Jeter discussed the long road to getting new legislation passed, even in a Republican supermajority legislature (Jonathan Cox/CorneliusNews.net)
By JONATHAN COX
CorneliusNews.net/DavidsonNews.net
Sen. Jeff Tarte (R-Cornelius) said his goals in the state legislature are simple: “There’s an endless amount of stupid in state government,” he said, and he wants to try to remove – or at least reduce – it.
Tarte spoke Friday morning at the monthly Focus Friday issues session at the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce offices in Cornelius, where he was joined by Rep. Charles Jeter (R-Huntersville). The two discussed the bills that they will vote on in Raleigh later this term, early drafts of which were all filed earlier this month.
These bills range from changes to the Medicaid system, to bills to combat distracted driving, to bills aimed at providing tax incentives to renewable energy providers. The legislature has its work cut out for it: 207 bills were filed in the Senate on March 26 alone. The process of “making sausage” – as Jeter described passing laws – can be messy, difficult, and disappointing, even in a state with a Republican supermajority and control of the governor’s mansion.
More than 20 local business-owners and town commissioners were at Fridays meeting, and several raised concerns about bills that they believe, if passed, could harm business around Lake Norman.
One of the most contentious issues discussed was a proposal to redistributed state sales tax revenues, which Jeter and Tarte both staunchly oppose. If approved, the bill would move sales tax dollars from urban to rural areas. (See related story, April 17, 2015, “Local leaders oppose legislators’ plan to redistribute sales tax”)
Battle lines have already been drawn over the sales tax issue between rural and urban representatives in Raleigh.
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It has short-term benefits for towns north of Charlotte, town officials acknowledged. But these immediate benefits come at a cost. “The town of Davidson might gain in the short term,” said Davidson Town Manager Leamon Brice, “But in the long run we’re the losers.”
Added Huntersville commissioner Danny Phillips: “We need to know how this sales tax is going to affect our budgets.”
Tarte and Jeter said that while the sales tax bill takes money from Mecklenburg County’s coffers, their bills could help put some back in. One reform both are pursuing is a change to the way the state gathers the gasoline tax. Funding for transportation projects currently depends on gas taxes, which fluctuate with prices. “They change depending on what happens to some Saudi prince,” Jeter said.
In order to ensure a more stable source of revenue, Jeter and Tarte are both supporting legislation that would impose a flat yearly “transportation access fee” on all car owners of roughly $120. The plan isn’t perfect, Tarte said, but it would reduce gas prices and ensure more consistent funding for infrastructure projects.
Now the drafts of all the bills will be torn apart in committee meetings, debated, and voted on over the next two years.
Not all of the issues up for discussion in Raleigh are momentous. The legislature recently passed a regulation, for example, to move the confusing one-way sign that popped up at US 21 and Catawba Avenue in Cornelius. “We get into all kinds of screwy things,” Tarte confessed. “You’d be surprised by how many pieces of legislation focus on small things.”
“But still, everything we do affects somebody,” he said.
