Politics

Edwards, Baldwin spar over immigration, push polls

By Bill Moss, Published: February 26, 2016

Lisa Carpenter Baldwin, on the campaign trail for the 48th Senate District seat, is trying to tar Chuck Edwards with a Chamber of Commerce letter that urged congressional leaders to reform U.S. immigration policy.

“My NC Senate opponent, Chuck Edwards, sent a letter supporting illegal amnesty on behalf of the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce,” she said last week.
The letter, written in 2013 over Edwards’s signature when he was chair of the chamber, urged Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to act on reform.
“Reform of an outdated, broken immigration system is essential if we are to achieve a fully revitalized economy that provides rewarding and lasting jobs and opportunities for all Americans,” said the letter, which contains boilerplate Chamber of Commerce language urging Congress to enact “pro-growth immigration reform.” It doesn’t mention amnesty or potential citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
During a Republican breakfast on Saturday, one of Baldwin’s supporters asked Edwards about “supported amnesty,” and Baldwin repeated the charge when she denounced push poll telephone calls she says misrepresented her positions.
“I’ve been the subject of two unethical and possibly illegal push polls,” she told the Republican gathering. “No one has claimed responsibility for this action. These are phone calls that have painted me as a career politician, as pro-labor union, as pro-amnesty, basically painting me with my opponent’s position on amnesty.”
Baldwin said she could not find out who was responsible for the calls.
“I called the number,” she said. “It doesn’t say who paid for it. I left a message and nobody ever called me back.”

‘Absolutely false’

Edwards said in an interview he had no knowledge of the push polls or association with them. And at the GOP event he answered Baldwin’s claims about the chamber letter.
“It is absolutely false that I have ever asked for amnesty,” he said. “What I was for is (a solution) when the farmers in this area came to the Chamber of Commerce and asked for our help because they saw many many states around us beginning to take care of this terrible immigration problem.”
Back in 2013, Henderson County farmers feared that the North Carolina Legislature would follow the lead of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and other states that made it a crime to rent homes to undocumented immigrants or give them a ride, required schools to check students’ legal status and required police to arrest suspected immigration violators. Those laws, farmers in those states said, triggered an exodus of farmworkers and made it difficult to harvest crops.
Edwards depicts his role as chamber chairman at the time as responsive to a segment of the local economy that accounts for 20 percent of the county’s economic output.
“Rather than trying to create an additional problem in North Carolina we called for Congress to get off their butts and do their job and lock down our borders and help our farmers create a legal and reliable system to ensure that they have the work force that they needed to plant, tend and harvest their products,” he told the GOP audience.

‘Skill set for problem solving’

During his remarks at the Republican breakfast at the Fireside restaurant, Edwards touted his business background — he worked his way up from flipping burgers to owning a chain of McDonald’s restaurants — as the right experience for the state Senate.
“I consider that I’ve been a businessman since I was 16 years old,” he said.
A native of Waynesville, Edwards described himself as a Christian and conservative, pro-life and a lifetime NRA member.
“I was raised to worship God, love our country, work hard, watch out for our neighbors,” he said. “I want to put my skill set to work for you in Raleigh. I’ve never been a politician. I’ve never run for office before. There’s some things that I think are going to be extremely important for us to face in the future. My skill set enables me to approach that from a problem-solving standpoint.”
Edwards said the Legislature for many years had ignored the mountains.
“I am very excited to say that Tom Apodaca, Chuck McGrady, Chris Whitmire and some others have begun to change that,” he said. “I want to pick up the conservative progress that those folks have begun and continue to unravel 140 years worth of chaos when the General Assembly was under Democratic control.”

Baldwin highlights social issues

While Edwards focuses on the economy and jobs, Baldwin tends to nationalize the race however she can. A Tea Party favorite, she injects social issues into her standard stump speech more than Edwards or the other candidate in the primary, Dennis Justice of Fletcher.
“We must elect leaders who fear God and live for him,” she said. She said she would “join South Carolina and fight to restore North Carolina’s traditional marriage amendment” and would “fight for the rights of our unborn children.”
“As a Buncombe County School Board member I spent four years fighting for conservative values, for fiscal responsibility, for cutting bureaucratic waste and focusing dollars on the classroom,” she said. “As an economist I know what it takes to grow the economy. Government is not in the business of creating jobs but creating an environment of lower taxes and rolling back harmful regulations that hurt businesses.”
“Starting from Day 1,” she said, she would fight for higher standards in the classroom and oppose Common Core.
“Only core government services must be funded with taxpayer dollars,” she added.

Purple campaign signs

Justice is the only candidate in the race with a platform that includes legalizing horse racing and building a concrete dome arena that would be strong enough to withstand a tornado.
“I have no idea what these push polls are about,” he said in response to the conflict between his two rivals. “This is silly season, folks.” Justice said he tried a phone bank when he ran for mayor of Fletcher. “Those things don’t work, they just don’t.”
Like Baldwin, Justice opposes the $2 billion state bond issue.
“Only two state senators in the Republican Party voted against Connect NC,” he said.
He read a newsstory reporting that the state university system had not announced how it would spend the money. “You have to vote for it before you can tell what’s in it.”
“I’m from the working class. I know what it’s like to have the government try to stop my business. I tried a proposal to build an arena at the Ag Center. I didn’t want any money, like Linamar, I just wanted the opportunity to build a reasonable facility.”
If elected, he said, he would push for a constitutional amendment to limit all local and state government debt to four years or less. And he said today’s Republican Party is on the verge of failure because it doesn’t appeal to independents and young people.
“My signs are going to be purple,” he added, “between Lisa’s and Chuck’s.”