Off and Running for 2020: Patsy Keever Announces Bid for NC Senate

Patsy Keever, a former chair of the NC Democratic Party, has announced she's running for the NC Senate District 48, which includes all of Henderson and Transylvania counties and part of southern Buncombe County -- a district rated "strong Republican" which is currently represented in Raleigh by a hamburger hustler (incumbent Republican Chuck Edwards owns a string of McDonald's).

Keever spent 25 years as a public school teacher. In fact, she was still a full-time teacher when she first ran for (and won) a seat on the Buncombe County Commission in 1992. She served a total of 12 years, winning reelection twice. In 2004, Keever jumped into a Congressional race against incumbent 11th District Congressman Charles H. Taylor and got some 45% of the vote.

In 2010 Keever ran a successful primary against an incumbent Democrat in the NC House District 115, and when that incumbent resigned after the primary, Keever was appointed to complete his term and then won her own two-year term in the NC House that fall.

In 2012 she again attempted a run for the US Congress, this time in the 10th Congressional District against incumbent Republican Patrick McHenry.

In other words, she's a veteran of political campaigns and knows what both success and failure looks like. A warrior who no doubt understands the odds in a "strong Republican" district and knows full-well what it'll take to win.

Incumbent Republican Chuck Edwards appears to be a species of Senate furniture. He was appointed to the Senate by Pat McCrory in 2016 when Tom Apodaca retired before the end of his term. Edwards went on to win election to the seat that fall.

Edwards doesn't stray from NC Republican orthodoxy. He's dead-set against expanding Medicaid to poor people, and he thinks that the quality of public education has very little to do with the state's money investment in it. He brags on his website about what a "po boy" he was growing up, but that rings as hollow as Virginia Foxx's heart, given the policies Edwards is now voting for in the NC General Assembly. Edwards sponsored a controversial 2017 bill to change at-large Asheville city council elections to a district system, a power-grab which 75 percent of city referendum voters opposed (though very few of the voters in Senate District 48 are Asheville residents).

If 2018 was famous in North Carolina for the flipping of "lean Republican" districts, can't 2020 be even more famous for the flipping of "strong Republican" districts?

Interesting

Patsy Keever makes this list of "under-the-radar candidates" to watch. She's running against Patty McHenry (R-Oompa-Loompaville) in the redrawn NC-10.

Looks Like a Dem Primary in the NC-10

Patsy Keever says she's also running for Congress in the newly drawn NC-10, joining Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy, who announced a few days ago.

Keever has extensive political experience. Most recently, she defeated incumbent blue dog Bruce Goforth in the NC House Dist. 115, but Republicans in the General Assembly rewarded that bold move by "double-bunking" Keever and Democratic House member Susan Fisher. (Meanwhile, Bruce Goforth switched parties and went to work for Republican Speaker Thom Tillis ... just to prove that his primary challenge from Keever was prescient and probably divinely inspired.)

Keever also previously ran for Congress in 2004 against long-time Republican incumbent Charles Taylor in the NC-11. Heath Shuler eventually retired Taylor.

Anyhoo, looks like a pretty substantive primary is shaping up, with either candidate presenting Patrick McHenry with a credible challenger. Plus, O my brethren, it can't be a bad thing to bring the Dems out for the primary in order to vote against Dan Soucek's hateful anti-gay amendment. Probably, the more hot Dem primaries we have in May, the more the anti-gay amendment suffers.

Bring 'em on!

Raleigh Republicans Targeting Women

The Republicans in the new majority in the NC General Assembly are planning the elimination of strong women in the NC House. That is to say, Democratic strong women.

Laura Leslie has some preliminary analysis at WRAL, and there's a clear pattern. Among the women marked for extinction are Forsyth's Linda Garrou, Wake's Deborah Ross, Guilford's Pricey Harrison, Buncombe's Patsy Keever.

Minority Leader Joe Hackney has been drawn out of his District 54 and into the 56th with Democrat Verla Insko, another strong female legislator.

Meanwhile, Art Pope's yes-man Jonathan Jordan's 93rd House Dist. is left unchanged ... Watauga and Ashe.

Must have been a lively debate yesterday, with clearly defined distinctions between the two Democrats in the May 4th primary ... incumbent NC Rep. Bruce Goforth and challenger Patsy Keever, a former Buncombe County Commissioner.

Keever's got a real grassroots organization going. Goforth's got the inertia of incumbency, which may not be such a help in this year of anti-incumbency fervor.

Interesting Reversal

Democratic NC House member Gruce Goforth (Buncombe Co.), who is also a land developer who's never exhibited any love for steep-slope building regs., has suddenly reversed himself and says now that he will actually introduce a bill this year that would require mountain counties to comply with minimum steep-slope development rules within two years.

Can you spell "wow"?

This is an election year conversion that might actually mean something for advancing the cause of regulating steep-slope development, since the mountain delegations in the General Assembly have been mainly among the staunchest opposers of any sort of land-use planning.

Why the conversion? Might have something to do with the most recent landslide in Maggie Valley. Might have something to do with the Democratic primary Goforth is facing with Patsy Keever, who does support steep-slope regs and has made that a campaign issue in Buncombe County.

Downslope

In western North Carolina since 1990, six people have died, five have been injured, and 40 homes and buildings have been destroyed in 534 landslides and debris flows on our mountain slopes.

In Watauga County alone, almost 1,000 homes and 300 undeveloped lots are in the path of potential landslides mapped by the North Carolina Geological Survey. Bulldozing new roads on steep slopes is one of the leading causes of slope failure.

Those maps of Watauga County landslide hazards are technically "available" for review, but no county government action has been taken on disclosure of known hazardous slopes to new buyers, for example, or requirements for additional engineering for new construction on slopes deemed unstable or likely to fail. (The Town of Boone did pass new steep slope regs, along with Asheville and the counties of Jackson, Haywood, and Buncombe.)

A bill to regulate steep slope construction in the state's General Assembly was squelched by big developer and real estate lobbies. Some additional mountain counties (like Macon) are moving in the direction of regulating steep-slope construction, and at least one primary campaign in the Democratic Party is making it a political issue in 2010.

Insurgent Patsy Keever, a former Buncombe Co. commissioner, is running a Democratic primary against incumbent Democratic NC House member Bruce Goforth (representing the 115th House district). Goforth is a general contractor.

Keever is well known and well respected in Buncombe. Goforth is a 4-term incumbent, well entrenched. We'll be watching this race on May 4.