Hanes and Bonham present different visions for NC House District 72

Ed Hanes Jr. (left) and Jimmie Bonham are candidates for the NC House District 72 seat being vacated by Rep. Earline Parmon.

Forsyth County Commissioner Walter Marshall said he had considered running for NC House District 72 to succeed Rep. Earline Parmon, who is running for NC Senate this year. He ultimately decided to stand down from the state legislative contest and continue to serve at the county level.

Three younger candidates, Ed Hanes Jr., Jimmie Bonham and Wayne Patterson, are contending for the seat in the Democratic primary. Hanes and Bonham appeared before voters at the Carl Russell Recreation Center in Winston-Salem yesterday evening for a community dialogue hosted by the Hanes campaign. Patterson did not attend the event.

“I have been around a longtime and I’m surveying the landscape down there in Raleigh,” Marshall said. “I know it’s going to be very difficult to get anything done.” Considering that the Republican leadership is likely to shut Democrats out from committee appointments and decision-making, how would Hanes and Bonham handle themselves, he asked.

“Compromise is a dirty word these days,” Hanes responded. “What I want to talk about is strategic negotiation and the ability to communicate. The best thing we have going for us right now is that we are in a time where there is turnover coming in the General Assembly. The General Assembly is getting younger overnight. And I believe because I went to school with many of these folks’ children. I believe you have to do it through developing relationships outside of Raleigh, outside of that assembly hall. You have to do it through coalition building — real and meaningful coalition building…. I understand that there’s a mighty big beast down there. It’s like eating a whole cow. You can eat it, but you have to do it one centimeter at a time.”

Bonham charged that the Republican leadership in Raleigh is “trying to turn back the hands of time.”

“You work with the Republicans like you work with anybody where you have conflict and difference,” Bonham said. “Conflict is real. Conflict is apparent. It’s only two ways you can deal with conflict; it’s through education and intervention.”

Hanes noted that last year’s redistricting process has changed District 72’s demographic makeup, and has highlighted divisions of wealth and poverty that have been there all along.

“You’re going to have a situation now where what was rough looking at first is going to be worse looking now because you have this Buena Vista corridor in the district now,” he said. “You have Reynolda Road, all that Wake Forest [University] area over there now. You now have a situation where probably 70 percent of this district’s wealth is going to reside within a one-and-a-half or two-mile radius of RJ Reynolds High School.”

Bonham said the district needs to attract new jobs, and he proposed a policy to ensure that wages remain healthy.

“There has to be wage indexing,” he said. “That means when the cost of living goes up, wages has to go up.”

Hanes said he has the connections to build effective coalitions to bridge the gap between the two Winston-Salems.

“I was awarded the Echo Award by the Winston-Salem Foundation for what I have done in building bridges across this community,” he said. “The Winton-Salem Foundation controls $300 million of wealth in this community and makes sure it gets implemented in key areas all over this town. We have to have people who have those connections. We have to have people who sit on those boards, who sit with the people who are not in our community and can help push these issues forward when we get to Raleigh.”

The candidates both spoke about social justice but highlighted different concerns.
Hanes talked about Trayvon Martin, the slain Florida teenager whose case has sent shockwaves through the black community, and to a lesser extent through society at large.

“We need to look at this ‘castle doctrine,’” Hanes said. “This [North Carolina] ‘castle amendment’ is the same amendment Florida is calling the ‘stand your ground amendment.’ That is the amendment that has cost us the life of Trayvon Martin right now. We need to look at that amendment. We need to have people who serve on those committees look at these laws and determine how it is we can protect Americans, protect North Carolinians in a way that we can all stand for and all be proud of.”

Hanes proposed a seven-day “cooling period” after a citizen uses lethal force in which an interrogation would take place and the gun would be taken into evidence.

Bonham spoke to the past.

“This state has some wrongs that need to be corrected,” he said. “This state took men and women and children and they sterilized them. Do you know that? And now we have those victims who need to be somewhat repaired. So there’s a bill that’s legislation that’s in place right now as I speak to help repair. Now, we know $20,000 is not enough to repair someone’s life when they’ve been sterilized. But it has to start somewhere.”

Both candidates told voters they are committed to funding education.

“One of the problems in North Carolina [is that] a lot of money comes in for us — that is, African-American children — for us and because of us,” Bonham said. “But as the end user, we’re not getting the dollars. We’re not getting the services. So therefore we have a chasm as it relates to graduation rates. There is a chasm. There is a disparity as it relates to dropout rates. I understand how we can get North Carolina back on target as it relates to education.”

“I would focus on education because I understand the way out of our condition is education,” he added.

Hanes said, “When I go to Raleigh we have to look at opportunities to put that spending back where the Republicans took it. We’re talking about nearly $800 million that they’re planning to take away from education currently and going forward. And when people say that does not make a difference, they are absolutely wrong when you’re looking in the classroom and you’re looking at the reduction in teachers. When you’re looking at programs that are being reduced every single day for our students — students who are living at 20 percent of the federal poverty range. We have to put an end to that.”

Hanes said the legislature should look first to lottery funds to pay for education. He added that he supports charter schools, an initiative that is not popular with many longstanding Democratic lawmakers.

“That’s an ugly word in a lot of communities,” Hanes said. “I look at it as charter schools in our community might be what saves a bunch of our kids…. Our parents have to take control. We have to tell our children the truth. And then what we have to do is give our families the choice if the school system is not going to do it we have to give our parents the choice to go and find someone who will do it.”

Hanes said he is the only candidate in the race who is willing to talk about the marriage amendment on the primary ballot, adding that many in black community are afraid to engage with it.

“What we have to understand about Amendment One is that this is not a gay rights issue,” he said. “This is a families issue. This is a discrimination issue.”

Hanes charged that Republicans are using the issue of marriage as a wedge to split the black vote.

“We have to move as a community to be strong, to stand up and to not let the Republican Party use this issue as a wedge in our community and try to turn this into Ohio 2004,” he said. “Does everybody know what I’m talking about when I say, ‘Ohio 2004’? The Republican Party inserted the issue of gay rights into Ohio as a wedge in the black community because they know this is an issue in our community, something we don’t want to talk about.

“It’s something we try to deny,” he continued. “It’s something we try to say doesn’t exist. And they knew that if they put it in the churches that it would split our churches straight down the middle. They did it because they knew that the president at that time might win by the slimmest of margins if they could divide that black community and that black evangelical vote. And that is what happened. George W. Bush got a second term because we as African-American people in this country allowed that issue to divide us.”

Some rough politicking cropped up during the forum when a woman in the audience asked Hanes if he could explain a forgery charge. The campaign had already taken on a nasty tone when Bonham filed residency challenges against Hanes and Patterson. The Forsyth County Board of Elections ruled that they are both qualified to run for the seat.

Hanes remained composed and appeared to be prepared for the question.

“She’s talking about a charge in 1993 when I was a freshman at the University of North Carolina,” Hanes said. “This was a common law forgery charge. We make mistakes as children. I was a child. I humiliated myself. I humiliated my family. But I made my father a promise that day when I was arrested over at Duke University. I said, ‘If you will come to my defense one time, just one time, I will never embarrass you again, never embarrass this family again.’”

During the forum fliers with the criminal case information appeared on windshields outside of the recreation center inscribed with the word ‘thief.’

Hanes confirmed today that he was charged with felony forgery of instrument but convicted of misdemeanor common law forgery. He completed 100 hours of community service and paid a $200 fine and $60 in restitution.

Hanes drew applause when he said, “I went from Saul to Paul.”

“I was on my horse, there’s no question about it; I was doing everything I wanted to do,” he said. “I wasn’t paying any attention at all. And no question about it, the good Lord knocked me off my horse and told me to get my life together. And that’s what I did…. I would ask the folks to look at my record since I was 19 years old, look at my record of achievement. It is unmatched in this city among people my age. Let me talk about it for just a second since you asked the question. Since I was 19 years old since that arrest I graduated from the University of North Carolina with a 3.8 in my major. I rededicated myself academically. I received a full scholarship to Harvard University. They don’t give those away. I earned that scholarship.”

District 72 primary will remain a 3-way race

District 72 candidate Ed Hanes testifies before the Forsyth County Board of Elections.

Three candidates will remain in the Democratic primary for NC House District 72 following the Forsyth County Board of Elections’ finding last week that Ed Hanes Jr. and Wayne Patterson are qualified to run in the district at the end of a hearing rejecting a residency challenge by fellow candidate Jimmie Bonham.

The three-member board unanimously upheld Patterson’s qualifications as a candidate, but split along party lines over Hanes’ candidacy, with Democratic members Linda Sutton and Michael Flatow voting in Hanes’ favor and Republican member Jonathan S. Dills voting against him.

If Bonham’s challenges to both candidates had been successful, he would have been the only Democratic candidate in District 72. He would have been able to skip his primary and would have been guaranteed a place on the general-election ballot with Republican candidate Charlie Mellies in a district heavily favorable to Democrats because of voter registration. Bonham said he plans to appeal the board’s decision on Hanes’ candidacy to the NC Board of Elections.

As the five-hour hearing wore on, tensions among the candidates frayed. Patterson told the board during his sworn testimony that he wanted it stated for the record that Bonham had attempted to provoke him and Hanes into a physical confrontation during one of the breaks. After the hearing, Patterson referred reporters to Hanes, to whom he said Bonham’s remark had been specifically directed. Hanes declined to comment.

Dills noted the apparent tension and asked Patterson and Bonham whether they felt the board needed to bring in a sergeant at arms to maintain security. Both candidates stated they did not believe that would be necessary. Later, Dills asked Bonham to get his hand out of Patterson’s face. Bonham had been giving testimony at a podium as Patterson sat with his wife nearby.

The board’s deliberations over whether Hanes met the residency qualifications to be a candidate in District 72 centered on whether he intends to make his permanent residence there.

Hanes testified that he and his wife own a residence in Asheboro, but he moved in with his 80-year-old father in 2008 after his mother died. His wife and daughters stayed behind in Asheboro, and only recently have they rejoined him in Winston-Salem. Initially, the purpose of the move had been to act as a caregiver, but in 2010 Hanes said he decided to move back to Winston-Salem for good, and he submitted a real estate listing to the board showing that he put his Asheboro house on the market at that time. The Haneses also own a condominium in Durham, which they rent out. Hanes said they are underwater on both the Asheboro and Durham mortgages.

Hanes said his wife and children now live with him in Winston-Salem, although one of his daughters attends Agape Christian Academy in Asheboro. Hanes said in response to Bonham’s expressed skepticism that he and his wife transport their daughter to school every day from Winston-Salem to Asheboro. Flatow indicated he saw nothing out of the ordinary about keeping a child at her current school through the end of the academic year during a transition. Hanes also presented a letter from an assistant principal indicating that his daughter has been accepted at a charter school in Winston-Salem.

Hanes also told the board his family has lived in Winston-Salem since 1900, and that he has lived or worked in the city for roughly three decades out of his 39 years.

The three board members concurred that Hanes meets the first two criteria of residency under state law — abandonment of a former domicile and the acquisition of a new domicile — but Dills said he believed that Hanes had not met the statutory requirement to prove the intent of making the newer domicile permanent. Under state law, the challenged candidate is required to meet the burden of proof.

The house on Pomeroy Drive in Winston-Salem where Ed Hanes Jr. stays with his father is owned by Ed Hanes Sr. Hanes said that he might buy the house at some point or a sister might move in with his father and Hanes might buy a house in another part of Winston-Salem if he’s able to sell the house in Asheboro. Dills said those circumstances undercut the notion that Hanes intends to make the Pomeroy Drive house a permanent domicile.

“The reasons for him going into his father’s home were care; he started with that,” Dills said. “And it’s completely admirable and respected by everybody, but insufficient to establish the permanency requirement.”

Hanes argued that times have changed, and the board should interpret the statute in light of new circumstances created by the foreclosure crisis.

“If you determine what permanent means today based on yesterday’s standards, you are, in fact, disenfranchising me in 2012,” he told the board. “I could be there for the next five years and I would never be able to run for office because this committee today has disenfranchised me because I can’t afford to have three mortgages. Because we’re just like everybody else. And I know I’m here in my fancy suit and tie, and people think what they think about me in terms of what I have and what I don’t have, but at the end of the day I’m just like normal people. We’re just like normal people. We got caught in a situation that there’s nothing we can do about.”

Flatow concurred.

“Although the home is owned by Mr. Hanes’ father, it does not in my mind disqualify him as a resident of District 72,” he said. “We can discuss many hypotheticals, but today it is not unusual for many families to be in transition based on job opportunities and other factors that create different family situations than many of us were used to in the past. Children and their families living with parents today is not unusual. Nobody can predict the future. So what is a reasonable burden to demonstrate candidate permanency? The question comes down to the intent, and I feel confident that Mr. Hanes, to the best of what he knows today, has intent to remain at his Pomeroy address, and therefore I believe he should be qualified to seek the office of District 72.”

Notwithstanding Flatow’s vote in support of Hanes, he called the case “a very, very close call.”
Sutton, who chairs the board, cited documentation of Hanes residency at the Pomeroy Drive address as evidence that he intends to make it his permanent domicile.

“When I think about the intent of making the new domicile a permanent domicile, whether it’s in an apartment, whether it’s with your father, the intent, I think, is what we have to look at,” she said. “And I believe that there has been enough evidence, enough documentation from where he’s trying to sell the house, the neighbor’s affidavit stating he’s seen him there for years and years and has always seen his car in the driveway, from his driver’s license for a couple years with that address, to the tax returns and changing you address at Winston-Salem State [University], the mail that’s coming to the house in your name, the letter from the school that you’re trying to get your daughter enrolled in — there’s so much evidence, to me, that pointed to me that he really intended to make this his permanent residence.”

Patterson and his wife, Tamica, attended the hearing together. Patterson, who is 40, prefaced his remarks about his residency by telling the board that he and his wife have been married for 18 years, and have been together for 24.

Bonham’s challenge noted that Patterson filed as a candidate for District 72 using a Renigar Street address, but that his wife resides at a Patterson Avenue address. The board quickly established that both addresses are located in District 72, and members expressed interest in moving on to an additional question raised by Bonham about whether Patterson resides at a Rural Hall address, which is located in District 74.

“Fortunately, I’m in a position to have two homes,” Patterson said, “but they’re both in District 72.”

Patterson said his family leased the house in Rural Hall and lived there until November 2010, when they closed on the Poindexter Avenue house in Winston-Salem. He said he then moved to the house on Renigar Street, also in Winston-Salem, in July 2011. He told the board he has a lease-to-own agreement for the Renigar Street house and presented a sworn affidavit from owner Charles W. Moore stating that the family has lived there since July. When he went to file as a candidate in late February, Patterson acknowledged that he changed his voter registration from the Rural Hall address to the Renigar Street address, explaining that he hadn’t realized before that it was out of date.

Patterson said he and his family decided to take on the second Winston-Salem home when his elderly aunt, who has Parkinson’s disease, had a health crisis and he was unable to respond as quickly as he would have liked. Patterson said the Renigar Street house is also advantageous because it’s close to athletic programs in which his children participate, close to the local NAACP office in which he presides and represents as an attorney, and closer to his church.

During the hearing, Bonham introduced some innuendo about infidelity, causing Tamica Patterson’s jaw to drop.

“Mr. Patterson has had another wife,” Bonham said before Dills interrupted him.

“This board is not interested in speculation,” Dills said. “We’re not interested in innuendo. We’re not interested in spouse, polygamy and such. I want you to, please, restrict your comments respectfully to probative evidence that speaks to the issue of domicile.”

Breaking news in Forsyth County election

CLARIFICATION: Ed Hanes says that some of the information in this article is incorrect. One example that came immediately to mind concerns the location of his business, Monticello Park. Hanes told me the business is based in Winston-Salem, and he works out of an office in the Piedmont Tower in Winston-Salem. A reverse lookup for the work phone number listed for Hanes’ candidate filing at whitepages.com identifies the number as a landline in Winston-Salem, Walkertown or Kernersville.

He acknowledged that the Asheboro and More article cited by Bonham does give the impression that his business is located in Asheboro.

The article quotes Hanes as saying, “I now have this free office space in Winston-Salem, which is fine because it works with our plan to be3 there for our parents. However, I recognize the unique business environment and opportunity Asheboro provided for you young business people. I really felt my business had a much better opportunity to not only survive in my first nine months in Asheboro vs. Winston-Salem, but to thrive. My friends in Winston-Salem wouldn’t like to hear that, but I think I made the right choice. My business was started here for a reason and, I believe, will remain here long term no matter where we live.”

ORIGINAL POST: Jimmie Bonham, a Democratic candidate for NC House District 72, plans to file an official challenge to the residency of primary opponents Ed Hanes Jr. and Wayne Patterson at the Forsyth County Board of Elections at 3 p.m.

UPDATE: The official challenge (link) has been filed.

"Several citizens who live near these guys have contacted me stating that they live with their wives and their children and not at the addresses where they filed for candidacy," Bonham told me earlier today. "That creates suspicion with me to see exactly where their domicile is."

Bonham charges in his challenge that Hanes is a resident of Asheboro, which is not part of District 72. The challenge also states that Patterson's wife resides and owns property at an address different from the one the candidate listed in his filing, and that he should be required to prove him true residence to establish his qualifications to represent District 72.

Hanes acknowledged in an interview that 3920 Pomeroy Drive, the address he used to file as a candidate for District 72, is his father's home. The candidate owns and operates a business, Monticello Park LLC, in Asheboro. Voting records show that Hanes has voted only once, in 2010, using the Pomeroy Drive address.

"My mother died very suddenly in December of 2006 and shortly after that my wife and I made the decision that I would transition my living space to Pomeroy so that I could be with my father," Hanes said. "The decision was a private one and the right one to do. It's meant a lot of driving and a lot of nights away from my family. I'm glad we did it, and we'd do it all over again."

The challenge cites an article in the December 2011 issue of Asheboro and More Magazine stating, "In 2006, his mom passed away resulting in a decision to look after his father by splitting time between Asheboro and Winston-Salem."

Hanes is quoted in the article as saying, "That was a difficult decision for us, for me to move home, but one we felt was necessary based on our family values and our desire to care for our parents. Driving from Winston during the week and maintaining two households (and a rental in Durham) is tough, but we make it work."

Hanes said his wife, a self-employed certified registered nurse anesthetist, now lives with him in Winston-Salem. Both are from Winston-Salem. Hanes said their house in Asheboro has been on and off the market for years and that they have been unable to sell it, adding that they don't want to take on a third mortgage by immediately buying a new house in Winston-Salem.

State law requires a candidate whose residency has been challenged to prove through a preponderance of evidence that he or she is qualified to be a candidate.

"The local board [of] elections holds an evidentiary hearing where rules of court prevail," Forsyth County Elections Director Rob Coffman said. "Witnesses can be subpoenaed. The board will determine if the candidate holds the qualifications to run for office based on a preponderance of evidence. That's different from a criminal [case], where you're required to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's like 51 percent says he lives there, 49 percent says he doesn't; he lives there then."

A paper (link) by NC Board of Elections General Counsel Don Wright states that the candidate who has been challenged must show

• an actual abandonment of the first domicile coupled with an intent not to return to the first domicile;

• the acquisition of a new domicile by actual residence at another place; and

• the intent of making the newer domicile a permanent domicile.

Bonham's challenge charges that "Ed Hanes Jr. did not intend to permanently leave his wife, Traci, and two children, Madelyn and Evelyn, in Asheboro within Randolph County and live away from them permanently by choosing to temporarily help his father who resides at 3920 Pomeroy Drive in Winston-Salem, North Carolina."

Coffman said state law requires the Forsyth County Board of Elections to hold a hearing within 20 days, but that because the board is already under the gun by a deadline to send out absentee ballots he hopes to hold the hearing by the middle of next week at the latest.

Hanes said he regrets that Bonham filed the challenge.

"He knows my mother has passed," Hanes said. "That's really unfortunate and unsavory. The people of this district are going to reject that type of politics."

Patterson's case may be more cut and dry.

He told me that a Renigar Street address that is listed on his filing papers is his primary address. He acknowledged that he has a second residence, on Poindexter Avenue. Coffman confirmed that the Poindexter Avenue address is located in District 72, as is the Renigar Street address.

"Due to the fact that my campaign is all about integrity, I will not stoop to dirty politics," Patterson said. "Clearly, I live in the 72nd, I work in the 72nd and I play in the 72nd."