Standing Strong

Boots and Blue Jeans Southwestern Community College hosted its sixth annual gala last week, the biggest and best ever, to raise much-needed scholarship funds for its students. I had the pleasure of attending this event, which throughout the last six years has successfully increased SCC's scholarship fund more than five times over!

I'm with Sam Bryant and her daughters Wendy LeMay and Wynette Wiles. I'm proud to be with these great advocates for student scholarships.

Mountain State Fair Breakfast I joined my fellow legislators and Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler at the Mountain State Fair over the weekend for a beautiful morning in the mountains, even as Hurricane Dorian struck our coastal communities. Commissioner Troxler noted that to date, North Carolina's agriculture community has received absolutely nothing from the Trump Administration to help recover from Hurricane Florence. While WNC was beautiful and sunny, the other half of our state was struck by yet another hurricane, and we're still waiting on recovery funds from last year. The big question is, where is Senator Tillis in all of this?

I joined my fellow WNC advocates for agriculture Representative Brian Turner, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, and Representative John Ager at the kickoff breakfast for the Mountain State Fair.

Forest Restoration Alliance We're working hard and supporting the collaborative efforts of foresters and environmentalists across the country to cope with woolly adelgid on our hemlocks, the restoration of chestnut trees, and more. I am encouraged by the number of experts working together in a multidisciplinary approach to address the crisis in our forests, taking a long-term perspective for solutions to protect and restore our beautiful natural areas.

I joined several forestry experts for a tour of the Mountain Research Station. From left to right: Will Morrow, superintendent of the Mountain Research Station; Fred Hain, an entomology professor at NC State; Ben Smith, an entomology researcher at NC State; myself; and Stanley Holloway, the agriculture extension agent for Yancey County.

We toured many innovative forestry technologies, including this special nursery greenhouse for genetic testing and cross-breeding tree saplings.

Gerrymandering Decision

Last week, North Carolinians won an historic victory in the courts over extreme partisan gerrymandering. The unanimous decision, that legislative leadership has announced it will not appeal, means that we are now tasked with re-drawing legislative districts in 14 different county groupings, ensuring fairer maps, and fairer elections, across North Carolina.

The citizens of North Carolina, Republican and Democrat alike, benefit when the voters get to choose their representatives instead of the representatives choosing their voters. Everyone in this state should have an equal say in our democratic process, and every vote should count. I am on the Redistricting Committee, and I look forward to working hard to ensure that our re-drawn maps are fair and balanced. This has been one of my top priorities, and I am glad that we are finally taking positive action to fix the partisan gerrymandering in our state.

Here is every House District impacted by the court's decision. We will re-draw 14 distinct county groupings September 18, and these new, judge-approved map will be used in the 2020 election.

Stay tuned my reports on our redistricting progress.

Joe Sam's Notes

We are standing strong for a better budget! This is why: because our state deserves a budget that invests in teacher pay instead of more tax cuts for corporations, that has a school and infrastructure bond instead of a slush fund, and that Expands Medicaid for half a million North Carolinians instead of wasting $4 billion each year, all while giving hard-working North Carolinians a tax cut, balancing our budget, and saving money in our state's Rainy Day Fund. Last week our teachers and students went back to school. The Legislature keeps stalling. It's been more than 60 days since Governor Cooper presented his alternative compromise budget. The Governor's Alternative Budget proposes an 8.5% pay raise for our teachers over two years, more than twice what is provided for in the Republican Conference Budget. We must be able to recruit and retain the best and brightest to provide our children with the education they deserve. Fair salaries for our teachers and administrators is how we meet this goal.

Our teachers and students are now back in school. Our state’s teachers and administrators are doing their jobs. It is high time that our legislative leadership quit stalling and start doing their jobs as well.

Sincerely

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P.S. check out our legislative web page at www.joesamqueennc.com . You can find all of my previous newsletters and more!