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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-0332, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
In the third of three interviews, Governor James B. Hunt assesses his leadership and the changes that occurred to the Democratic Party during his tenure. He maintains that his education, transportation, and environmental policies had a positive impact and that his contributions in these areas were his legacy to the state. Reflecting on the changes to the Democratic Party during the course of his terms, Hunt describes himself as a consensus builder and a practical politician who views bipartisanship as a means to achieve real and effective change. Hunt began his first term as governor in 1976 and completed an unprecedented fourth term in 2001. He supported an amendment to the state constitution that would allow governors to serve multiple terms in office; the new law took effect during his first term. Those interested in his political tenure and in North Carolina politics in general will find this interview useful.
In the third of three interviews, four-term Democratic North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt assesses his leadership and the changes that occurred in the Democratic Party during his tenure.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is an interview with Governor James B. Hunt of North Carolina for Wake Forest University and Southern Oral History Program at Chapel Hill. The interview is part of a series of interviews with North Carolina's former governors. The interview was conducted on October 3rd, 2001 at the office of Governor Hunt in Raleigh, North Carolina. The interviewer is Dr. Jack B. Fleer, Department of Political Science, Wake Forest University, tape number 10-03-01JBH. [I do have it the way I want it now. Let's see, it's working and the microphone is good.]
We were talking, Governor, about your public leadership position and some attitudes that you had about that role at the end of our last session. I had two more questions that I wanted to deal with. What do you see as the values or utilities of these appearances that you made hundreds of around the state as far as governing the state?
I think maybe I'd put that in about three categories that are
invaluable. I think they are first because as governor you continue to
learn and talk and listen and find out what's going on and
how people feel. It's very important that you continue to
learn and be in touch with the people you're leading. Second,
they're invaluable in taking the message out, educating
people about complex issues, telling them what they have at stake, why
certain courses of action are necessary and what the benefits of them
are and what the consequences of not acting would be. So it's
that matter of being out there educating, informing, helping the
electorate, the people for whom you work understand and developing a
commitment to a certain course of action. Third and I kind of got an
insight of this more recently actually. It's important that
people know and have some connection with their leader, their governor,
their President. I think it is important. You can debate this, but I
think it's important that you certainly at the state
So it's not abstract. It's something that they're working on in their local community.
That's right. But the point I was getting at here is I think people need to know their leaders. They need to feel that they are acting, that they are leading and from seeing that happen, participating in some way with it, I believe that gives people a greater sense of purpose and involvement and more ownership of the democratic process.
So is that a matter of developing sort of a trust that he cares about what our lives are like. He cares.
He cares. He understands. He's talking with us, and we're working on this together.
Do you see any disadvantages to spending so much time on these appearances?
No. You've got to do your work. You've got to lead the state. You've got to deal with the legislature; you've got to get your bills through, your programs in place. You've got get the budget in place. You've got to make sure your departments are running well. There are always some problems that come up with that. That's why you need to have a chief of staff. We've talked about that. I concluded that having a strong chief of staff was important to doing your job best. You have to make some choices here. You can either be out there getting these people in all these areas we can see around North Carolina involved in this and doing stuff on their own, doing more than they might otherwise have done and authorizing more leadership here. Or you can just sit here and be kind of a chief executive, just being the heads of things and take your chances on the right stuff happening out there. I thought I needed to be out there leading. I think the results of that approach are clear.
Did you ever get a feeling that—
You have to like it. You have to want to be out there. You have to feel like you're doing good and get good results from it and personally enjoy which I did. You have different kinds of chief executives. Some of them would rather stay in Raleigh. But I think it was a far better approach to leadership to get out with the people and get them engaged and excited and moving and feeling a part of it and being proud to be a part of it.
Did you ever get the feeling that the audiences tended to be people who
one, were already committed to some particular viewpoint and therefore
were mainly
Yeah, there's that danger. There's always the danger that just your people will come although your people are important. They are the people you count on to help you lead. They understand what the commitment is. They know you. They're behind you. There's a great danger that when you go out on issues that just the very vocal people sometimes who are just one way or the other will come out. Sometimes I see these town meetings, these congressional candidates, congressmen have or sometimes the anti-tax people will stack them. They'll stack meetings and how they work. That's why I found that particularly in education which is the biggest issue in the state that going to schools because there you get the students and their parents, the teachers, other personnel, principals and superintendents, the school board, county commissioners. That's a pretty big, these are all people that care about education yes, but they have a lot of different ideas. They are from different parties. I found that to be, you can get things, people do great things around their children. Things they might have otherwise never done. You have to learn as a leader you have to find what will stir people. You know what will stir people about dirty air? Children, asthma, old people that can't go out of the house. You get them thinking about that friend, and they'll do something about cleaning the air. They would've never done it just because ‘the environmentalists’ thought it ought to be done.
Personal, well being, or their family's well-being.
I want to switch to talking about your role as a political party leader and as governor. Was it important to you to be and to be seen as the leader of the Democratic Party when you were governor?
Yes.
Could you explain it?
Well, I think our system of government is well served by a strong
two-party system. You have a strong two party system. In fact
we're better for it. While I say to you that it is important,
it is also important that the governor be bigger than just his party.
You have to have, develop bipartisan [support]. You have to work with
people of different parties. You should try to develop bipartisan
support for things when you can. But the fact is you, your party is the
group that worked hardest to elect you, support you strongly, believes
in you, will go to the wall for you if you're a strong party
leader. Now I, of course, came up through the party. My first activities
were in Young Democrats. I wrote the state party precinct manual,
‘Rally Around the Precinct’. I canvassed every
house in my precinct and got involved with the people and talking with
them and so forth. I was state president of Young Democrats and led the
first sort of party reform effort in North Carolina which included
recommending voting eighteen-year-olds and full participation by
minorities and women and so forth. I was maybe the last governor that
came along to come up through the party ranks going out and speaking to
party organizations in all counties of North Carolina. As I look back on
it I think it was a great advantage because I got to go to people out
there, where they were. Television and media today is, was very
important. You can probably win without going to counties. I
don't think you should. I don't think
you're as good a governor as if you'd been out.
You shouldn't just work out in the across the state, through
the party. That shouldn't be the only thing you do. I did
agricultural groups and education groups, especially in recent years
environmental groups and safety groups and on and on. But your question
was about party leadership, and I think it strengthens you a great deal
if you're strong in your
Now but there are limits to that, and I'll give you an example. Parties tend to be one side of the spectrum. There are many people within a party that just want you to be very orthodox, very extreme their way. So moderate Republicans in this state often times aren't appreciated by very conservative, maybe far right of the party. I could always tell in the Democratic Party that my pushing for punishment of criminals, my strong stand on that including support of capital punishment (that) all the liberals in my party, the very most extreme liberals, always felt like I wasn't quite one of them because I wasn't. My closeness to business, my understanding of how you have to make the economy work, working with business and seeing that we had an environment in which they could locate and prosper and provide jobs. That didn't sit well with some people in my party. I know that. There were issues that we had a great deal in common on.
Who were the maybe not naming people but naming positions who were the challengers? Where did the challenge for leadership of the party for you come from, legislative leaders?
Yeah. I don't think the challengers were ever very strong.
They came certainly when I was first elected governor. That's
when people need to give Mike Easley some running room. I remember how
tough it was when I started. Unfairly people kind of compare him to me
at the end of sixteen years. But yeah we had some
pretty—I'll name one name, but we had a group of
people within the legislature that were pretty conservative.
I'm talking about Democrats. They didn't want to
do a lot of these things. They didn't want to put a lot of
money into it. But when I got my Excellence in
Was selecting party leaders such as the chair of the Democratic Party something that you felt was a very important?
Yes.
So what kind of people were you looking for?
I was looking for people who had obviously a philosophy, but people who would be hard working and who would really focus on building the party at the local level and people who would help the party be strong and support me about issues as governor. My approach was to listen to people, talk to people, think about it and then by some kind of a rough consensus conclude that X was the right person. Then when I concluded that, then I would go back out and call the right people and tell them I wanted to propose so and so as party chairman. Sometimes you'd have some grumbling about it. But people never mounted to my knowledge just to defeat my nominees. Once I decided on them and started forward, I would deal with whatever came along. I was not going to be beaten.
Why was it important then to have these leaders
Well, the party is ultimately, they're the people that help
you to win elections. They help the governor win elections. They help
his team win elections. They help the people who are supporting his
issues like Smart Start and education, environmental protection and so
forth get elected. They support your positions in the legislature when
Did you feel that—
An important part of making my success as governor.
Did you feel that when you finished as governor in '84 and again in 2001 or 2000 that the Democratic party was stronger than what it was whenever you started?
I thought it was strong. In '84 obviously we had a Republican
elected governor. The toughest year the Democrats had had up to then.
You could argue that it was the toughest year. It was kind of like
Reagan's smashing victory. It was kind of like FDRs
Parties generally, not just the Democratic Party.
Yeah, parties generally. You continue to have some realignment within
North Carolina. Conservative Democrats continued although it slowed down
a lot. You had an absolute rush to the Republican Party, and it still
continues in many southern states. We stopped that. I think
that's one of the things we've been very at least
North Carolina is one of the few states, there are about ten or eleven that hold their state elections at the same time as presidential elections. Did you generally find that to be beneficial or a burden?
Well, I kind of changed my mind on that over time. I would say that
probably maybe into my second term I used to think maybe we ought to
change our
The national Democratic Party.
But after Bill Clinton came in, he was more of a moderate and proposed a balanced budget and in favor of capital punishment, in favor of welfare reform and things of that sort, leaving off the stuff that happened at the end in terms of how he was. So the Democratic Party people didn't feel that resentment. They did in '94 and expressed it. There are feelings about him too, by the way, about big government, all this stuff that came out with his health care plans but that then settled down. I haven't seen any polls on this. But my sense was that people began to sort of give the Democrats at least there wasn't a lot of resentment against the party and people didn't see it as these way out liberals who are in favor of stuff we don't like and we won't consider them. So I think, I now believe and I did toward the end of my term that running in a year that the president is not a bad idea. Every party looks at it as how does it benefit us. Certainly it's a time when, in our case, minorities and perhaps women feel pretty strongly about the positions of the national candidates. So I think it kind of cuts both ways. I don't really know what the advantage is now, but I don't see it to be a great disadvantage to the Democratic Party that I used to think it was becoming.
When you ran those four times for governor, you always ran with a southern governor as the Democratic candidate for president?
Well, yeah. Yeah. But I ran for the senate one time when Mondale was.
Right. I was going to ask about him later. Did that make it more beneficial to you? Did you try to tie your candidacy to these presidential—
I never tied it to the presidential candidate, but I was able to run with them. We were able to have rallies in which we people had enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate for president. I obviously had the opportunity to compare that to '72 when I ran for lieutenant governor. People didn't want to touch McGovern with a ten-foot pole. I thought he was a great fine man. Many times I was about the only major candidate to go to the rallies.
For McGovern.
Yeah, well go to the Democratic rallies, Democratic Party rallies, and I was uncomfortable because I disagreed with McGovern on so many things. I felt like we went to Vietnam for the right reasons, and we should've tried to prevail there more strongly than we did. I'm a hawk on foreign affairs. But certainly running with southerners in '76 and '80, '92 and '96 made it easier.
So if those circumstances change and they may not change, it could be at least for the foreseeable future the Democratic Party will nominate southern leaders as their presidential candidates. But if that were to change, would that change your opinion about the desirability of these state and presidential elections coinciding.
I don't think so. I think it will depend on the philosophy and
the attitude of the candidate. If the Democratic Party actually gets so
far out of touch with mainstream North Carolinians and mainstream
Americans. They're not very different nowadays. Then
obviously the Democrats are going to get as far away from it as they
could. But I think the party now is back in the mainstream nationally
pretty well. I hope they learn a lesson from flirting with the extreme
positions and so forth and the prominence of what I
Too hypothetical on that.
You alluded earlier to the fact that while you felt the party leadership was a very important part of your job as governor and your ability to be a successful governor, there are also concerns or interests in being the governor of all the people. Where does this partisanship or where did partisanship play the biggest role in your services as governor, being a Democrat was really an important thing?
Well, it plays an important role in your own philosophy. We develop our
values, our ideas, our commitments as we come along, and party
involvement can help young people understand what kinds of public
policies you should have if you're going to do certain
things. If you're mainly concerned about holding taxes down
and keeping the government as small and as ineffective as you can, then
you have one set of values sort of like I guess the libertarians do. If
you believe that government can do certain things and should give people
an equal and full opportunity in life, you say that different things are
important. A perfect example right now when people realize that Ronald
Reagan was wrong, and government is not the enemy. He said it. People
kind of went along with it. That became the type of thinking for
decades. Government is the enemy. I was there when he said it. I told
you that earlier. So the party is important in helping you kind of have
a scheme, an approach to public affairs and what you do. But let me go
on to say to you that throughout my career in public service while I
continued to be a strong Democrat, I believed in the party and supported
the party and was active in it. I became more and more—and
I've probably said to you this in earlier
sessions—I came more and more to want to identify with people
that I believed, with whom I agreed in terms of
In terms of policy issues, the national Democratic Party had certain platform positions. Even the state Democratic Party had certain platform positions. Could you name any times when you found yourself in disagreement with those and believed they were not the positions that were best for the state of North Carolina.
I can't remember exactly, but I always considered party
platforms to be things that have some value. But to be honest with you
the more extreme elements of the party generally write the platforms.
Some of them would rather write the platform than win an election. So I
always found a number of provisions in my party platform that I
I knew that you had worked on some.
You'd mentioned earlier that you felt one of the problems with the Democratic Party was the inadequacy of perpetuating leadership in the party or finding successors. What was your orientation toward a governor having influence on who his successor would be at least within the party?
Well, I always stayed away from that. Maybe it was a mistake. I
don't know for sure that I did the right thing. I obviously
was a strong leader and pushed very hard to
What about leadership other than candidates for governor? How did you contribute to developing a broader leadership within the Democratic Party?
Well, I did it by trying to spot people who had talent, who were
progressive in their philosophy and approach, pro education, pro
economic development. I did it by encouraging the Young Democrats
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Governor, during your service in the office of governor the formal authority and powers of the office changed rather significantly. You had right of succession, veto power, enhanced budget power. Do you feel that these have strengthened the office in measurable ways?
Yes. In several ways, first of all a governor has the possibility of serving two terms. If he does in fact serve two terms, he learns an awful lot about the job. I don't think there's any question about that. In my second term in my first go around, I learned more about it. I was able to be effective. Coming back for me was an unusual situation. I don't know if that will ever happen again or not. I've done four terms. I'd do even more. I was more effective than I was the first time. So you learn more how to do it successfully. With the possibility that you'll run again people are more apt to stay on the team. You don't become a lame duck the first time. You're more able to press forward, have the continuity in programs. My last two terms we implemented Smart Start. It took us several years to do it. We phased in the funding. We couldn't jump to two or three hundred thousand dollars, millions dollars a year all at once. So succession means that people are more apt to stay on your team, know that you can be there longer, stay committed to both you and the carrying through of your program. It's all about your ability to lead and to make things happen and to help people. These are just tools. The veto is I think quite important. We haven't seen it used yet. I never used it, and Mike Easley has not thus far. But both of us have made it very clear that we would if necessary. I think this budget passed last week in large measure because Easley said I will not sign another—
Extension.
Extension. Whatever you call it. Continuing funding bill. He wouldn't do it. That would've never happened before. The governor just had to bend to the will of the legislature. On many occasions where environmental laws were being threatened. Here I'm talking to low again which I've never been accused of doing much—environmental laws were being threatened, when people were not willing to [do] the right thing on the budget, I made it very clear that I would use the veto. I always said it in a very understated way. I tried not to ever make it a threat. But it was understood. People knew that I would do it, and they know that Easley will do it and governors in the future. Governors in the future will veto things. That will make the legislature more responsible, and it will make positions clearer. I think both of those are sort of powers, tools that made the governor more effective, and I worked hard to get them in place, and I think it was the right thing to do.
Are there other changes having served as governor for sixteen years that you would consider or think the state should consider?
I think, yes, I think the state ought to consider having some of the
council of state positions appointed. For a long time I pushed hard to
have the superintendent be chosen by the state board of education. I
finally gave up on that because I just didn't think it was
going to happen. I saw how the people were feeling about giving up any
of their right to vote. They were strongly opposed to it. This was I
think in large measure because of their suspicion of government and not
wanting to give up any of their powers. I feel very strongly that we
ought to change the way we select judges. I think they ought to be
perhaps panels nominated by knowledgeable and responsible people but
appointed
Now as governor you appointed a lot of judges.
I sure did. I did appoint a lot of judges. These were where new
judgeships were created and where people resigned. I think that if you
go through and look at my appointees as judges you will find that they
have really been an outstanding group, very knowledgeable. And if you
look at district court judges today, you will find people who are far
more committed to trying to help young people avoid a life of crime and
conquer
What about budget powers? Are there any changes in the budget powers that you think ought to be considered?
The governor ought to be given more budget powers, more flexibility, so
he can deal with situations. Now we have some of that and Governor
Easley just used some of that, but we ought to have more. The
legislature started taking that away from the governor back probably in
my second term. One place where that really came to bear
Are there any other areas where you think the governor's powers should be altered? This is the formal part of it. I know there's a whole informal side of it.
Yes, there is. That has to do with regulations, rule making. The governor
and his administration ought to have the power to enact rules reasonably
quickly. Obviously following the rulemaking process with notice and
opportunity for a hearing and all that. But the legislature now has put
us into a straightjacket. It applies to environmental rules in
particular whereby you can't make a rule. This is not to
carry out public policy without having the effect of it weighing into
the, I think it's the last legislature of a two-year session.
Jack, you'll need to research this a little bit. I
don't want to be incorrect in how I'm stating
this, but you've probably followed this issue. I think the
Winston-Salem Journal has written on it a lot with
regard to environmental legislation. It's become very hard to
protect our environment because interests that would and they
don't mean to they aren't evil interests at all,
but they would dirty the air and foul the waters trying to obviously
operate industry or providing power in a way that will be profitable.
But we
Almost like a legislative veto.
That's right. Kind of like a legislative veto. That's a good way to describe it. That ought to be changed and in particular so that we can preserve the environment of North Carolina for future generations.
Do you think the problem is the existence of a, let's call it legislative veto, or is the problem the delay in getting the thing to where you can implement it?
It's both.
It's both. So you believe the legislature once they've enacted a law and given the governor the authority to make regulations should not have an opportunity to review that.
That's right. They'll have the opportunity to challenge it of course.
New legislation.
Yeah or they can always challenge it in court. But you can't wait two years when your water is becoming dirty and a danger to human health or air is. You can't wait, and you've got a public policy that says clean it up. You can't wait two years before you can act to make those things happen.
Governor, how influential were you and can a governor be in shaping his own administration? How much in control were you?
I think you're in control a great deal, and I think I was. You have to have a strong staff and team in the governor's office. You have to pick members of your cabinet who share your commitment, who are effective leaders themselves. They have to be loyal to you and be on the team and stay on the team, not let their own personal ambitions get in the way of what the people elected the governor to do. You have to work at it day and night. You don't just put them in place and let them run. That's why I had cabinet meetings once a week. I kept that focus. I don't know if you've ever seen that agenda. It was on my boards. I kept [it] in front of them all the time. They can tell it to you in their sleep. The joke was in my first I guess my third term that I made everybody carry [the agenda] on the inside pocket of their coat. Some people said they had to sleep with it in their pajamas. Well—
However it happened.
The point was they knew what the agenda was. They knew what was on it and
what wasn't. If they were going to pursue something that
wasn't on it, they really had to justify it. We changed it
some over time, but that is something you have to work on every day is
to keep your own team on board that committed to the things you were
elected to do, that you promised to do and help you do them.
You'd have to have, you need a secretary of transportation
who would help you on your Smart Start bill. You've got all
these people on board. They can all help you back out where they come
from. They can help influence legislators votes. They can serve on the
partnership for children committees in their counties, give it stature
and help moving it forward. That's one thing
What were the major obstacles to a governor's ability to shape his administration?
Well, there's always the reluctance to change. The bureaucracy
doesn't want to change. They are, they don't like
to take risks, and frankly the system is adverse to risk taking. State
employees, rank and file state employees, just don't want to
do it, don't want to be cooperative. You're
dangerous to them and taking the risk of changing. Used to be it was
hard to do it because you didn't have succession. They
thought they'd just wait you out. It's hard work.
You have to work at it day and night. Just the personal energy and
effort that you have to make is an obstacle in some cases. A lot of
people and of course it's awfully easy to lose sight of what
you were elected to do, lose focus because new things come up, and you
have to deal with new things. Gosh you've got some cartoons
up here about the flood. Nobody ever knew that was coming along. But you
have to deal with it and we did. I think I'd add one more. I
believe in an earlier conversation we touched on this, it's
awfully easy for members of your own team, members of your own cabinet,
members of your own administration to begin to think that
they'll substitute their agenda for yours. I had some people
who did some of that, not a great deal. There's always that
tendency there. I'm an expert in this area; I spent my life
in it; I know more about it than the governor does. He may have been
elected by so and so but I'm in here now, and I'm
going to push so and so. You have to deal with that delicately. These
are good people. Many times they are true experts outstanding leaders
Did you have to remind them that they were there because you got elected, or did they, or were they reminding each other?
Well, they did some reminding, and you do this very carefully. You
respect them. You appreciate them but and the way you do that, you
don't have to remind them that you were the one elected and
they weren't. You remind them about what we ran on, we, the
team. Here's what we ran on. Here's what the
people elected us to do. That's the approach we used.
I've got my copies of my agenda for action, my report to the
people and all that stuff. That's without precedent Jack in
North Carolina, maybe in America. I don't believe anybody
ever laid out as clearly exactly what you were running to do, what
It was a discipline in itself for you as well as for the team.
That's right.
In talking about your relationship with the North Carolina General Assembly, with the legislature and reflecting on your work as governor with it. What do you think are the key components with it? What makes it work effectively for our governor?
One is having an attitude of respect and appreciation for legislators and
their leadership. I pushed hard. But they knew I respected them and
appreciated them because I did a lot of things to show them including
campaigning with them, working with them on their issues. I made
speeches for them, considered their suggestions for positions on boards
and commissions and thing of that sort, an attitude of respect and
understanding how the system works. They make the laws. They pass the
budgets. The governor can't pass anything. Second being very
clear about what you're proposing and conveying that to them
and trying to get them to come aboard and share the ownership of this
with you, to be a part of a team to make it happen. A lot of governors
think just because they're for it even if maybe they ran on
it, but you've still got to sell your legislature. They may
not have run on it at least initially. I ran on Smart Start, but nobody
else did in 1992, but they did afterward. That requires an enormous
amount of work. Then I would say the other big thing is and included in
that is making very clear to them how strongly you feel and that the
people did vote for this. There will be real consequences if they
didn't carry out
What did you try to avoid. What does not work in trying to influence the legislature?
What does not work is first of all not being clear. It's the
obverse of what I've just told you. Being murky about what
you intend to do. In fact it doesn't work if
Overall how would you characterize your attitude toward the General Assembly? Is the General Assembly equal to the governor, superior to the governor, inferior to the governor?
I don't know how you answer that question. They're
separate from the governor. They have a constitutional responsibility of
passing laws and passing a budget, and they have the responsibility to
do oversight. It's an appropriate responsibility.
It's
Do you think that the legislative power in North Carolina is, the legislature has too much power, not powerful enough?
I think it's powerful enough. I think the rulemaking issue that I mentioned to you earlier is one we ought to change. Other than that it works pretty well.
You had several different persons who served as legislative liaison for you during your four terms. What were the key characteristics that you were looking for in those people?
I was looking for people who were totally committed to my program. People
who were intelligent, persuasive, and well-regarded by the legislature,
well-liked, people who could carry a very clear message, people who
would work hard being with the
Paying you back.
The legislative counsel can only be as effective as the governor is standing behind him, being available, pushing, supporting him, but it is a very, very important position. I picked it very carefully and was very fortunate to have some great people doing it.
Would you say it would be among the top two or three most important appointments you made?
Yes.
Governor, looking back over your sixteen years as governor, what do you see as the legacy of the Hunt administration?
I think the main legacy would be education. It would be a focus on early childhood, Smart Start, kindergartens, primary reading programs, full-time assistants to help the teachers in grades one, two and three. The roles of some of them have changed but the major emphasis on the early years. I think I told you that I had the chap from the Rand Corporation in; David Griswold is that his name. What's his name, Jack?
I don't know.
We were talking about the NAEP scores were coming up in the next couple of weeks, and of course you know an exceptional thing was happening with regard to that. Pretty amazing. Did I give you a copy of those latest NAEP scores?
No. I haven't seen them. Let me turn this thing off.
Everybody was amazed at them. I called the guy at NGA yesterday, the day
before, and he had just said he couldn't believe it. He said,
‘You're approaching the state of Connecticut
almost.’ Connecticut's number one on everything.
But the fellow from the Rand Corporation, which analyzes these things,
said he thought the reason we were making such astounding progress was
because of our focus on the early years. Now that story will be fully
written yet, but so I would say education, early childhood, improving
and stressing better teaching, support for teachers, putting in
standards and accountabiliity, focusing on community involvement,
mentoring and things of that sort. I think that will be the big, I think
economic development will be. Putting in the microelectronic center,
putting in the biotechnology center, establishing the Centennial Campus
at North Carolina State University. Those are, that will move North
Carolina into a new kind of
Let me explore one of those in particular because you've mentioned it in an earlier session. You said you'd abolished the patronage office. I understand that to be the case. But there will still be appointments maybe influenced by political party considerations. So are you saying that's not going to occur.
There will be some. People will always find a way to kind of enter the process. There is not now and I doubt there will be again an office in the governor's office where they specifically call over to departments and recommend people, and we have reduced the number of exempt positions now to about a hundred. It used to be five or seven hundred that we used to have doing it.
Is that real change or is that superficial change?
You ask the people out there in the counties if that's real
change. It is real change. It cuts both ways to be honest. The
bureaucrats know how to work the system. This gives them a chance to
decide whom they want, and they have their own buddies too. Sometimes
and they may be a little less responsive to the governor's
leadership. I didn't
Governor, given sixteen years of service in the office, what are the most difficult types of decisions that you had to make as governor?
Well, sort of tactically speaking the most difficult decisions were how
to get your program enacted. That became particularly the case when you
had Republicans take control of the legislature in '94. Do
you do it by just appealing, trying to get people to understand, trying
to see people, talk to people? I'd got out having visits [to]
Smart Start across North Carolina, and I'd try my best to get
the Republicans to come. They wouldn't ever show. Two or
three of them came. Most of them refused to come. They
wouldn't be seen with me. They didn't want to hear
a word about the good points of the program from their own people.
Totally closed minded about it, many of them. There were exceptions.
Representative Holmes came when I went up to Wilkes County and Yadkin
County. Representative Gene up in Salisbury came. Some of them did come,
but many of them are just hard core opponents to this kind of thing.
Finding out, you know one year they didn't pass the budget
and what I had decided to do. What do you do about that now? How do you
bring them back in and get a budget? Well, what I did was I went out on
the road and took a stick to them. I went out and spoke to state
employees who hadn't had a raise and teachers who
hadn't had a raise and didn't have—.
Here was school starting, and they had more kids that were coming to
school, and they didn't have teachers to teach them. I went
out as Harry Truman said and told them the truth about them. But trying
to figure out how to deal with that. Bring them over here for almost a
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[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
The story of the falls up at the DuPont Forest. I guess you followed that story. The falls, the waterfalls of the (last of the Mohicans) are on the property that we had the state condemn and secure for the people of North Carolina. A lot of people felt like it was overreaching, an improper use of state power. A lot of the legislators up there opposed it. They didn't want us to do it. Tried to reach a settlement with the guy. Couldn't ever do it. Finally, didn't have any money to buy it with. Finally you just said this is such invaluable precious property that the people must have it, and you've got to protect the water. So I made a decision to do it. Most people counseled against it. I thought it was the right thing to do, and I'm certain history will bear that out. Thank goodness Marc Basnight had created the Clean Water Trust Fund. They were the only place that had any money after the flood and all that you know. Decisions about capital punishment are always tough, got tougher and tougher and taken more of my time. I would generally spend two or three days, eight hours days going into all of that.
What was important to you in those decisions because other governors have mentioned that that is among the most difficult decisions? How did you go about doing that?
First of all I did a very careful research on those cases. I read the transcripts from court. I received information from both sides. I heard from both sides. I spent hours and hours sometimes, whole days to both sides of the issue. I remember going back to the Wilmington Ten. Do you remember that case?
I do.
Back when I was first governor.
One of your very difficult early decisions.
I bet you I spent months on that case. You still have to do your day work. You'd spend the night reading that stuff and just received comments and checking things out. The one grandmother that had given arsenic to five husbands. Do you remember that?
In the Burlington area.
Billy Graham's wife wrote me on that one.
Billy Graham's wife?
Wife, Mrs. Graham who I think very highly of. You have to do a lot of research about what are the effects of drugs on people about their state of mind and all those things. You really have to learn a lot about how this stuff works. Then you have to find out about what went on at the trial. A lot of that is not apparent just from the record. You have to do a lot of probing and a lot of questioning and send your legal counsel out to ask questions and to determine things. So that was another tough set of—
I believe the record shows that you did not grant clemency until actually your last couple of decisions in this area. Was that a change in philosophy?
No, it was not. I found a case where there were several defendants. One
of them got the death penalty, and the others who had been involved in
the same stuff got life, and I concluded it was unfair. So I commuted
his sentence to life. The other was a case in which I just found that
there had not been effective representation of the defendant. There was
some indication that the jury might have been hung, in fact had been in
the first trial, and I always looked very hard at the procedural things.
Is there
And you hadn't found any evidence of unfair procedures prior to two years ago?
No, prior to what?
Well, I think these two cases were in the last two years. Excuse me.
Well, no. No. Not I mean there are always some things that are maybe a
little questionable but clear unfairness or ineffective counsel
Talking about the most difficult, what are the most satisfying decisions? What are you most pleased with that you did?
I guess the things we did in education were most pleasing. The creation of Smart Start, back in my lieutenant governor days creating public school kindergartens, improving teaching dramatically and teacher pay up to right at the national average. We may miss it by a few dollars. Putting in standards of accountability. Generally building up the moral and the attitude in education and educators. Building North Carolina's economy was very, very satisfying. Helping us literally move from the old traditional economy of tobacco, textiles and furniture to a new economy that is based largely on technology and science, strong in the fields of microelectronics, medicine and biotechnology now and information technology and all that. Seeing North Carolina emerge as one of the nation's leaders in those areas. Banking, of course, which I helped give our banks an advantage. You've heard this story, I'll tell you this story of Bob Graham when he called about my second term as governor. He was president—
This is a senator or former governor.
Yeah, was governor, why don't we use the precedent of the Southern Growth Policies Board which Terry Sanford had started. He said, ‘Jim, why don't we have a Southern Region Interstate Banking Compact.’ He said, ‘What do you think of that?’ I said, ‘Well, let me check with a few people.’ I checked with what is now Bank America and First Union and Wachovia and all my guys said we think it's great.
They thought it was great.
Yeah. North Carolina banks have taken over all those Florida banks.
They saw an opportunity.
That's right. To see that develop and then as I said some of the most pleasing things have been some of the initiatives we've taken on the environment especially things that are leading towards our billion acres of additional green space. We have big new vast park land areas come in and areas were they have committed to not overdevelop and keep the green space. That has been very, very satisfying to me. Things like bringing the red wolves back to eastern North Carolina. We have elk in the Great Smokies. These are things I pushed for. So a lot of environmental things. And this goes back to lieutenant governor, but pushing very hard to have the Coastal Area Management Act put into place. We have to keep working on it. People keep trying to chip away at it. They'll undo all these things if you let them. Things like keeping the cities strong. We had a time back here six or eight years ago where they were trying to take away the powers to annex and other things that kept our cities strong as compared to what has happened in other states. I just put my foot down and absolutely fought those interests. They were trying to eviscerate the cities of North Carolina and make it impossible for them to be able grow and deal with their problems and have a tax base that was adequate.
When you were, I'm going to take you back to January of 1973, excuse me 1977 when you were inaugurated as governor. Can you recall what you were thinking about during that inauguration taking that oath?
Yeah, I gave about a four and a half-minute speech that I wrote. The
essence of it was that there are limits to the government's
powers but there are no limits to what the people can do. I wanted the
people of North Carolina to really be committed, involved and
participate in things we needed to do for our state. We had slipped to
last in SAT scores, last in infant mortality or highest in infant
mortality, a lot of things had, excuse me. That happened in
19—, I ran for re-election in '92. In 1977 right
after my first election we had done some good things under Holshouser,
which I had supported as lieutenant governor, but we needed to keep
moving. I proposed a set of things that we needed to do. We needed to
make sure every child learned to read. Bush talked about it now, but
North Carolina's is much further along than most states are.
I had been active in helping to bring about school reform, but I wanted
it carried to a new height. I had been talking about environmental
things, protecting the environment. I had a Lieutenant
Governor's Commission on Law and Order. We established the
Department of Crime Control and Public Safety. I had all these issues in
mind as I always have, but I wanted to mobilize, engage the people of
North Carolina in doing these things. I saw government not as some
bureaucracy sitting up here in Raleigh. I saw it as I do now as a team,
an opportunity, a tool that you can use to deal with people's
problems and help make their life better. That means the
team's got to be as efficient as it can be, be nimble, be
responsive. But I believed that then and I worried about things since
then. It was a lot
Did you have any different thoughts in '93 when you became governor for the third time so to speak?
Yes, I did. I saw whereas in '77 I would've seen government as having great potential to help deal with people's problems. By working through that eight years and eight years in the private sector, I came to see that the solution lies not just in government but in a lot of kinds of activities on the part of people. I had a far greater appreciation for the power of the private sector, the churches. That's what I saw. Unlike most Democrats, I favor Bush's faith-based initiatives.
Faith-based initiatives.
I, like a lot of Democrats believed in personal responsibility and pushed welfare reform. We have one of the most successful programs in the country. I believe that we can get a lot of people to volunteer. I did it for sixteen years and set up a whole state approach and gave out ten thousand awards to people who have been outstanding volunteers and got the Governor's Award. I saw the governor more not so much as the head of the government as I saw the governor as the leader of the people and especially the vitality and the enormous potential in the private sector. Smart Start is organized in exactly along those lines.
Being governor has a lot of personal consequences for you as an individual and for your family. I like to think that governors are people too. Could you talk about what the personal impact of having been governor is for you as an individual and for your family?
Well, let me start by saying that you have some marvelous opportunities
to do things and go places and meet people and learn and have your eyes
opened to the world and lessons. Your family shares in that. But you
lose a lot of your privacy. You can't spend as much time with
your wife and children as you ought to if you do it the way I did it.
You obviously give up your income potential for the period of time that
is.
Is being governor a lonely position?
Oh yeah. In many ways it sure is.
Can you talk about that?
Well, you have a very heavy responsibility on your shoulders. You can
have help. You should have help. You need to have good people but hard
to get them, can't pay them much. Succession,
that's a little better. You have to make a lot of tough
decisions, and you may be wrong, but you have to go ahead and do it. You
have to in the final analysis you get all the help in the world you
want, all the advice and listen to other people, but sometimes you
can't find the answer anywhere but inside yourself. Sometimes
you, especially on some of the big things, you have to draw [on] all of
your life's experiences. I had to do that in creating the
approaches to education that we did. Who would've ever
thought that this state would have the best early childhood approach
You talked a little about the impact on your family, and I know that a governor's wife is a very important part of his life and in a sense of the administration. Should the governor's wife be a paid employee of the state?
The governor's wife gets about three hundred dollars a year
for expenses or something I don't know what. The
governor's wife probably ought to be paid a modest,
reasonable amount. They ought to make some provisions for them more than
we do now for what happens to them at the end of their lives. My wife
never had a job. She is a teacher. She never taught while we were in
office. Some governor's wives do around the country, but
being the wife of the governor, hosting people in the Mansion, being a
leader
Is there anything that can be done about the intrusion on personal life and privacy?
I don't believe so.
You don't think so. It's inevitable. Is the job too big for one person?
No. But boy it takes everything out of you. But you have to,
Well, governor I thank you very much.
You're very welcome, Jack.
I know the people of North Carolina thank you very much for all that you've done.
Well, it's been a joy. Let me give you this. This is kind of a these are results from—
END OF INTERVIEW