NC House of Representatives District 44: Charles Smith

Name as it appears on the ballot: Charles Smith

Party affiliation: Democrat

Previous elected offices held: North Carolina State House of Representatives, District 44, 2023-present

Age as of Election Day: 32

Immediate family members: Wife, Mary Kelly Butler Smith

Occupation (employer, where you work, what you do): Attorney at Anderson, Johnson, Lawrence & Butler LLP

Website and campaign social media: charles@charlessmithfornc.com; charlessmithfornc.com

1. North Carolina law bans abortion in most cases after the 12th week of pregnancy. What change (if any) do you want to make to this, and why? And if no change, why no change?

In 2023, I voted against Senate Bill 20, the bill further restricting abortion access in North Carolina from the 20th week to the 12th week of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. On this issue, I believe that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be made by the woman, her health care provider, and her family, if she chooses to include them. Having said that, I do believe the state has an interest in regulating abortion access, but a woman must be afforded the opportunity to make an informed, life-changing decision. With its blanket applicability and medically unnecessary hurdles, namely requiring three in-person doctor appointments for anyone seeking an abortion, SB20 does not provide the individualized, tailored process that this question undoubtedly requires.

2. With high levels of toxic chemicals in Cumberland County’s drinking water, describe the assistance you plan to send to water utilities, and to people who use drinking water wells, to cover the costs of mitigating PFAS contamination.

Clean water is an issue that transcends party lines, and it has to be addressed collaboratively between the Cumberland County delegation, locally elected officials and PWC. Last session, the Cumberland County delegation was able to secure funding for PWC to extend water infrastructure into contaminated areas, with a particular focus on delivering clean water to two elementary schools in the affected area.

Moving forward, I will work to secure state funding for costs associated with designing and building filtering equipment to extract forever chemicals out of PWC’s drinking water supplies, roughly a $111.2 million cost. Once installed, the filter systems will cost an estimated $12 million annually to maintain and operate, as the systems will need to be periodically replaced. Ideally, to prevent or offset rate increases for consumers, the delegation can procure recurring state funding to offset these annual costs.

3. North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarships are injecting hundreds of millions of tax dollars into the private school economy. Economists say that when the government puts money into an economy, prices rise. What price controls or other regulations do you intend to enact to prevent private schools from raising tuition prices at the expense of the North Carolina taxpayers?

In a purely private market, I think price controls result in shortages or decline in quality of the product/service, as they prevent prices from rising with supply decreases and demand increases. However, in this instance, price regulation is necessary. Without price controls, private schools can raise tuition costs proportionally with voucher awards, making the voucher’s practical impact minimal and the promises of “opportunity” or “school choice” hollow for low-income families.

To start, we must implement more fundamental oversight measures, if we are to be responsible stewards of public tax dollars. Currently, North Carolina has no oversight or academic quality measures for private schools receiving public dollars. For instance, private schools participating in our voucher program are not required to establish a regulated curriculum or certify teachers. This lack of accountability is incongruent with our treatment of other entities receiving state funding, and it shouldn’t be acceptable to our taxpayers.

4. Based on increased spending to support education and infrastructure, and tax cuts enacted by the legislature, the General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division projects that the state budget will start having shortfalls in the 2026-27 fiscal year, and these will exceed $2 billion by the 2028-29 fiscal year. The North Carolina Constitution requires the budget to be balanced. What should be done to prevent the shortfall?

We should reassess the necessity of completely phasing out our corporate income tax by 2030, resulting in $2 billion of lost revenue annually. Of the 44 states with a corporate income tax, we have the lowest rate at 2.5%. Certainly, we want to attract businesses to North Carolina. However, for comparison, consider that the second lowest corporate income tax rate in the southeastern United States is 5%, in Kentucky and South Carolina.

Corporations benefit from public investment. Our schools educate their workforce, and our roads allow them to transport good. As more corporations come to North Carolina, they will inevitably place extra strain on roads and necessary infrastructure, resulting in more frequent repairs. It’s reasonable to ask them to share in the responsibility for these costs.

Otherwise, to generate revenue at the necessary level, I suspect we’ll continue to see legislation seeking to legalize casinos, VLTs, and other gambling forms.