Voters may voice their frustration with state Republicans’ conservative agenda at the ballot box this May and beyond.
Since shifting to a Republican majority in November 2010—the first in more than 110 years—the General Assembly has passed legislation stipulating substantial budget cuts from the education sector, resulting in state tuition hikes and social reform, such as the same-sex marriage amendment. Such an atypically conservative economic and social agenda may cause a backlash against state Republicans—and the presidential candidate—among younger voters in the upcoming elections.
“Voters are feeling alienated,” said Katina Gad, a senior at North Carolina State University. “It has become an issue of class warfare where people of lower classes won’t be able to get the degrees they need to get ahead.”
Many students feel that they are caught in the middle of a highly partisan battle between Republicans and Democrats and that the Republican Party is sacrificing public education for politics, Gad said. In response, many students are mobilizing and campaigning to encourage other students to vote against the Republican Party in the state and presidential elections. Although the Republican Party has received criticism from voters and Democratic legislators, the decisions passed by GOP are aimed toward one thing: balancing the state budget, said Jordan Shaw, communications director for state Speaker of the House Rep. Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg.
“We made a pledge to balance the budget and that is exactly what we did,” Shaw said. “Folks have to remember that we inherited a multibillion dollar deficit.”
Pope McCorkle, visiting lecturer at the Sanford School of Public Policy, said he is more critical of Republicans’ plan to propel the state’s economy. The absence of positive economic gain from deep cuts in areas such as public education—North Carolina has one of the oldest and most lauded public university systems in the nation—undermines the achievements of the balanced budget.
“It is not whether it is balanced, but how you balance it,” he said.
Tuition hikes
Cuts to education under the Republican-controlled assembly will increase the tuition of University of North Carolina students by $750 and the tuition of state community college students by $200 in the 2012-2013 school year. Walton Robinson, communications director for the North Carolina Democratic Party, said he is concerned by the new budget’s steep cuts to education. The $124 million state budget cut that targets college tuition, college scholarships and public schools has caused the state’s budget to drop to 49th in the nation in terms of how much is invested per child for education.
Although the decision to cut education funding was tough, it was necessary given the $2.4 billion budget deficit that past leadership had accumulated due to increasing state spending and raising taxes at unsustainable rates, Shaw said.
“State legislatures have to tighten the belt, just like families all across the state have had to,” Shaw said. “Tough choices have to be made during tough economic times.”
Verra Parra, a senior at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is concerned that tuition hikes will decrease the socioeconomic and academic diversity on campus.
“The freedom that you have in your education is hugely affected by the debt you’re incurring along the way,” Parra said. “Students will be less likely to study humanities if they know that they will be graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.”
Parra noted that these concerns are causing more of her peers to lean toward voting for a Democratic presidential candidate and voting Republicans out of the General Assembly.
The UNC Board of Governors finalized tuition increases in a meeting Friday in order to compensate for the total $414 million in cuts from the UNC education system made by lawmakers this year.
Shaw noted more positive changes the party has promoted for state education, such as providing liability insurance for every teacher in the state and providing community colleges with flexibility in spending.
Rep. Phillip Frye, R-Avery, Caldwell, Mitchell, Yancey; Rep. Mike Hager, R-Clevand, Rutherford; and Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-Rockingham, Stokes, among other Republican representatives, declined to comment on the recent cuts to education.
A social agenda
The same-sex marriage amendment referendum in May positions recent fiscally conservative decisions next to socially conservative decisions as well. The amendment would codify same-sex marriage, which is already banned in the state, in the constitution by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Despite allegations made by organizations such as Equality North Carolina that the same-sex marriage amendment is an extreme measure, Shaw said that the amendment has been considered for many years by both parties.
The bill received bipartisan support with a final vote of 75-42, with 65 Republicans and 10 Democrats voting in favor of the legislation. But Robinson said that the amendment was one of the few instances of bipartisan support that state Republicans cling to when criticized for being uncollaborative. Robinson cited a midnight session of the General Assembly called by Republicans to discuss Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of the Racial Justice repeal as one of the party’s attempts to undermine Democrats.
Actions such as cuts to education that cause tuition hikes for students and the same-sex marriage amendment, which many criticize as being anti-gay, may alienate younger voters against the Republican Party and raise questions about the party’s gauge on issues important to college students, McCorkle added.
‘Faced with a choice’
Although the economy may not be where state leaders and North Carolinians would like, Robinson said it is important to remember the national and state context of the current economic crisis.
Before President Barack Obama took office, the country was losing more than 700,000 jobs a month. Now, the private sector has continued to grow for 23 straight months. Come May elections, voters will ultimately recognize the economic progress that has been achieved under democratic leadership, Robinson added.
“We may not be exactly where we want to be but you have to remember the context,” he said. “Once people concentrate on the issues and focus on the elections, they will see it that way.”
Shaw said he is confident that North Carolinians are ready for a more conservative approach to saving the economy.
“At the end of the day, North Carolinians are going to be faced with the choice between do you trust government, or do you trust citizens; do you trust the public sector, or do you trust the private sector?” Shaw said.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Jordan Shaw in fact noted Democrats have been raising taxes, not lowering taxes as an earlier version of this article stated. The Chronicle regrets the error.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.