Business leaders, legislators say amendment would hurt business recruitment efforts, reputation

RALEIGH, N.C. – A proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in North Carolina will hurt the state’s business recruitment efforts during a critical time in our state’s economic history, Democratic legislators said Tuesday.

House Minority Leader Joe Hackney was among the Democratic legislators at the press conference in the Legislative Building in Raleigh.

“This distracting and discriminatory amendment harms our state economy by sending a message that our state doesn’t welcome the diverse workforce that modern employers need to compete in a global economy,” Rep. Hackney said. “This perception alone can harm business recruitment efforts during a time when efforts could be better spent creating jobs rather than limiting options.”

They were joined by business leaders from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Durham and Replacements Ltd. in Guilford County. Between them, the two companies employ more than 1,000 people.

“The proposed amendment is bad for business,” said Anthony Pugliese, senior vice president for finance, membership & operations for AICPA and a member of the board of directors for the North Carolina Chamber. “It interferes with our ability to recruit talent and our right to provide competitive benefits to our employees. It also signals to major employers like ours that our state is not welcoming to the diverse, creative workforce that we need to compete in the global economy. It’s also bad for future business development in the state as we seek top grow our tax base. It is very unlikely we would have ever relocated our global headquarters to the Triangle and hired 450 local employees in 2006 if this amendment had been the law.”

AICPA is in the district of Minority Whip Larry Hall.

“With the unemployment rate in Durham County at 8.2 percent, we need to increase job opportunities and be a welcoming community for people of diverse backgrounds,” Rep. Hall said. “Instead, discriminatory efforts like this makes companies question whether North Carolina is a place they want to do business.”

Private business is already a leader in the recognition of same-sex couples in North Carolina. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, including Bank of America, Lowe’s, Duke Energy, BB&T, and Reynolds American, the five-largest North Carolina-based public companies. More than 50 major private companies in North Carolina offer same sex domestic partner benefits, including Bank of America, the fifth-largest Fortune 500 company in the United States, and Food Lion.

“It makes no sense that North Carolina, in a dark economic hour, should single out a minority of its population for public judgment,” said Andrew Spainhour, general counsel for Replacements Ltd. “To those who say this won’t hurt business, we say, put yourselves in the shoes of someone trying to entice an LGBT professional, or business leader, or educator, or some other member of the creative class, to come to North Carolina, a state considering an anti-gay amendment in the year 2012.  We’re incredulous that we can’t all agree that’s a tough sell.”

A special session of the General Assembly, the third session this year, will convene Sept. 12 to discuss proposed constitutional amendments. The additional cost to the state for this session is an estimated $50,000 a day. The state spent $200,000 for the most recent special session of the General Assembly.

The ongoing legislative session in North Carolina offers citizens a clear view of the different values of our legislative leaders and the direction they want to take our state.

On one side is a new Republican majority eager to carry out their plans to eviscerate public education, endanger children’s health and gut safeguards that protect our water and air. Democrats have opposed this destructive course at every turn and have succeeded in moderating some legislation and upholding the veto of Gov. Perdue when warranted. We want to do more for this state, especially our children.

Now, as we await the governor’s decision on whether she will veto the Republican-penned budget for the coming fiscal year, I wanted to give you some facts about the plan.

Despite the misleading rhetoric of the majority, this budget fails to protect education as they profess. Specifically, the claim that they have protected teacher and teacher assistants is patently false. You can easily look at the reports in your own communities to see that this is true. Statewide, the early estimates based on our best information show that 13,100 positions in public education could be eliminated under this budget - 9,300 in K-12, 1,100 in our community colleges and 2,700 in the university system. There will also be an estimated 3,000 state employees directly put out of work and thousands more are expected to laid off in the months ahead as the realities of the extreme right’s vision for North Carolina becomes more focused.

The excuse for their wrongheaded decisions is that the education system in our state is broken. That’s simply incorrect. Just this week, a new study issued by the Education Research Center found that over the past 10 years North Carolina has had the nation’s second-largest increase in graduation rates among the states. The rate for African-American females is the highest in the nation and third-highest for all African-Americans. North Carolina students posted the highest gain in SAT scores over the past 10 years among the states that primarily use the exam for college entrance and it ranks in the top quarter of states in ACT scores. Our community colleges are considered a model for the nation. Our universities consistently rank among the best and the best bargains in the nation. These achievements are the result of wise investment, careful consideration and a dedication to our children and the economy of the future.

The Republican plan betrays these children by taking this state backwards. It takes away opportunity, denying health services to children and affordable college loans and financial aid to middle-class families. Per-pupil funding in K-12 education will drop to 49th in the nation.

The visionary leaders of this state — Republican and Democratic — transformed North Carolina into a national leader by recognizing that investment in education and health enriches our state and its businesses rather than burdening them. Republicans have rejected that commonsense value and instead put us on a path that will limit opportunity for our children. Their values — and what they value — diminish this state.

Rep. Joe Hackney is the leader of the North Carolina House Democratic Caucus. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2007-2011.

House Democrats made several attempts to amend Senate Bill 8 to make it better. Some Democratic amendments have been incorporated into the latest House version. Even so, in the end, this bill remains unconstitutional because of its extreme governance provision, a provision that effectively creates two public school systems in North Carolina. In the end, this bill still flies in the face of diversity, actually thumbs its nose at the notion of diversity. In the end, Senate Bill 8 continues to make the statement that accountability standards are applicable to this state’s traditional public schools, but not to charters. In the end, Rep. Marvin Lucas was right when he tore this bill to shreds.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS RELEASE CAUCUS AGENDA FOR 2010 SESSION

Plan will focus on economy, education, ethics

RALEIGH – North Carolina House Democrats today introduced their 2010 session agenda, a plan designed to create jobs, support small business, protect education and strengthen ethic rules.

The caucus’ Plan to Protect North Carolina’s Future focuses on four major priorities:

1) JOBS: Putting North Carolinians back to work and supporting our small businesses

2) EDUCATION: Protecting our future by ensuring our students receive a quality education

3) FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY: Making sure our state government lives within its means and protects its citizens

4) ACCOUNTABILITY: Demanding a more responsible government

The 68 representatives who make up the House Democratic Caucus developed the plan over the past several months and will use it as a blueprint to guide their legislative work in the months ahead. Rep. Larry Womble and Rep. Deborah Ross led the committee that wrote the plan, which was approved unanimously within the caucus.

“This plan outlines the priorities of House Democrats as we start this year’s session,” House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman said. “We intend to help move North Carolina along through this economic recovery with ideas that will bring jobs, protect education and show that we take our fiscal and ethical responsibilities to this state seriously. We have rolled this plan out on the first day of session to show our resolve. Now, it’s time for us to get to work.”

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Plan to Protect North Carolina’s Future

North Carolina House Democrats

2010 Session

While our nation endures one of the toughest recessions in history, North Carolinians remain resilient. As many families cut back their household budgets, so is the state of North Carolina. Now, we must continue to lay the groundwork for more prosperous times and secure the future for our children.

As House Democrats, we will continue to help North Carolinians cope with the current economic uncertainty by working to preserve essential services for our state. We will: create and expand job opportunities; support our small businesses; protect education at all levels; and strengthen the public’s confidence in its elected and appointed leaders. As Democrats, we will move North Carolina forward and protect our future.

Under our Plan to Protect North Carolina’s Future, we will focus on four major priorities in 2010:

JOBS: Putting North Carolinians back to work and supporting our small businesses

EDUCATION: Protecting our future by ensuring our students receive a quality education

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY: Making sure our state government lives within its means and protects its citizens

ACCOUNTABILITY: Demanding a more responsible government

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JOBS: Putting North Carolinians back to work and supporting our small businesses

Our number one priority is and must continue to be getting North Carolinians back to work and supporting our small businesses, which are essential to our economic recovery. We must:

- Recruit jobs into the state and protect the ones we have

- Build a workforce to fit the needs of the 21st Century

- Invest in existing job development funds for new and expanding businesses

- Assist small businesses in creating jobs

- Provide tax credits for small businesses that provide health insurance to their employees

- Increase worker training at community colleges

- Promote green jobs and green technology

- Create jobs now through critical infrastructure improvements

- Support our small business centers

- Increase business’ capacity to procure federal and military contracts

EDUCATION: Protecting our future by ensuring our students receive a quality education

This economic downturn won’t last. We are preparing for a strong recovery by continuing to invest in our education system. We must:

- Make protecting our teachers a top priority

- Support our community colleges and university system to ensure an educated workforce

- Protect class size, especially in K-3

- Keep our students on track to graduate

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY: Making sure our state government lives within its means and protects its citizens

We will continue to meet our constitutional obligation to balance the state’s budget. We made the largest cuts in the state history in 2009 and like most families in North Carolina, it is necessary that we continue cutting back. We must:

- Streamline, economize and prioritize government spending

- Continue to find ways to make government more efficient

- Fund essential services, particularly for our state’s most vulnerable people

ACCOUNTABILITY: Demanding a more responsible government

We must ensure an open and transparent state government that acts responsibly and finds solutions. We must:

- Continue to lead by example and earn the respect of our citizens through our actions

- Make sure government records are available and accessible to the public

- Improve the integrity of government contracts

- Continue to strengthen our ethics laws

- Crack down on those who defraud the government

“Ike Andrews was a mentor and friend to me for many years and his death is a great personal loss to me and many others in our shared home of Chatham County. He gave me my start in politics and perhaps more than anyone convinced me to pursue a life of public service.

“Congressman Andrews was a World War II veteran who served as a district attorney, a school board attorney, a state senator and a state representative before his 12 years as a U.S. congressman. That is a remarkable legacy. He was devoted to improving the education of our children and to creating equal opportunity for all of them, a belief he carried out by helping to end segregation in our schools. Our state and nation are better today because of his work.

“I will miss my friend and the wisdom and values that he shared with me. I will miss his good-humored annual celebration of Groundhog Day, his kindness and his spirit and I send my deep regrets to his family during this time of mourning.”

– North Carolina Speaker of the House Joe Hackney