No one has to tell Maggie Jeffus that with record numbers of North Carolinians out of work and discontented with President Obama, incumbent Democrats face an uphill battle this year. She’s appealing to voters to be patient, to stay optimistic and to think hard before voting out the Democratic majorities in Washington and Raleigh.
“There are a lot of areas that are at stake because [the Republicans] keep talking about cutting,” she said. “Higher education, that’s in danger. The environment’s in danger. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t cut everything out and have a healthy economy, but there probably is some fraud or waste that can be cut, and we need to be accountable.”
Jeffus knows something about Republican sweeps. She served two terms in the NC House before the Republican groundswell of the 1994 midterms sent her home, but she won her seat back in the next election, and is now the longest serving legislator from the Guilford County delegation. This year, the 75-year-old Jeffus faces a challenge from Theresa Yon, a feisty, 40-year-old first-time candidate backed by Republican lawmaker John Blust.
“One of the things that will probably be used against me and should be used in favor is seniority,” Jeffus said. “Seniority is very important in Raleigh. Even if the Republicans take over the House and a new person goes in my place, they still will not have seniority. We used to get criticized for years for not being effective as a delegation. Everything went to Charlotte and Raleigh. The delegation we have now works well together.”
Jeffus said she takes pride in preserving programs at a time when sharply declining revenues have forced state lawmakers to make painful decisions as the recession slammed state budgets across the nation in early 2009.
Last year, the lobbyist for the NC National Guard Association credited Jeffus in the Tarheel Guardsman for her “tireless work” to preserve funding for family assistance centers in Greensboro, Greenville and Lenoir that assist family members of deployed Guard members.
“The arts produce a lot of money for North Carolina," Jeffus said. "They’ve done economic studies that show that a lot of jobs are created through the arts. That’s one of the first things they talk about cutting because they consider it a frill. I think the arts is absolutely crucial.”
As a chair — alongside fellow Guilford Democrat Alma Adams — of the House Appropriations Committee, Jeffus is in a position to take advantage of funding opportunities for Greensboro institutions and guard the area’s assets.
A couple years ago, Jeffus secured $125,000 in funding for the new omni-theater at the Natural Science Center in Greensboro, and in the last session she successfully defended against an attempt to swipe funds that UNCG had set aside to build a tunnel allowing students to walk under the railroad along Lee Street and get to housing in Glenwood.
Jeffus said UNCG had saved $8.5 million by having a bid for a construction job come in below budget. Sen. Don Vaughan filed a bill that included the full amount for the tunnel, but by the time the legislation made it over to the House side, half of the funds had been reallocated to the UNC campus in Chapel Hill.
“I found out when it got to me, and we worked on it and worked on it,” Jeffus said. “The joke was, I would have to grab a shovel and dig the tunnel myself.”
Along the lines of reducing unnecessary spending — a cause loudly proclaimed by the Republican opposition — Jeffus said she applauds recent changes that increase the number of years state employees must work before getting free healthcare, a reform made to minimize the incidence of employees working in North Carolina for a period, qualifying for benefits and then moving out of state and taking advantage of a second state health plan at the same time. Jeffus said she would also support a study of the State Health Plan for teachers and state employees to look into ways of keeping the fund solvent.
Another area in which Jeffus said the state might find room to make cuts is in personal care services for people with disabilities. She said she wants to make sure that people receive the services they really need, but thinks there might be some areas where people could make do with less.
Much of the work of a state lawmaker is troubleshooting problems and handling constituent services rather than fighting grand ideological battles over the size and scope of government, Jeffus said.
The lawmaker said she learned after the General Assembly adjourned for the summer that the Council for Women under the state’s Department of Administration, was cutting funding to address domestic violence in Guilford County. Jeffus said that since the 1980s, programs have been funded by center rather than by county, with Clara House in Greensboro and Carpenter House in High Point each receiving a separate allotment. This year, the state allotted the money by county, chopping $93,000 out of the funding stream for the two Guilford County centers.
Jeffus said the state appropriated the same amount of money this year as last to address domestic violence, so there’s no reason to reduce funding. Also, she questions staff’s authority to make the decision.
“We’re the legislature and we get to make policy,” she said. “They’re supposed to administer it.”
At this point the two sides remain at an impasse. Meanwhile, Jeffus said, one of the centers has had to put an employee on leave who continues to volunteer in an unpaid capacity.
Jeffus said she also responds to requests from constituents for help in cutting through red tape to obtain unemployment benefits. Sometimes she's successful; other times, not.
Jeffus’ opponent has charged that the Democratic majority in the General Assembly has not adequately supporting small businesses, which are generally credited with providing most jobs in the state. Jeffus said in response that she believes the state is doing as much as it can with limited resources.
She also defended the use of cash incentives to attract film production to the state — a practice maligned by some as “corporate welfare.”
“Several years ago, we had a film studio in Wilmington that was doing a lot of work, where they filmed ‘Dawson’s Creek,’” Jeffus said. “All of that is gone. We’ve got to bring it back. It’s an important industry that creates a lot of jobs. These people stay in hotels and motels. They eat in restaurants. They build sets. People are hard up for jobs, and we need to do everything we can to bring them here.”
Jeffus, a retired teacher, also dismissed an idea championed by Yon and Blust to require that 65 cents out of every dollar allocated for education be spent in the classroom.
“I think it sounds good, but I don’t think it’s realistic to tie the hands of the [local education agencies],” she said. “There may be circumstances where they need it. We give them the pot of money and they decide how to spend it. They want local control because what a LEA in Currituck or Hyde County needs, they may not need here.”
Much of the electorate remains both demoralized and tuned out this year. To the extent that voters are paying attention at all, they’re likely to vote according to their feelings about whether they want the Congress to remain in control of the Democrats so that President Obama can effectively pursue his agenda or to rebuke him by replacing him with a crop of Republican insurgents. Preferences at the top of the ballot are likely to trickle down to state legislative races in which voters make choices based more on party affiliation than individual merits.
With that in mind, Jeffus doesn’t shrink from embracing the party label.
“I think the Democrats stand for the people,” she said, “for helping the people, for seeing that the people’s needs are met through jobs and education, that we provide all these services that would make North Carolina a great state and a competitive state.”
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