News-Record.com

I'm practically tripping over George Ragsdale yard signs on my morning runs through High Point's affluent Emerywood neighborhood.

(I don't live in Emerywood but within easy running distance.)

Many Emerywood residents have sponsored fundraising events for Ragsdale.

This has been surprising to me because Ragsdale, a Republican, is running against N.C. House District 61 Republican incumbent Laura Wiley.

Don't get me wrong. Ragsdale, 31, is a bright guy with political talent. And he comes from the family that pretty much built Jamestown.

But Wiley, a former High Point city councilwoman who bumped Steve Wood from this House seat four years ago, has done a very good job. Our editorial endorsement of her today was an easy call. There's no reason to replace her, and certainly not with someone who's running for office for the first time.

Ragsdale has tried to make an issue of furniture market support. Again that's odd, because Wiley (with Sen. Katie Dorsett) secured the initial substantial state funding for the market and worked very hard to make fellow lawmakers aware of how important the billion-dollar business event is to the entire state.

In our interview last week, Ragsdale said sure, but Wiley voted against the budget that contained the market funding. That led to an interesting discussion. (Mark ran down the details and included an audio tape here.)

The philosophical question raised is whether a legislator who favors any spending item in a $20 billion budget is bound to vote for the entire package. I'd say no. Yes, you want to support certain initiatives but that doesn't mean you should accept a lot of wasteful spending as well.

The sidebar to the story was former Speaker Jim Black's "leadership" style. By threatening on one occasion to remove furniture market funding, he forced Wiley to vote for the overall budget. He didn't necessarily need her vote to pass the budget, but he was still willing to sacrifice the furniture market -- a hugely important event for the entire state -- just to punish one legislator who wouldn't give in to his authority. Of course, he could do the same thing to many other legislators -- which helps explain how he stayed in power and loaded budgets with benefits for his friends and supporters. Fortunately, his practices caught up with him and he now resides in a federal prison. And Wiley says current Speaker Joe Hackney doesn't use those tactics.

Wiley, by the way, seems to be highly regarded by leaders of both parties in the House. She was appointed to a seat on the six-member ethics panel that examined the misbehavior of former Rep. Thomas Wright and unanimously recommended his expulsion. Doing so was an important step for the House in the post-Black era of ethics reform.