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Ask Matt ... whatever happened to Tom Apodaca?

Sen. Tom Apodaca, in a 2015 file photo.

Q. What happened to Tom Apodaca after he left the North Carolina Senate last summer?

The seven-term Republican lawmaker from Henderson County resigned last July and Gov. McCrory appointed Chuck Edwards to the 48th Senate District seat. Apodaca formed Vista Strategies, with offices here and in Raleigh, and, after sitting out a required six-month quarantine, went to work reeling in business. He and his team assembled an impressive lineup of clients that includes Philip Morris, N.C. Beer & Wine Wholesalers, N.C. Cable Telecommunications, MAHEC, Rex Hospital, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and Tryon Equestrian Partners among others. You might notice some strange bedfellows there but I suspect that as long as you are fighting for your client, what difference does it make?
Tom hasn’t missed the legislative routine.
“I really love the lobbying work,” he says. “It’s different every day.”
“Once you’re gone, you’re gone,” he adds. “They don’t know you anymore so you have to reinvent yourself.” He acknowledges that name recognition, and 14 years of service in the place, was still helpful in getting past the office door of a few legislators.
Under current law a former legislator can’t register as a lobbyist for a six-month period after leaving office. A new bill (HB48) has recently been introduced which would extend the “cooling off” period by another six months. Most states have laws that require a one- or two-year cooling off period.
I asked state Rep. Chuck McGrady, a co-sponsor of HB48, what he thought about its chances of passage. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet that it wouldn’t move,” he says. “The bill is in the House Rules committee which is often a place where bills go to die.” McGrady thinks that extending the cooling off period will give the voters more confidence in our state government. He adds, “As it is now, legislators can retire right after the short session one year and be back as a lobbyist in the long session the next year.”
Remember Clark Plexico? He was another senator from Henderson County who “turned lobbyist.” In his re-election bid in 1996, Plexico garnered 60 percent of the vote in the five-county 29th District. He even won in Henderson County, which was becoming rare for a Democrat. A month after his victory, he shocked everyone by resigning to be a lobbyist for AT&T. After 10 years, he left lobbying and went global.
Plexico’s website, International Strategies, Inc., touts his experience working for a global nonprofit group in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to instill democratic principles and to help build democratic institutions in the post-Soviet states. Last October he wrote a column for the Raleigh News & Observer taking issue with partisan voting districts. A strong proponent of political compromise, Plexico believes that the way to eliminate frustration and gridlock is to take a non-partisan approach to drawing districts. Today the former lobbyist lives in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.

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