pless and Corbin.
“You saw the meeting today I had with local leaders,” he said of the Oct. 19 huddle with the Haywood County Commission chair and vice chair, and Haywood County Schools’ chair and superintendent. “I’m sitting there with the school board chairman. I’m sitting there with the chairman of the county commissioners. I’ve been both of those guys. I’ve sat where they sit for multiple terms. So I get it. There’s such a learning curve for anybody going into the General Assembly. To me, it’s almost insurmountable if you haven’t had local government experience.’
The Democrats
Adam Tebrugge, a lawyer who lives in Cullowhee, is running against Corbin in Senate District 50 and thinks now is the perfect time for change.
“We appreciate Sen. Corbin’s work. I’ve heard about him from several different leaders, along with regular people,” Tebrugge said. “That being said, I believe I can be as effective an advocate for the area or maybe even a better one.”
Tebrugge’s strongest suit may just be his ability to advocate for people in dire need; he spent 17 years as a defense attorney for death penalty cases in Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida, while teaching capital case law to other attorneys in the state.
None of his trial clients, he said, were ever executed, but doing a better job of advocacy in the General Assembly than Corbin could be a tall order; while Democrats hope to break the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly, it’s widely expected that Republicans will maintain their majorities in each chamber, which would make Tebrugge and any other Democrats who win a member of the minority party.
Tebrugge has been critical of that supermajority, especially regarding tax cuts, but also on the increasingly opaque budget process that led to funding for crisis pregnancy centers and the expansion of vouchers.
“What that shows me is that the Republican supermajority, 30 senators, of which Senator Kevin Corbin is a part, have not been very responsive to the people of North Carolina, and especially to Western North Carolina,” he said. “We are going to really have to look at this budget over the next two years, make sure there’s money to help all of our friends who are affected here in Western North Carolina, and we’re going to have to make sure that the revenue streams are appropriate.”
Concerns around vouchers include that they allow taxpayer money to be spent on schools that, unlike public schools, can discriminate against students for any number of reasons — race, religion, disability — and are unaccountable, performance-wise. And, at a time when public school advocates decry funding levels and teacher pay, voucher monies could be used to strengthen public schools in rural areas, where there aren’t as many schools that can accept the vouchers. In short, critics say, money needed in rural districts is being used to send rich kids to private schools in major cities.
In addition to concerns about the Republican Party’s approach to government funding, particularly in public education and social services, Tebrugge said that the 50th District needs mental health services currently unsupported by poor budgetary priorities.
“When I’m out there talking with people, they start telling me, ‘Hey, Adam, we need mental health services. We need birthing centers. We need firefighting equipment. We need extra pay for teachers and staff, because Georgia pays better and we lose all of our teachers down to Georgia,’” he said. “I want to fund all of those things, but also I understand we have a balanced budget in North Carolina. We’ve got to keep the revenue and the expenditures roughly equal.”
And then there’s Senate Bill 20, which could be a dagger through the heart of the party in 2024, much as it was in 2022; the bill, written largely by Corbin, came on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case, which kicked the abortion issue back to the states. North Carolina subsequently decreased the state’s abortion limits from 20 weeks to 12. Corbin has defended the bill, calling it a moderate measure compared to other states that have effectively banned the procedure.
Tebrugge has been working hard out on the campaign trail, trying to get that message out, but he says he’s not getting much help.
“Even if [abortion is] not their number one issue, people don’t like the idea of losing rights,” Tebrugge said. “But one thing that upsets me a little bit — lot of money has been raised in opposition to Senate Bill 20, and a lot of money has been raised in opposition to Sen. Corbin’s sponsorship of that, and very little to any of that has been spent out here in the west getting that message across. If that message was out there, I think that it would help my campaign.”
Mark Burrows is trying to get that same message out in his race against Clampitt.
“Mr. Clampitt is an extremist in terms of the Republican Party. And what I mean by that is that he is voting against women having their own reproductive rights and healthcare, and if not more importantly, a right to privacy,” Burrows said. “We now have a supermajority in both the House and the Senate. They’re dictating privacy and healthcare for women and I think the majority of women in North Carolina, and certainly from what I’ve heard within District 119, don’t agree with that.”
Burrows retired in 2018 after 28 years as the Transylvania County planning, economic and community development director, helping to land companies like Gaia Herbs and Oskar Blues.
His campaign focuses on addressing economic challenges and supporting public education while emphasizing the need for greater government transparency.
Economic development of the sort Clampitt mentioned — microchips — would be welcome, but recruiting such companies has historically been difficult, given the west’s lack of developable land, sparse transportation infrastructure now made more precarious by Helene and a general bias toward large metropolitan areas. Burrows was heavily involved with a nonprofit created by the legislature, called AdvantageWest, that sought to focus development initiatives in the 23 western counties. It was highly successful, Burrows said, but it was defunded in 2015 in favor of the current, centralized approach that seems to leave the west always a bridesmaid.
“The significance for me on this is we as Western North Carolinians lost having that local impact for economic development and working on ways to expand manufacturing at the appropriate level here, as well as entrepreneurship across the mountain counties,” he said.
It seems a scenario similar to the school voucher play.
“When they first initiated [voucher funding], there was an income cap. With this last legislative session, they’ve removed that cap, so now the wealthiest people can still get this,” said Burrows. “In most instances, it’s going to be coming out of public monies from rural school systems and going to urban areas.”
Like the abortion issue, Burrows said the voucher issue has caused some Republicans to lend him their support.
Nancy Curtis, a Western Carolina University alum and the former mayor of Andrews in Cherokee County, expressed similar sentiments. She’s running in the 120th District against Gillespie, who she says is too closely aligned with Corbin, and not just because they are Macon County neighbors.
“He’s voted for everything that Corbin has been for, and the two things specifically that I have a problem with is the taking money out of public education and giving it to people for the vouchers to go to charter schools and religious schools, and a woman’s right to choose,” Curtis said.
But Curtis has some other unique positions not specific to her race against Gillespie. She wants term limits in the General Assembly but also wants age limits, and suggested that the state professionalize its legislature by paying legislators more — the annual salary is $13,951 plus a $104 per diem while in session. Corbin and Gillespie, who live closer to five state capitals than to their own, spend most of that on gas and lodging.
Curtis believes that a higher salary would make it easier for people who aren’t business owners and retirees, or lawyers and doctors with flexible schedules, to get involved in politics.
“We’ve got to make it conducive for a young person to want to run for office. We need young people in the legislature,” she said. “I’m 72 years old, and I totally think that we need to be passing something on to the next generation. We’re not giving them any reason to be there.”
Gerrymandering, said Curtis, must be eliminated — a state won in 2020 by Donald Trump by 1.3% is very likely to send 12 or 13 Republicans and only one or two Democrats to Washington next year, which could affect control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“This isn’t democracy at all,” she said. “They are picking their voters, and that’s wrong.”
Curtis is also a proponent of some throwback educational initiatives, including a greater focus on physical fitness among the digital generation and an emphasis on civics instruction.
Evelyn Davidson, a nurse at an alcohol and drug rehabilitation facility in Black Mountain, lives in Madison County and hopes to unseat Pless, despite his storm recovery experience. Davidson believes that Pless, who lives in Haywood County, treats Madison County like “a redheaded stepchild.”
She couldn’t point to any specific piece of legislation upon which she disagreed with Pless’ position, despite the likelihood that there are many, however, she did accuse Pless of not listening to their concerns and of being demeaning to women.
“I really don’t like dishing out third-hand information because I wasn’t exactly there, so I don’t want to say something out of turn,” said Davidson, who when asked added that she’d never spoken to Pless personally. “Sure, I believe in giving people a fair shake, but overall, he has been very disrespectful to women.”
She also criticized Pless, known since his days on the Haywood County Board of Commissioners as blunt and brutally honest, for his tone of voice and general demeanor.
If she wins, Davidson promises to be more present and engaged, and uses the phrase, “If not me and you, then who?”
All four Democrats — Burrows, Curtis, Davidson and Tebrugge — face an uphill battle in heavily Republican districts. Some of them, however, think that Republican candidates further up the ballot may end up being a drag on Republican candidates further down the ballot.
Tebrugge called 34-time felon Donald Trump, along with scandal-prone Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson “very weak” candidates who could affect Republican turnout. Burrows mentioned Department of Public Instruction candidate Michelle Morrow, who was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has called for the execution of presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well as Gov. Cooper.
“I have said all along that the North Carolina Republicans have given Democrats the gift of Mark Robinson and Michelle Morrow,” Burrows said. “They are not individuals that are competent to be running for the positions that they’re running for, and it’s unfortunate that the Republicans as a party allowed them in the primary process to be put forward.”
