THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 2, 1995 TAG: 9510020042
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: ELECTION '95
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
When the revolution came to North Carolina last fall, even its commanding general was stunned.
Harold J. Brubaker, an Asheboro real estate appraiser who'd spent 18 years as a back-bencher in the state House of Representatives, picked up the telephone at 12:30 a.m. on Election Night and got a two-word summary of the results.
``Mr. Speaker . . .'' began the voice at the other end of the line.
Not in the North Carolina GOP's most fanciful dreams had party members expected to move in one election from a 42-seat minority in the 120-member House to a 68-seat majority, nor to come within two seats of Senate control.
But they did, elevating Brubaker, and setting off an explosion of policy changes that could point the way if a similar revolution occurs in the Virginia General Assembly this fall.
In a six-month session ending in August, North Carolina lawmakers passed $364 million in tax cuts primarily benefiting businesses, the middle-class and the well-to-do. The cuts were the largest in a single year in state history.
Rewriting the budget, they added $76 million for 2,000 new prison beds, sliced by one-third the education department's administrative budget, and put the brakes on spending for Democratic Gov. James B. Hunt's major initiative for pre-school children, ``Smart Start.''
They slashed the state fund for abortions for poor women from $1.2 million to $50,000, passed a bill requiring parental approval for girls 18 or younger to get abortions, and lifted a cap on the number of inmates in the prison system.
They raised tuitions at state colleges by up to $475 a year, barred school boards from denying students a moment of silent prayer and passed a law encouraging schools to display the flag and recite the pledge of allegiance.
According to an analysis by the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, lawmakers increased education spending by 1.1 percent at a time when other states were raising education spending more than 5 percent on average. Even a priority such as prison construction got a smaller increase - 7 percent - than the average 13 percent increase in other states, the analysis showed.
``It's changed things drastically here,'' concluded Ted Arrington, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, noting the changes in the legislative leadership and the flurry of policy shifts.
But Arrington also suggested a second truth: It takes more than one year - and perhaps much longer - to reform a state so fundamentally that most citizens feel the difference.
``Some things didn't change,'' he said. ``The business community has always been the dominant element in the North Carolina legislature. They're still in control. They just call themselves Republicans.''
Ask Wanda Goode, 37, an elementary school teaching assistant and single parent of two, how her life has changed and she'll struggle for an answer.
``It hasn't hit me yet if they did change anything,'' said Goode, even though at least one budget alternation might have impacted her life substantially had it been made a few years ago.
Goode lives in a low-rent apartment complex in south Raleigh, built in part through financing from the state's Housing Trust Fund. Before moving there, she paid $420 a month for rent. Now she pays $360, a difference that means there's a new sofa in her living room and the family can afford a meal out each week.
Last year the trust fund got a $4.1 million appropriation. This year it got nothing.
Such savings went in part to finance a package of tax cuts that would put about $260 a year in the checkbooks of a middle-income family of four. An ``intangibles'' tax on stocks and bonds also was eliminated, giving extra money primarily to retirees and individuals in mid- to upper-income brackets.
``A lot of the benefit of that (cutting taxes) is psychological,'' said Dan Gurley, who's 31 and single. He works in the travel business in Raleigh and applauds the shift. Even though his own income has risen only by about $100 a year because of the tax cuts, ``that's $2 a week more I can spend or save,'' he said. ``Either way it benefits the economy'' when combined with similar savings for millions of North Carolinians.
Perhaps surprisingly, one of the most cautious estimates of the GOP's impact comes from the John Locke Foundation, a 5-year-old conservative Raleigh think tank whose members describe themselves as ``unabashed free-market capitalists.''
``Those lawmakers who believe in fundamental change did not prevail in this session,'' wrote Foundation authors John Hood and Don Carrington in a summary of legislative activities.
Among the complaints of hard-line conservatives: The state's $10 billion budget will continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate, over the next two years. Even though conservatives fought off a move to reduce the sales tax on food, the legislature left intact corporate income tax rates that are the highest in the Southeast.
Conservatives were able to stop plans to reduce class sizes in the 10th grade, but they did not halt funding to reduce first-grade classes to 23 students per teacher instead of 26.
They did not adopt term limits for lawmakers, as the Locke Foundation had advocated. Nor did they approve $1,000 tuition tax credits for parents who send their children to private schools or provide for experimental ``charter schools'' with reduced regulations.
And the Senate delayed welfare reform, partially because a House-passed bill would have counted food stamps and housing subsidies as income when deciding who's eligible for Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Critics said that would have driven thousands of women off AFDC roles, giving North Carolina one of the nation's most restricted welfare caseloads.
``What we don't have here is a George Allen driving the agenda,'' lamented Marc Rotterman, president of the Locke Foundation, referring to Virginia's governor.
While Hunt responded to last fall's election by proposing an even larger tax cut than the legislature passed, his overall legislative program runs the philosophical gamut.
After serving two terms as governor beginning in 1976, Hunt lost a U.S. Senate race to GOP Sen. Jesse Helms in 1984. He won a third term in 1992. Hunt's willingness to mold his agenda to changing times means he is labeled a pragmatic problem-solver by friends and a chameleon by enemies. by CNB