Politics

No fireworks in '16 short session, McGrady predicts

By Bill Moss, Published: February 5, 2016

State Rep. Chuck McGrady predicts the upcoming legislative session will be free of political fireworks and legislators will come home in time for the real fireworks.

The legislative session that convenes in April “is going to be short short short,” McGrady told the Land of Sky Regional Council when it met last week at the Historic Courthouse in Hendersonville.
“We’ve been told by the leadership in both the House and Senate, ‘Do not bring up anything controversial.’ The governor told us the longer we are in session the lower his poll numbers go,” he added. “I think we are going to be home quickly. The only thing we’ve got to do is look back at the budget. … If there are any emergencies we will respond to that. Two years ago, the short session became about coal ash. I’m expecting nothing at this time. I hesitate to say this with the media in the room but my expectation is I’ll be home by July Fourth.”
Speaking to elected county commissioners and city council members from across the region, McGrady also offered pointers on how to lobby legislators. Each one is different, with different preferred channels of communication and hours they work.
“What it’s really about more than anything else is relationships,” he said. “You may not agree with them all the time but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a working relationship. I came out of county government and I’m really sensitive to local government. I never come back into the county without touching base with Steve Wyatt. I’ve got the numbers of all the local officials in Henderson County. If I need to call them I will and if they need to call me hopefully they will. You really need to be more about talking to your elected local officials before you have a problem.” In the busiest time of the session when legislators are bombarded with bills “you’re just part of the clutter at that point,” he said.
Another ineffective approach is trying to influence legislators with an email blast to all.
“I get emails from people that go to every legislator and they’re from Albemarle,” he said. “That’s delete, delete, delete. On one issue I got well over a thousand emails from people. Two of them were from my district. I responded to those two, and I had my secretary delete everything else.
“With that said, also understand your legislator,” he added. “Anything environmental I end up doing. If I start getting a lot of push on public safety issues from Greensboro, what’s the point?
Learning your legislator is no different from learning your county commissioners. Email was not the best way to communicate with Charlie Messer. Calling Chuck McGrady on the phone is not a very productive thing,” he said. “Call me now and my mailbox is probably full. But when you get an email from me at 2 a.m. that’s my email. I work in a certain way. Develop relationships. Figure out what they do and you can be among the most effective legislative lobbyist to public policy people like me.”

McGrady said the 2015 legislative session ultimately racked up positive achievements.
“Despite what you may have heard there is increased money for education in the budget,” he said. “It’s about 5 percent. There weren’t cuts to education. Money is slowly coming back there.”
The session was long mainly because the House and Senate had to agree not only on a budget but also on a range of reform measures from Medicaid to taxes.
“We came in to 2015 not knowing what our revenues were going to be,” he said. “A year ago, if you were sitting in this room you would have been worried that the state was going to run a $400 million deficit maybe. What did it turn out? Roughly $200-300 million surplus. We were slow on the uptake. The House adopted the budget within a week or two of the schedule. The Senate came back and put a lot of policy in the budget. All their education package was in the budget, all the Medicaid reform was in the budget, all the tax reform was in the budget, all the environmental changes were in the budget.”
House leaders refused to take up so much big change in one bill.
“The House basically said no,” he said. The capital press corps reported that House and Senate negotiators were working behind closed doors to hammer out a deal. “Wrong,” he said. “I didn’t see a senator, and I’m one of the conferees.”
The Senate agreed to separate the policy bills from the budget, and the House worked on them one by one.
Legislators have been telling wait till next year long enough, he said, when it comes to state workers’ pay.
“My biggest disappointment was frankly no across-the-board raises for teachers and state employees,” he said. “Over the last seven years the total raise for state employees was 1.2 percent, one year. We’re going to lose people if we’re not willing to compensate. We’ve just got to move there.” With the economy turning the corner, he said, “the hope is that an across the board raise is coming.”