Jones is delegation chair
Rep. Earl Jones said back last year he wanted to be Guilford County delegation chairman. He got the job. From a news release:
Ms. Sherrie Burnette, North Carolina House of Representative Legislative Administrator for Representative Earl Jones (D-Guilford), announced the election of Representative Earl Jones as Chairman of the Guilford County Legislature Delegation by unanimous acclamation on Monday evening February 2, 2009. Jones replaces Representative Maggie Jeffus as chairperson of the Delegation."I hope to provide the same committed, hardworking and excellent leadership as our former chairperson, Representative Maggie Jeffus," Jones said. Jeffus served two terms from 2004 to 2008.
Rep. Jones is entering his seventh year and fourth term as a legislator and was formerly a member of The Greensboro City Council. “As chair of the local delegation I hope to maintain the delegation focused on issues and concerns crucial to the well-being and quality of life of the citizens of Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County.” Jones stated.
As I've written before, the job of delegation chairman sounds important but really comes down to herding cats. A large part of the job is setting up meetings between the 10-member delegation and the public or groups of people from back home. In addition to the annual "Take it to Raleigh" meetings the delegation traditionally does in High Point and Greensboro, there are occasions when groups of business leaders or arts advocates or health workers come up to Raleigh and want to meet with the delegation.
A second part of the job is coordinating legislative action and lobbying on behalf of causes important to the county. In the past several years, that part of the job has mainly been concerned with landing funding for things like the furniture market and the nanotechnology school. This year, that's really a matter of playing defense, trying to keep appropriations from being cut - or cut too badly - in the face of mounting economic pressure.
Along with that responsibility comes very little power. There's no way to force people to show up to meetings and no special powers accrue to county delegation chairman.
Due to recent automated spamming attacks on our blogs, we are temporarily requiring commenters to authenticate themselves via TypeKey® before posting comments to any News & Record blog in order to prevent denials of service. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.