Candidate profile: Theresa Yon

Theresa Yon, a 39-year-old education researcher, has moved into the political spotlight this year with her candidacy as Republican nominee for the NC House District 59 seat, challenging 18-year Democratic incumbent Maggie Jeffus.

In the previous three elections, Jeffus has warded off challenges from Republican Jim Rumley to defend her seat in the Democratic leaning 59th District, which covers the northeast corner of Guilford County and reaches into the heart of Greensboro. Despite the incumbent’s fundraising advantage, conservative voters are energized and committed candidates such as Yon are looking to pull off some upsets.

“I’ve been part of the Republican Women’s Club and have been active behind the scenes,” Yon said during an interview this morning at Panera Bread on West Wendover Avenue. “Someone told me, ‘You should try running instead of being behind the scenes.’ I was thinking I could do a good job, so I decided to run.”

Yon has raised money for the Greater Greensboro Republican Women’s Club and for NC House Rep. John Blust’s campaign committee. This year, Yon received a $1,000 check from the Blust committee. Blust faces a nominal challenge in his bid for reelection from a Libertarian candidate.

Like Blust, Yon views the longstanding Democratic control of the House as something that stifles free debate and consideration of a wide range of meritorious legislation.

“As long as there’s single-party control, I think there will be a lot of good bills and good ideas that remain in committee,” she said.

As an example of legislation bottled up by the Democratic leadership, Yon cited a bill sponsored by Blust that would require the state to allocate 65 cents out of every dollar spent in education on classrooms. The candidate recalled an experience she had as a substitute teacher when she discovered there were not enough textbooks to send home with each of the students. A Grimsley High School teacher told her that she had to make do with a three-foot-wide blackboard for a class of 35 students, a state of affairs Yon described as “ridiculous.”

The candidate cited a national study that found that 62 percent of education dollars are currently being spent on classrooms. Taking the 3 percent margin of difference, she said that could generate $210 million a year for North Carolina classrooms without raising taxes.

“It will take wise and efficient planning,” Yon said, “but it will truly help kids in the classroom.”

Both candidates in this race will stress their commitment to education and their credential in that arena. Yon, like many Republicans, cedes no ground to the other party on the issue.

A retired public school teacher, Jeffus enjoys strong support from the Guilford County Association of Educators and other teachers unions. The Guilford County Association of Educators ranks Jeffus as one of it’s A+ legislators, a designation that reflects how closely her voting record aligns with the teachers’ legislative agenda. The Jeffus campaign received a $1,000 contribution earlier this year from John I. Wilson, executive director of the National Education Association.

“I don’t think parents should be forced to send their children to failing schools,” Yon said. “Kentucky, Arizona and some other states allow you to apply for whatever school you want in the county.”

She added, “Whatever they’re doing right now [in North Carolina] is not working.”

Yon outlined a twofold approach to handling debt and spending, one of her top priorities: “Cutting out wasteful spending that I have found and reforming the budget process.”

The candidate is particularly critical of so-called corporate incentives, a policy Yon prefers to call “throwing stacks of cash” at corporations. The Democratic-controlled legislature and Democratic governors have passed a string of incentives packages over the past decade a half, the latest of which is the Keep North Carolina Competitive Act, which allows film production companies to receive a tax credit equivalent to 25 percent of its expenses up to $20 million.

Rep. Blust introduced an amendment that would prevent “highly compensated individuals” such as actors and directors from benefiting from the tax break if they earn more than $1 million.

“My opponent, Maggie Jeffus, voted against John Blust’s amendment,” Yon said. “How can she justify it?”

Possibly even more objectionable, Yon said, is the Job Maintenance and Capital Development Grant that was passed during the administration of former Gov. Mike Easley, which was custom written for one company, Goodyear Tire Co., and later also benefited Bridgestone Firestone.

“It’s blackmail: Goodyear threatened to leave the state, so we throw all these stacks of cash at them,” she said, adding, “Realistically, we don’t have that money to spend. Our own state treasurer said we are maxed out.”

Reforming the budget process entails that each department prioritize its spending, she said. Yon cited a report released by the NC Auditor’s office yesterday that found that the overwhelming majority of state employees are rated as outstanding, resulting in an inordinate number receiving annual raises.

Yon’s prescription for creating jobs is tied to her viewpoint on reducing wasteful spending.

“Right now, we have the highest taxes in the Southeast,” she said. “We do have a big corporate tax rate and top marginal income rate. If we cut taxes and cut down on some of the excess regulation, we can create jobs.

“The way it is now, only companies like Time Warner Cable that can afford a lobbyist can get a tax break,” she continued. “Small businesses are creating the majority of the jobs. $750,000 is how much the state legislature appropriated for small businesses. I’ve been knocking on a lot of doors in during this campaign. I was talking to a lady in Old Irving Park whose husband lost his business because he couldn’t get a loan, she said, ‘because our credit isn’t pristine.’ When I told her that $750,000 was the money that the legislature set aside for small business [loans], she couldn’t believe that the legislators could be so unknowing.”

Yon said, if elected, her top priorities as a legislator would be debt and spending, along with education, and that she is less concerned with social issues.

As an example of the judgment she would apply to social-issues legislation, she said, “One thing that has bothered me, there have been bills that have come up regarding abortion and parental consent. Some of those bills have been buried. For my opponent to vote against a bill for notarized parental consent for abortion, that’s wrong.”

Yon said she has found that her candidacy resonates strongly with women.

“The women legislators in Raleigh are very much backing me,” she said. “It feels wonderful to have strong women behind me, who feel that I am a strong woman too. I have it here, too, with support from women like Dena Barnes.”

Notwithstanding their shared gender and that both have an association with education, Yon said voters should have no problem distinguishing her from her opponent.

“The most important difference is we need new ideas to bring about change,” Yon said. “It’s all about planning. She and her colleagues didn’t plan well for the future…. They’ve been spending and spending and spending and not planning for the hard times.”