N.C. rank in Forbes did little for Dems

It’s not entirely clear how much a track record helps when the electorate clamors for change.

Forbes magazine ranked North Carolina the third-best state for business in October. The magazine also ranked the Tarheel state at No. 3 in “business costs,” which take taxes into account, and in “regulatory environment.” Site Selection magazine’s November issue named North Carolina No. 1 in business climate. It was the ninth time in 10 years North Carolina topped the list.

Yet Republicans campaigned largely on promises to create jobs by lowering taxes and easing the regulatory burden on North Carolina businesses. And they won a stunning victory in Tuesday’s election, taking control of the N.C. General Assembly for the first time since 1870.

“They don’t want to give us any credit for these things,” said state Sen. Linda Garrou, a Forsyth Democrat who won re-election Tuesday, but will see her influence diminish as Republicans move their own people into the budget-writing committee she was co-chairwoman of.

“We didn’t create this mess,” Garrou said of the economy. For that, Garrou blames Republicans in charge at the national level before 2008, when calls for change swept Congress and the presidency into Democratic hands.

But calls to change flipped control of the U.S. House of Representatives back to the GOP on Tuesday and gave Republicans in North Carolina what many said in interviews last week was a mandate to cut spending, cut taxes, roll back government business regulations and change the way public schools are funded, among other issues.

State Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, said he didn’t put much stock in magazine rankings.

“Regardless of what some magazine says, if you eat, drink, smoke, drive, consume or earn, chances are that you can do it in some other state that borders us cheaper than you can do it here,” Folwell said.

The top two priorities for Republicans to deal with are taxes, according to a “first 100 days list” put out by the current minority leader, and potential new speaker of the house, state Rep. Paul Stam.

For starters, GOP leaders have promised not to extend temporary tax increases put in place by Democrats a couple of years ago to balance the budget. Rather, the Republicans said they’ll make major cuts — in the neighborhood of $3 billion to $4 billion — to make up for that revenue and federal stimulus dollars set to run out next year.

Beyond that, House Republicans have pledged to opt North Carolina out of federal health-care reforms, though those reforms may change at the federal level after the new Congress is seated.

Other GOP promises for the first 100 days of the next session, which will start Jan. 26, include “funding education in the classroom, not the bureaucracy,” eliminating a state cap on the number of charter schools, doing away with some business regulations, requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls and changing the state’s eminent-domain rules.

Calls to Stam’s office seeking more information were not returned. State Sen. Peter Brunstetter, R-Forsyth, said this week that although he wasn’t familiar with everything on the list, he supported the bullet points.

Republicans also will get to redraw voting lines in North Carolina, reworking congressional and general assembly districts. That’s an advantage that could help cement GOP political power here for years to come.

Right now, though, the House and Senate are “quietly going about getting organized,” Brunstetter said.

That means resetting the pecking order in both chambers. Local legislators will put their names in for some key positions. Folwell said he’ll run for speaker pro tem, a high leadership position in the House. Republicans will get together before the session starts to elect members to that position and others.

Democrats also will reorganize, and Garrou said she’ll run for minority leader in the Senate.

As for Gov. Bev Perdue, she spoke to legislators “on both sides of the aisle” after Tuesday’s election, according to her press office.

“I think she feels good about those conversations,” said Perdue’s spokeswoman, Chrissy Pearson. “Her agenda, her priorities haven’t changed, and the good news is she believes new leadership shares many of those priorities.”

That may include layoffs or other major staffing changes, as well as an overhaul of state business regulations. Perdue said in recent months that she wants to reorganize state government by “merging, eliminating, consolidating” parts of it. She’s also asked people to point out over-burdensome state regulations for review.

But the devil is always in the details, and other parts of the GOP’s plan may set the new majority against the governor.

For example, when asked about a Republican plan to exempt “North Carolinians from the job-killing, liberty-restricting mandates of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obama Care)” and require voters to show photo identification at the polls, Pearson deflected attention back to the economy.

“That’s (Perdue’s) No. 1 priority,” Pearson said.

How this year’s political upheaval shakes out for the long term remains to be seen.

ctfain@yahoo.com