Anson County Republicans drew 53 attendees to their precinct/county convention on Saturday, including Rep. Richard Hudson (NC-08) and Rep. Mark Brody (NC-55).
The attendees included the two representatives, Anson County Republican Chair Donna Wells, 8th District Republican Party Chairman David Black, former Cabarrus County Republican Chairman John Lewis, 43 delegates and 10 guests.
Brody updated the crowd on his work in Raleigh and said that he hopes to put Anson County on the map. “When I got into office and I mentioned Anson County, they said, ‘Who?’ Anson County has been taken advantage of for a long, long time, and this was a place to generate votes for the Democratic party and didn’t require any maintenance to get those votes,” Brody said. “It was just assumed. So, a lot of things in Anson County — economic development in particular — has fallen way behind.”
To amend the problem, Brody said he has met with the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, GoldenLeaf, which funds projects in rural areas, and the Charlotte Regional Partnership. “The state allocates roughly $75,000-$80,000 on behalf of Anson County every year to be used for marketing and other things for economic development,” Brody said. “In the last five, six, seven years, Anson County has received zero… It’s great when you read the articles about how many jobs were created in Charlotte, and Cabarrus County, and in Union County, but you never hear of them created in Anson County.”
To bring the jobs, Brody said the county needs a product to market and plans to continue to work on the issue. “I like to think that I’ve started to put Anson County back on the map,” he said.
Hudson also provided an update on his efforts. “I find myself voting ‘no’ a lot so far,” Hudson said. The first big vote that Hudson faced was for Sandy flood relief, which he said included items for areas in Mississippi and Alaska. “I know that was a big storm, but it didn’t hit Mississippi and Alaska,” he joked, adding that he voted against the bill largely due to some items’ irrelevance to the hurricane and his concern for overspending.
Hudson also voted against other bills out of concern for overspending, saying that in order to spend money, other expenses must be cut out. Republicans created a strategy to move the debt ceiling three months ahead so they could focus on the sequester and, while he thought it was a good strategy, Hudson voted against it because of a promise he made in his campaign. “I saw the wisdom of that strategy, but I’d promised you for years that I wouldn’t raise the debt ceiling unless we had a dollar-for-dollar cut,” he said, saying that he voted against raising the debt ceiling.
He did, however, provide his support for a bill against a pay raise for Congress that Obama had presented, according to Hudson.
Additionally, Hudson is focusing his concern on the sequestration and economy, saying it is unacceptable for a family to have to have to take a second mortgage and take out loans to earn a degree only to face such a high unemployment rate. He also supported Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky for two hours of Paul’s 13-hour filibuster against the president and the White House’s authority to kill Americans on U.S. soil with drones.
Wells was pleased with the event’s turnout. “I only expected 40 or so people, so I was very, very pleased [with 53],” she said.
The Anson County Republican Party meets the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the Hampton B. Allen Library, located at 120 S. Greene St. in downtown Wadesboro. All registered Republicans are invited to attend.
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