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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview C-0331, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
In the second of three interviews, four-term Democratic North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt describes the qualities of an effective governor. He recalls how his experience as the lieutenant governor to a Republican governor in the early 1970s taught him the need for bipartisanship. Hunt says that these elements shaped his philosophy as governor and resulted in political accomplishments, including the Smart Start educational program and the Coastal Area Management Act, an environmental initiative. Hunt advocates building a strong and dedicated team of people to surround the governor in order to best implement his policies. His emphasis on team-building and delegation gave him more time to meet with his constituency. Hunt also describes the ethical challenges he faced with patronage in state job positions and his tense relationship with the Council of State, an independently-elected executive cabinet. Because of Hunt's willingness to cooperate with Republican politicians, lingering tensions faded quickly. He describes the growing centrality of the media to political campaigns, including his own; he maintains that his good working relationship with the media allowed him to accept the media's constructive criticism and helped him to avoid the excessive negative smears that beset other North Carolina governors. Hunt discuses the personal, emotional, and physical strains of running for and serving as governor: canvassing the state for votes, spending long stretches of time away from his family, reviewing clemency cases, and being continually scrutinized by the media—his good relationship with them notwithstanding—all took a physical and emotional toll on Hunt. Hunt also touches on such subjects as gubernatorial succession, veto power, and budgetary powers.
In the second of three interviews, four-term Democratic North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt discusses the elements—including team-building and bipartisanship—that shaped his philosophy as governor and resulted in political accomplishments.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
An interview with Governor James B. Hunt of North Carolina for Wake Forest University and the Southern Oral History Program in Chapel Hill. This interview is part of a series of interviews with North Carolina former governors. The interview was conducted August 15, 2001, at the office of Governor Hunt in Raleigh, North Carolina. The interviewer is Dr. Jack D. Fleer, Department of Politics, Wake Forest University, tape number 8-15-01-JBH.
How can a governor be an effective chief executive?
Well, to be an effective chief executive, the governor has to know what he wants to accomplish. He has to have goals, and he has to have a plan to carry it out. He has to have a good team in place, a good organization to help him with it including the people on his immediate staff in the governor's office, the department heads and the people who serve under them in the various cabinet departments and so forth. He must be engaged and very active in obviously getting his program through the legislature and getting it acted on by regulatory groups that have to act and getting his budget, he has to get his budget approved. Assuming all that's been done then the governor needs to work closely with his team, both his own staff and the heads of the various departments, to ensure that the goals are being accomplished. I did that by setting out an agenda for my administration, a very detailed one which I assume you have copies of—
Yes, I do.
Probably no administration in history has ever had such a detailed
agenda. We had retreats every six months to make sure we were following
up. We had issue groups that worked across department lines. We had
reports and cabinet meetings on various areas of our agenda. The
governor has to work out beyond his own
Governor, you covered a lot of points there as I anticipated you would, and I wanted to go back and focus on some particular ones and ask some questions about them. Let's begin by talking about how you developed the what you call, the agenda for action. Who was involved in developing that agenda and how was that developed?
Well, when you first run or in my case when I ran for a second time, you
develop it with your, you develop it with your own mind and heart, what
are you running for, why are you running, to do what. If you
can't answer that question, you shouldn't ever
run. I could always answer that question because I was running,
that's the reason I was running not to be governor, but to
accomplish certain things. You pull together a team of people who care
about those things, are knowledgeable. First two terms as governor Joe
Grimsley was very close to me. He had an interest in economic
development, balanced growth, environmental protection, things of that
sort. Judge (Phil) Carlton was close to me. He was very interested in
crime control and public safety and the court system that was effective.
I had a number of people who were interested in education, but my own
deep involvement too was a source. I was sort of the education
More the process, yes. Let me ask you one more particular question. There are lots of options in terms of where you would get advice and information and suggestions of what you would do. Your personal staff in the campaign or as governor, once you're elected the cabinet, the people you appoint, lobbyists, leaders of particular organizations. One of the images of governor is sort of the manager of a large group of people trying to coordinate and consolidate an effort towards a set of goals. Among those various sources of information that you might have that can help you develop an agenda, what would you say would be those who would be most helpful really categories of people rather than particular individuals, although it might be useful to illustrate the particular individuals?
Well, let me think about that. Again the governor I think is most
effective if he has had personal experience with these things, has deep
feelings, and good personal ideas. In addition to that you would call
people in the academic communities, many of
Let me ask you a specific matter related to that. When you're looking for people to be involved, you've got both the substance of whatever policy it is that you're dealing with, and you also have the politics of whatever policy that you're dealing with. To what extent should and would political considerations be a part of these deliberations and how would that come into them—
You would have your political people at the table, and you would, most of
mine cared about these issues. But people who, these are mainly when I
say political
As you I'm sure are aware there are different opinions about the desirability say for example of taking people from the campaign and bringing them into administrations. Some people would argue that running for public office is very different from serving in a public office. You said that you almost always if not always had these political people presumably people involved in your campaign at the table. Can you talk about why you saw that as preferable to a different approach?
Let me hasten to say, I didn't always bring them into my
administration. I didn't always put them into roles they
would've like to have had. But they have value. The reason I
typically did that, Jack, is because they had been a part of crafting
the
Obviously you personally can't do all of those things. So you have to, although I know you were very engaged and very involved in many steps of this process, but you obviously have to appoint and select a large number of people to assist you. What would be some of the key criteria you would use in determining who would be staff people in the office of the governor, secretaries of the departments and deputies and assistants in those departments.
Well, first of all I looked for people who cared and had an interest in
the issues and what I was about—my campaign and
administration was about. Second, I looked for people that I thought had
integrity and ability in performing their functions. Third, I looked for
people who would work hard and go the extra mile and be team players.
Then obviously when you're talking about say a chief of staff
or deputies, you're going to be talking about people who are
real good at overseeing and helping you manage the entire government and
who can themselves engage your team and give them the attention they
need to have and have them effectively involved. When it's
cabinet, then you need people who have the ability to, have executive
ability, team who can—. I always look for people who were
imbued with my ideas and deeply committed to my policies. But also you
want people who can manage a department, who can—. Sometimes
you have to put good managers in to help them with, if they
haven't had a lot of experience and who can see that day to
day functions continue effectively and legally so forth who can also
help you carry the message out. I would recall that David Bruton really
proved himself when we had a special session on child health insurance.
The
Obviously we're talking about a fairly large number of people. Is it difficult to find the people that you wanted to have in the administration? If so, how do you deal with that difficulty?
Well, let's say you're first coming in, again you
would invite people to apply and to suggest others. You would discuss
with people that you respected and whose ideas you thought well of for
people who they would suggest. You would typically have a lot of folks
recommended to you. You would also, there would be some logical people,
like this person was obviously fit for this. Then you always would wind
up with some positions that you didn't have say a perfect
candidate, and you'd go out and search some more.
You'd ask some more people. I was always looking for some
diversity in my cabinet and my staff. I would ask friends,
women's organizations, African American organizations, and
Hispanics as we began to include them in the circle for suggestions. I,
perhaps unlike some administrations years ago, I was determined that I
was going to have that diversity. I was going to find it. You can find
it if you look hard enough. Sometimes you may need to stretch a little
too far in trying to find it, and you'd bring somebody that
maybe hadn't had all the training that you'd like
for them to have. But I
Let me ask you specifically about a word that I know a lot of people don't like to use in politics, patronage as a factor in selecting people. Throughout the last fifty years and I'm sure prior to that the issue of political appointment had been a perennial issue in state and national politics. You went through a period in I guess the fourth term where you were I guess hit pretty hard on some questions about the number of exempt personnel. You undertook some reforms to try to reduce or to reduce—
More than that, I abolished the patronage system. The legislature had
taken some action, and they had reduced some of the exempt positions
down to say 500. I don't know what the number was exactly.
You can get that through research. I did it ipso facto
unqualified to hold office. I found that many of them were qualified.
The fact that they believed in it and worked on your campaign gave them
additional interest in what you were doing, maybe passion and energy to
do it well. But and I always was very careful about the people that
worked on it. For example in my first administrations the person who
ultimately had the control over all that was Joe Pell, one of the most,
the finest human beings, one of the best businessman in North Carolina
and of sterling character and integrity. He would not knowingly ever let
somebody come into government who wasn't qualified.
Nevertheless at the end of my last term, in my fourth term I concluded
that we'd had some problems with some of the people who
served in the Department of Transportation. I just concluded that all
things considered on balance, state government would be better off if
you did not have a patronage office. So I abolished it. There will
always be some of it, but I would say that we have dramatically reduced
the effect of politics on the selection of officials in North
Carolina.
One of the interesting things about this is that as we were talking earlier you said, and I'm sure other governors feel similarly, that the people who help you get elected, committed to your program are a very important part of your governing and your ability to get those programs enacted and implemented. Yet there's also this issue of, are those people going to be qualified or are they there only because or primarily because you found them helpful to you in getting elected. It's a real dilemma in the system, isn't it? And is abolishing the patronage office a way to deal with that dilemma?
Well, I don't know that it resolves the dilemma, but
it's a way to deal with the public perception. The public
perception that the press furthered was that if somebody was involved in
politics they were ipso facto not qualified to be
serving the governor. I think that's wrong. The main evidence
is the candidates who won. Who's more involved in politics
than somebody running for governor? Is the fact that you're a
candidate, that you're running, you're in
politics, therefore a disqualification for serving? To take it to an
extreme that's what you're talking about. Of
course, not. But we have to live in the real world. I had and
I'm not certain about this Jack, but I think earlier when I
was lieutenant governor, I had tried to keep some—. But you
basically have to. You must keep a set of people who are primary policy
makers who will be committed to you and your policies. You have to have
that for it to work. But in the final analysis in my last term we
reduced that down to about a hundred positions. That may be too few. I
don't know. But you have to have that at least. I think we
can make it be okay without a patronage system although I never thought
it was the evil others thought.
Another dimension of recruiting people for this is the question of salary. There's the argument that people who are employed in public service do not command the kinds of compensation that people in the private sector do. Was that ever a problem in your recruiting people for public office?
It was a very big problem. It just absolutely eliminates the possibility
that you would get anybody who is a real successful person unless they
are independently wealthy. They see it as a stepping stone to something
else they want to do. Or they're just willing to make a
sacrifice in their career and in their income. I frequently brought in
people who were independently wealthy and didn't have to
worry about the impact on
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Typically people who, sometimes lawyers would come in and work for you if they see a judgeship vacant. People, there are people who have ambitions for themselves who may see this as a good way to get exposure to get known. Richard Moore, I think, became quite well known as Secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety through the work in the hurricanes as well as Crime Control. That was an advantage to him. He ran for state treasurer. But it is a huge problem trying to get good people to serve. But it is not impossible. It does eliminate a category of folks pretty much, but they're, fortunately there're others who have the resources already or who just care so deeply they want to make the sacrifice.
What about the loss or the diminishing of personal privacy in your own life so to speak? Is that a deterrent to people serving? Did you run into that?
Increasingly. My wife really chafed under the constant public scrutiny,
the criticism of the press, the lack of privacy, the lack of ability to
have our own private life. I understood it. That's just the
way it works. She was willing for me to run for re-election initially
and to run a second time after I had already served two terms because
she believed very deeply in what we were doing especially in education.
Our children and grandchildren had a big stake in it. But that is a big
problem, and yet what do you do about it? It's the
public's business. I believe in full and open information,
press access to most things. Certainly they, we, you have to remember in
my term we put into place a very, very strict code of ethics. Some
people on my commissions refused to be a part of it and therefore
resigned. I mean their positions on boards and commissions not in the
administration full time. So that's a problem, but
there's still plenty of good people that
Part of the scrutiny that's involved in serving as governor and serving the governor as an appointee is the scrutiny related to campaign contributions and service in the public. You ran into as previous governors have on the board of transportation for example some fairly serious allegations at least about people who gave significant amounts of money to your campaign benefiting from highway construction projects or whatever it might be. What does that tell you about our campaign finance system, and what can we do based on your experience to alleviate this public perception of people feeding from the public trough?
Well, we have to first of all have a code of ethics in which you clearly
identified any interests that people on the board of transportation or
other fulltime positions have. You've got to know what they
own or categories, certainly areas in which they have ownership
You're talking about financial disclosures statements?
Yes. But basically you have to limit the number of people who serve who have an interest. Now the question is does contributing to the campaign mean that you're not qualified to serve? I never felt that it should mean that you couldn't serve. There are other interests involved. That's not necessarily a qualification, but it shouldn't be a disqualification. It's the fact that you, you get involved in politics, there's lots of ways. You can work at the precincts or you can go out and speak or you can give money. You don't disqualify people for working at the precinct or going out and speaking or advising or whatever it may be. Yet again we're in a, we live in a world where making contributions has been presented by various groups and the press as somehow disqualifying them to serve. So I think the way the legislature eventually dealt with it and the Board of Transportation was to, in effect, limit or disqualify active members from leading fundraisers and assuring that you have lots of other interests represented is probably a pretty good way to deal with it. But you have to be careful that you don't go so far that nobody will give, if it takes money. I've come to the point where I believe in public financed campaigns. You still have to have some individual gifts but they would be small. Then you wouldn't have to work, the candidates wouldn't have to work at it. I believe that we have to do something about this. But there are people who naively think that you can have campaigns without spending money. You have eight million people, seven million people communicating with them, it's hugely expensive any way you do it. We're being very naïve. It's counterproductive to pretend that you can run campaigns without having a lot of money. I think the only way to do it is to let that money come from the public so that your obligation is to the public, and it could not be perceived just as corruption from substantial amounts of money.
So you would permit some private contributions, but you would limit their amounts.
Yes. I would, I haven't devised a specific detail, but I think you have to have some way of identifying who are the serious candidates. That is typically done by people who raise a certain amount of money. They're obviously serious candidates.
Sort of a certain threshold amount that they would raise to qualify?
Yes. That's right. But once you qualify, then I would have public financing of campaigns.
Short of that which—
Now we've discussed this before haven't we?
No, we haven't.
Well, let me say to you then, I'm not only concerned about where the money comes from. I am concerned about that. It's easier to become beholden to people who give you money as it is people who endorse you, big organizations and things like that. But the things that really sort of made me pretty passionate on this issue is the fact that raising money has become a full-time job. Candidates spend most of their time raising money, not out talking to people, listening to people, learning about the issues, trying to figure out, building the kind of relationship they need to have with their governor. They spend most of their time on the telephone raising money or in a reception with big givers. They don't see ordinary people. I think that is a real threat to our democracy.
Well, not only a threat to our democracy, but it probably inhibits the ability of a person to actually serve as governor in the sense that they're less well informed of what the people are thinking.
Yes. This has all occurred during the time, over the time that I served as governor. When I ran for lieutenant governor, my first kind of big activity was a one hundred county tour, a one hundred county tour. I finished and came back and had a press conference and announced I had just been to 102 counties. They wanted to know where the other two came from. I said well US 64 was being worked on way up in western North Carolina. I had to go through two counties in Georgia to get back, which was true. But in those early years I went to every county time and again and again and again. I can tell you about every county in North Carolina. I can draw you a map. I can tell you about the places in there that I've been. I can tell you the people; I can tell you the industries. I can tell you how they make a living. I can tell you what their schools are like. I can tell you about their medical services. I know all that. I know those people. Candidates who run today can't do that. They don't ever go to them. They don't know the people. They can't picture in their mind's eye. They can't tell you what the courthouse looks like or what the schools look like or other things.
Or what's on people's minds?
That's right. They haven't had that interaction
with people. Therefore, they can use television. But they
can't, I think or the likelihood of their being able, to know
what people are thinking and being able to pull them together and rally
them to do big things is really reduced. Again they don't
have in their mind's eye the picture of what these
communities and these people are like. It's much harder I
think to understand the public's will and desires and hopes
and dreams, and to be able to fashion the kind of teamwork and
partnership to bring that about and to get the legislature to respond.
Every time I talk to a legislator and try to get them to help, I knew
the people back home that
Isn't part of the problem here, Governor, that the amounts of money that are involved are so great that those candidates may well feel that sort of the maximum return that they're going to get in terms of funding is focusing on the funding process?
That's right. That's exactly right. You have to, they hire these consultants. The consultants tell them this is a TV game. The only way you can win it is on television, and you have to have immense amounts of money in order to be able to do it; therefore, you've got to spend all your time raising money.
There's a certain reality to that, isn't there?
There is, but we can change it by having public financing; therefore, freeing up candidates to go back and be real candidates again.
Let's switch gears here. In addition to those people that you bring into the administration, as the chief executive you also have to deal with persons who are separately and independently elected, the Council of State. Can you talk about your relationship as governor with Council of State members and their departments?
Well, they are independently elected. That means there are limits on
requirements to cooperate and work together. As governor I always saw it
as my duty to work with the members of the Council of State and to try
to get their cooperation for my things I was interested in and to try to
get [behind] the things that they were interested in. I had mixed
success. Craig Phillips was the superintendent of public instruction
when I was first governor. He and I had some differences on testing. But
we had many similar
Now you mentioned education, and that's sort of a particularly interesting and maybe somewhat separate area from other departments because governors in North Carolina and many other places, but particularly in North Carolina, get very intricately involved in education as a very big part of our state budget. The state has a huge responsibility in this area.
The governor appoints the state Board of Education, which actually is the head of the department of education.
Does that mean that that particular area would be what you would think serious need of reform as compared with the secretary of state or the commissioner of insurance or the commissioner of agriculture.
When you say reform, do you mean making it an appointed position?
That's right.
Well, yes. I think that's a good idea. Can it be done
practically speaking, politically? No, and I concluded that and I
stopped working on it. No need to engage in futility and it became very
clear to me, about seventy percent of the people in this state did not
want to give up any elected positions. We also found out about judges by
the way though we ought to be working on some kind of approach. So yes,
I think it would be best if you have an appointed superintendent. But
the people aren't going to agree to it. So we have to find
other ways to have the governor work with that department, the
superintendent's office. Let me hasten to say too that I also
obviously worked with all Council of State members. Because of my
interest in it and my personal involvement in agriculture, I had a very
close relationship with Jim Graham. Worked with him, I had my own
Governor's Advisory Committee on Agriculture. I think we
called it Agriculture,
On budget requests, would you essentially just accept the budget requests that those department secretaries submitted?
No. No. That of course is subject to some real tension. In a good year, when there was plenty of the money you'd typically have a budget that would reflect enough of the Council of State's priorities. They would feel pretty good about it. But in tough years you couldn't ask for any more money for them, maybe only a little small thing or two. That was frequently the source of some real friction. I'm sure the Council of State will tell you that. Of course you say you're cutting your own cabinet people back, too. But they were independently elected. So they feel like their requests ought to be honored. But the governor is the director of the budget. It's his job to put together a budget, submit it to the legislature. He's got to make sure it's balanced; he's responsible for submitting it and carrying it out. So that's just a situation that exists.
What about on legislative policy initiatives. Would you get involved in those or would you let them carry their own responsibilities?
If it was part of my agenda, I got very involved.
No, I mean from those Council of State departments.
Well, again it depends on what you're talking about. With agriculture let's say. Typically Jim Graham would have policy positions. But I'll give you an example. Farmland preservation, now Jim is a big soil conservationist. He feels strongly about it. But the proposals for farmland preservation came from me as governor. The number of environmental things I pushed as governor the Department of Agriculture in some cases went along and in some cases felt we went too far. Certainly they didn't would want to have them located in their department. But these are, you do have some tensions because of our divided government and our elected Council of State members. But part of the governor's job is to manage that, not to defer in every case. Your job is to carry through what people elected you to do. If people elected you to have clean air and clean water and to preserve green space, then you try to carry that through working with legislators, Council of State and everybody that you can. But if they disagree and are not a part of that, you do it another way.
What about on personnel within those departments. One of the things that I've read anyway about the reforms that you enacted in '97 was that some of those departments, in fact I think all of those departments, were very reluctant to cut back on so called patronage positions. Is there anything a governor can do, that you did do, about that?
Well, the legislature actually enacted the law that specified the [number
of exempt] positions. I proposed it, and they enacted it. Some of them
really chafed on that. Prior to that they could just designate their own
exempt positions whichever ones they thought were policymaking or very
confidential and so forth. But again the governor is elected by all the
people and is the chief executive of all the government; therefore, I
The picture that you draw of your relationship with these offices is different from what some governors have. I'm wondering whether, I've drawn in at least interviews I've had with them, and I wonder whether the issue of partisanship becomes key element here in that I don't believe you ever had a Council of State member who was not a Democrat.
I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
And yet many Republican governors had almost all Democrats most of the time. Is that an issue or is that really an issue of the position of governor, that you need to protect his position as chief executive; therefore, you do intervene on budget and you do intervene on legislative proposals and you may even intervene on personnel decisions?
I'm not sure I understand your question.
Well, does it make it easier—you talk about the fact that you
were very involved in those departments when you thought that it was
inconsistent, any actions they
It doesn't happen very often but on occasions, yes.
Some other governors have said I basically accept what those departments proposed for the budget. They have their separate legislative program, different from my legislative program. Is this an issue of differences in partisanship or is it an issue of differences in perception of the role of the governor as chief executive?
I think it's more of the latter. The real truth is probably ninety percent or ninety-five or ninety-eight percent of what certain cabinet or Council of State departments wanted you, there wasn't any question about. You did not get involved by and large.
You did not get involved.
No, but when it came—let's just take education. The superintendent is elected although the governor appoints the state Board of Education. The budget has got to reflect your priorities. What are your programs? Raise teacher pay to the national average in four years. Yes. That's what mine was for the last term. So that's what I put into the budget. I got the law passed and put into the budget monies that would do that. We went from forty-third to twenty-first in four years. It's amazing. It meant a lot of other things couldn't be done, some other things couldn't be done. Smart Start, that was a big budget item. Some people in human resources would rather have done some other things. Maybe some people in other departments would have preferred we go some other ways.
[Come in.]
I'm not sure I've made this clear, Jack, but it was probably easier for me working with people in my own party to develop a closer relationship. But I think it's more a matter of style and determination, and I would not hesitate to take a different position and pursue it aggressively if I thought it was necessary to carry my agenda through. My guess is Jim Holshouser said the same thing. I don't know what he said to you and I'm not asking, but you know he pushed hard for the Coastal Area Management Act. I'm sure plenty of people in some of these other departments including Agriculture didn't like that idea. He pushed for things at DPI that I expect Craig Phillips liked. Whether they were his absolute top priorities or not, I don't know. In other words, he knew what he wanted to do, he ran on it, he pushed hard and he got it. So again, you've got that kind built in tension. The governor has a program, ran on it. People expect him to carry it out. You want to work cooperatively with other people also elected, but in some cases the clear mandate was in the governor's race rather than the Council of State race.
Does the existence of these many departments independently elected weaken the governorship?
A little bit.
A little bit?
Some. Yeah. Some. You could argue in education it is a fairly significant
matter. But it doesn't prevent the governor from being
effective, especially if he can work out the relationships as I think I
did in education, build a team and work on those personal relationships
that you have to do any time you're going to have a good
team. But, to be honest with you, I think we elect too many people. I
think we ought to have a
Let's switch to the lieutenant governors and other persons in the executive department looking at it from an executive standpoint, not the legislative component of that office. You worked or you served I should say with Jimmy Green and Dennis Wicker in two eight year terms each. How would you describe the relationship as executive officials between you and the lieutenant governors?
Well, the relationship grew out of our personal and political
relationship. In the case of Jimmy Green, both Democrats, I think I was
far more progressive in my views and my policies than he was. Because of
that and the fact that we did not have a close personal relationship, I
respected him but we were not close. I did not tend to bring him into
the executive department. Now in those days, I guess he still had all
the legislative powers, appointing committees and he did and so forth.
So he didn't need executive jobs to do. He had plenty of
power and duties within the legislative branch. Our relationship was
such that it was not the closeness that would have encouraged me to have
brought him in and make him effective in the executive branch. With
Dennis Wicker it was a different matter. By that time the lieutenant
governor had lost the legislative power. I think the only thing he then
could do was preside and make some appointments which those too were
being taken away by the president pro-tem. But I actively worked with
Dennis Wicker. I encouraged and lobbied the state community college
board to make him their chairman, big job. I appointed him the head of
the Small Business Advisory
Is that, do you think, the nature of that relationship generally or do you think that relationship between the governor and the lieutenant governor within the executive branch can be made more institutionally close?
I think it can be more institutionally close.
And that it should be.
Probably. I don't think it's a life and death decision. But we would probably be better off if they ran on a ticket. Again it's not one of those great big issues facing the state.
It's not something you felt in any way weakened your position to have that as a separate office?
No.
I'm going to switch—
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Gary Pearce says when he summarizes your first two administrations, or first two terms, he says, ‘Political science textbooks will tell you that North Carolina has a weak governor's office. Jim Hunt proved it does not have to be that way.’ What is your assessment of the power of the office of governor in your experience?
You mean now or when I became governor the first time?
I'd be interested in any change if it's occurred.
I think it was an office with a real limitations when I was first
elected, but there was plenty of potential to be effective depending on
how effectively the governor translated his mandate into legislation.
Two examples that jump out in my mind are Kerr Scott who had a clear
mandate to pave roads and take electricity to communities and even
though he faced a fairly hostile legislature, they recognized the
mandate he had and they went along. Terry Sanford had a clear mandate to
bring about quality education in this state and who also faced a
somewhat what's the term weary legislature, but because of
his powerful mandate and his strong personal leadership and
effectiveness with the legislature he got his program through. But
during those times we did not have the possibility of succession. We did
not have veto. We did have that powerful budget, that budget power that
governors have had, and we just had a tradition of high respect for the
governor. We did not have a two- party system, an effective two-party
system. It was, you know you worked with the leadership to get them to
go along and get action to take place. The governorship has always had
and does now have the bully pulpit and the stature that it carries which
means that people in that position can make friends and have influence
and get a lot of cooperation, simply by exerting themselves and asking
for it as
Could you talk some about why, it sounds like one of the factors, a major factor, that you think might have brought about this change is the two-party competition unless I'm misinterpreting you. Could you elaborate on that some, why that is such a key factor in making veto and succession essential as you say?
I may have misspoken with regard to succession. As I've told,
as I've said to you in an earlier session, I think succession
is most important because the governor has time to carry through the
complex programs. It takes time to carry through. And that means that we
could be switching parties every four years. The veto's a
different matter. That's what I meant to speak about a minute
ago when I talked about the importance of two-parties. I think, while it
is not as clearly seen, when we have a governor and both parties, both
houses led by the same party, when we get a governor of a different
party from the legislative leadership, that veto is going to be
essential for the governor to get cooperation. Jim Martin would have had
more; he got some. He got his Highway Trust Fund and did some other
things. But veto is going to be very important for the governor to
govern, getting his budget through and other items through if he might
have a house and legislature different. I had it with one house. I broke
my back to get my program through, and I had to do it just by the
strength of the office. I had to make use of the bully pulpit. I had to
do it by crafting agreements on education and by going out into the
And can share any responsibility as well as any credit?
That's right. So I don't agree with people who said we used to have the weakest governorship. We did not. But it needed to be stronger, and in today's world the problems are so complex and things happen so fast and you need to be able to move so quickly to be competitive and to deal with the problems we have, I think these additional tools are essential.
Now you mention in conjunction with that the importance of the bully pulpit, and you have talked about it in previous sessions that we have had. I talk about it in terms of the governor as a public leader, as a leader of the public, trying to educate and inform and mobilize the people. I want to ask you a few questions about components of that particular responsibility. What was your relationship generally with the print and electronic media as a component of governor, as a public leader?
What was my relationship?
How would you characterize that relationship?
Well, you have to reach the public. Basically you need to go out and have town meetings and I had a ton of them. By the way it was interesting to the media too.
What was that?
It was most interesting to the media. It's the way to go
directly to the people, but the media likes the reaction. You never know
who's going to come and say what. But I understood that
it's through the media that we reach the public. I also found
that the media frequently spots problems that you don't know
are coming or at least you don't know how imminent they are.
So I used, I worked, I did things. I had events. I communicated in ways.
I did a lot of it as you know. During my first two terms I guess I had a
weekly press conference. I later decided that was not the necessary or
the best thing to do. So I had more events at which I was trying to get
a certain thing done and took questions of different kinds. But the
media is the way you reach, it's through the media that you
reach the people. The media has the job of searching and probing and
trying to find the truth and criticizing when they think
that's appropriate on the editorial page. I understood all
that. I would get mad when I thought I was unfairly criticized. But I
understood how the thing worked. My wife didn't, but I did.
By and large I was treated real fairly by the media. That's
not the point. The question is, was I able to be effective as governor
to get the message out and hear back and pull together support and get
people on the team to do big things through the media. That's
the way it has to work. I guess there are some ways that if you want to
go on line to people directly, but that's still the biggest
way you get to them. So I am sure that I used the media more than any
governor in history, maybe several times more. I'd have
regular meetings and lunches with reporters in my office and plan things
that I thought would be covered that called attention to what we were
trying to do. I don't, again I'm not sure
I'm answering this question well, Jack. The relationship was
one of understanding that the media is the way
Do you think it's a fair thing from your perspective as governor for the media to have been as aggressive as they were in that particular case?
Yeah.
You do think so.
Yeah.
They were in fact serving the public by making known those issues—
Yeah.
If not problems.
Yeah. You can say, ‘Well, they didn't present both
sides of the bridge in the Wilson County issue.’ But in the
whole scheme of things, that's pretty minor. You had some
problems. They were in the—. Mr. Williamson on my board who
was the guy that old gentleman and just wasn't sensitive to
some of the ethics issues and some other decisions that have been made
by people. They were, that's their job. You have to
understand your job and carry yours through. But you have to understand
theirs. You
What about the adequacy of media coverage in the sense that there is an argument today that the media is saying they're not interested in politics or government because the people aren't interested in it. One, do you think that you were able to get the adequacy of coverage, the sufficient coverage of your program in order to get your message out? As you said it's a major means for reaching the people. And two, do you feel that there is a difficulty of competing with other interests out there, the entertainment interests, whatever interests there are out there competing with government and politics that you can do anything about?
Well, the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second question is yes and then you wind it up with can you do something about it.
You're saying you did feel the coverage was adequate.
I did feel coverage was adequate in this state, North Carolina, while I
was governor. We're a special state. You might say that in
Iowa where they have one big population center, the Des
Moines Register Tribune is the paper. It's a very,
very good one. They are as good. But North Carolina is blessed to have
public-spirited newspapers and television stations [that] are pretty
good [and] that do believe that covering public affairs is important and
put resources into it. They're putting less into it than they
used to. The budget is less. But in many places it's changing
rapidly. For example last year I don't know if you ever heard
this or not, but I was told that in the governor's race in
California the first two to three months of the campaign the television
stations wouldn't
That there are these other things that the media is interested in, entertainment whatever else. What can you do as governor to overcome that limitation on media coverage?
Well, you can have events that are attractive for the media to cover. For
example, the public is interested in education, but they're
really interested in their own schools. You can see this when you can
release test scores statewide, and they get a little bit of coverage.
Release the local scores and they're the headline on the
front page of the local paper. What do you do? You make the stories
local. The governor goes to the local community, not to release the test
scores, but to talk about them and to ask people what can we do to
improve this situation to help our children learn more. You try to in
the case of Smart Start. Institutionalize it as a local entity run by
the local people. That's what our 501c3's are.
That's one of the reasons we set it up that way. It was a
reason why I went into schools all over North Carolina.
That's because I was interested in finding out what they were
doing and how well they were doing it and encouraging them to focus on
how we can do it better. We have media in this state that I consider to
be pretty responsible. In fact let me go further than that. We have
newspapers in North Carolina, the major newspapers of this state that
are probably the most public spirited and
How important is it—
Part of that by the way is going out there. You can't sit in Raleigh and lead the state successfully. You've got to go out there all over the state of North Carolina
You were assuming the next question, how important is it to be involved directly with the people, not through the media. Obviously you depend on the media. But I haven't finished the calculations on your fourth term. But in your third term you had something like three, four, five hundred events that are documented in the record where you spoke and had press availability. Compared with the '60s and '70s when the average governor, or the governor on average I should say, had about a hundred-twenty, one hundred-fifty of those events. Did you see yourself over those twenty-five years that you were in the governor's office, not continuously but over that period of time, feeling more and more of the need to get out to the people, and if so why?
Yes I did, and more and more the need to get out there with them in
situations other than a set speech. In fact I got to the place where I
gave speeches but
Did you notice a change from the '70s to the '90s in that regard in your own personal experience.
I did in terms of issues. In my first two terms I went and made a lot of speeches. I did things. But I didn't go out there and dramatize the education issues and early childhood centers nearly as much. I pushed kindergartners. I wasn't out there talking about test scores and talking about how we improve teaching and how we have safe schools and things like that. In my last two terms I did a lot more dramatizing, pointing out, highlighting a number of issues to try to get them on the public mind, educating the people about it to get them involved and supporting us.
Why do you think that was the case? Why do you think that had to be more so in the '90s than it was in the—?. You said more people and that there are more people out there.
Well, I'm going to try to answer that question. That's a very, that's a very probing question. One, there are so many other things competing for attention. There's all the entertainment, sports and everything. It is harder to cut through and get the people to pay attention to the public issues, public events and affairs and policies. Second, there is a far greater emphasis as I said on local stories. I guess at least with education I think we've learned a lot so we know more about what to talk to people about. For example as governor I couldn't give you the five ways to improve a school. These are the five things you'd have to do. Include technology and that's a sixth one. I didn't know as much about it the first time I was out there. You have to learn. I think the things I've just mentioned to you are some of the reasons why you have to do it that way.
Do you think the two-party system plays a role the more, the greater competitiveness, there's more challenge to the ideas that the governor has to present them?
That is true. That is true. Yeah. Yeah. You and I think you see that here. Democrats, they want to raise taxes. They're going to have to. They've got to make a clear line what it's going for and the people would be better off for it. The governor's going to have to get out there and make that case. But I think the issues are probably more complex. There's a time when we just talked about raise teacher pay and that will do it. Now it's a lot more than that.
Well, Jack I'm afraid I've talked too much and haven't answered all the—.
I appreciate all the time you've provided me. I think we've covered a lot of topics.
When do you want to do this again? How much more do you think we have to do?
One or two, I'm not sure about the second. I'll see what I can do.
Well, let's schedule one more and see where we are after that. Okay. Can you reach over there and unplug that there?
Oh I can. Thanks.
END OF INTERVIEW