Remove ImagesHagan Will Have To Pay The Party Piper
October 09, 2008
When Sen. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, offered to spend $10 million on her behalf if she ran for US Senate, Kay Hagan decided to seek the seat now held by Sen. Elizabeth Dole. As soon as Hagan decided to run for the US Senate seat, it was a foregone conclusion there would be a News & Record editorial endorsement of Hagan. The only question was what the editorial endorsement would cite as justification. On Sunday, the endorsement finally appeared in the News & Record.
I need to make a disclaimer so any reader will be able to decide what weight to give what I have written. I held the seat Hagan now holds in the North Carolina Senate for one term before she unseated me in the 1998 elections. For 10 years, I made no public comment about Hagan. I was elected to the North Carolina House in the 2000 election. As a member of the NC House, I paid very close attention to everything that went on in the Senate. I have reviewed the official Senate calendar every day for the last eight years. I have followed the votes carefully and have often spoken to many senators (most of whom I served with) about what was going on in the Senate. As a former senator and close student of that body, I probably have as much knowledge of the NC Senate as anyone, other than the senators, the people who work in the Senate clerk's office and perhaps some members of the capitol press corps who cover the Senate.
What follows is a slightly improved version of the reaction I sent to the editors of the N&R:
The editorial endorsement of Hagan stated: "She's already proved that she won't sit for long on the back bench of a legislative chamber." How did Hagan prove such a thing? Do you not realize that Hagan has always been a member of the majority party in the NC Senate? Majority party members, by definition, are not back-benchers. Members of the minority party are the back-benchers. But for the benefit of real back-benchers who might not want to stay there long, what exactly would you suggest they do?
As a back-bencher myself, I take great pride in knowing that many greats in history were one-time legislative back-benchers. Winston Churchill was a back-bencher for years. Thank goodness these leaders did not sacrifice their principles and sell out so they would no longer be back-benchers.
The endorsement further stated that Hagan "comprehends complex issues." A few short weeks ago, I remember reading one Saturday morning in the N&R that Hagan had said in an interview that she supported a federal law that would require the State of North Carolina and its localities to recognize government employee unions. In other words, our firemen, policemen, teachers, revenue agents, etc., would all be entitled to unionization, collective bargaining and a right-to-strike. A few days later, Hagan either said she didn't really say that or that she didn't understand the question. One of the N&R blogs (but never the print edition) set out the verbatim transcript of the exchange where Hagan clearly said in answer to a clear and direct question that she favored this federal legislation. The blog somewhat ridiculed the notion that Hagan could have misunderstood the question. But today, despite the exchange a few weeks ago, your editorial tells readers that Hagan "comprehends complex issues." Did the N&R forget about the above-described exchange? Can it cite examples of the complex issues that Hagan understands, but that Sen. Dole or the other members of the Guilford legislative delegation do not understand?
The editorial credits Hagan with "becoming a leader in forging statewide spending priorities." Even if this were true, has North Carolina's spending been something to brag about the last several years? State spending has exploded while Hagan has been one of three Senate appropriations co-chairmen. North Carolina's spending makes even federal spending look restrained. Taxes had to be raised substantially to pay for all this spending. Our state's taxes are the second highest in the Southeast. State borrowing has skyrocketed during Hagan's stint on appropriations. Over a billion dollars of this borrowing was done without a vote of the people, as required by the North Carolina Constitution, by using certificates of participation – a technical legal fiction that the state isn't pledging its full faith and credit to repay this debt. This is the same type of legal fiction that existed at the federal level with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – everyone really knew the federal government was guaranteeing their debts.
At least the editorial did not use the talking point of several Democrats that because of their work "North Carolina kept its triple A bond rating." The same agencies that gave high ratings to much of the subprime debt and to firms that have tanked gave North Carolina its ratings. We will probably have to wait until after the election to learn the full extent of North Carolina's coming budget crisis and state health plan crisis. Incidentally, there was a back-bench member of the House (the author) who warned before the final budget was enacted this past July that we were being too optimistic in the revenue being projected from our tax structure. But the wise leaders of the appropriations process did not want to have to curb their spending.
With this in mind, the statement about Hagan: "What she has done in Raleigh, she's ready to do in Washington," sounds like some sort of threat. Just a week ago, Gov. Easley had to order state agencies to look for ways to trim two percent from spending appropriated for the current fiscal year – much more will likely be needed and we will not be told the facts about the state budget until after the election. Even though Hagan has touted herself as the leading state budget writer in her race against Sen. Dole, I do not really fault Hagan for all of the state's financial mess. Her role has been vastly overstated. The budget decisions in the NC Senate have been made by Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, not by Kay Hagan. Any decision Hagan made would have had to be approved by Basnight and Rand. Given this experience in Raleigh, Hagan is likely to make the mess in Washington worse, not better.
Additionally, Hagan has voted time and again to shut off debate on the budget and on many other bills before there could be full participation by the people's elected representatives. Then she claims in the current campaign that she "reaches across the aisle."
A very steep price has been paid for the "effectiveness" of which the N&R credits Hagan. She had to go along with whatever the Senate leadership wanted. If that statement isn't true, why would Hagan, out of 7,705 total votes in her 10 years in the Senate, vote differently from Basnight a mere 31 times? I would love to see that inconvenient truth printed in the News & Record at some point. I would love to see an editorial explaining this absolute, lock-step, I'll do whatever you say voting record.
Next, there was the statement that "Hagan's record has been moderate and business-friendly." Granted, the NC Senate as a whole has not been as business unfriendly as one might expect given its makeup. However, Hagan's record here is really a reflection of her voting so often with Basnight – to whom business interests have given huge sums of money. But in the US Senate, Hagan will be working for her funders, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, and she will very likely follow their priorities and vote as they wish her to vote. This is very likely the reason Hagan initially took the pro-union position with your editorial board – she was reciting the talking points given to her. The resulting outcry convinced her to back away somewhat, probably until after the election.
But Hagan has not backed away from her support for the bill that would take away the right of workers to vote on whether to unionize. This bill is certainly not "business-friendly" and Hagan's record in the US Senate would very unlikely be business-friendly or moderate. Ten million dollars from the Senate Democratic leadership (which the editorial did not mention) creates a huge political debt to be repaid.