Who votes in this race

The 119th district of the N.C. House covers Jackson, Swain, the southern part of Haywood (namely West Waynesville, Allens Creek, Maggie Valley, Cruso and part of Bethel) and a corner of Macon (namely Cowee and Iotla.)

Challenger Dodie Allen

District 119 Republican State House of Representatives candidate Dodie Allen said the primary issue in the election is “burdensome taxation.”

She said she supports repealing the food tax, and Americans are taxed from the time they wake up in the morning until they go to bed at night and from when they’re born to when they die.

Allen, 73, is angry at the amount that Americans are taxed. She said the state must curb spending that imposes new taxes.

Allen is the owner of Dodie’s Auction on Main Street in Sylva and faces Democrat incumbent Phil Haire in the election

Allen also said if elected she would work to reduce the size of the government so it does not intrude on private citizens’ lives.

She also said she would work to preserve the definition of marriage as that between a man and a woman.

“I’m sick and tired of homosexuals being called ‘gay,’” she said. “They are the most unhappy (group there is.)”

As for homosexual unions, she said, “A civil contract is fine but not marriage.”

She said everyone is for better schools and healthcare but bringing those things about by raising taxes is socialistic and wrong.

She said she does not have a particular health care plan but if she were presented with socialistic bill she would oppose it.

Taxes need to be lowered because people on fixed incomes cannot afford them, she said, adding that she draws $600 a month from the government and has to work 50-60 hours a week to buy groceries.

Property rights are also a big issue in her campaign, saying she opposes eminent domain and involuntary annexations.

She balked at the rationale that towns must annex property to grow, saying if towns lived within their budgets they wouldn’t have to expand their tax bases.

“They wouldn’t have to worry about getting more money into the tax coffin,” she said.

She also said she will reward small businesses with less government regulation and more tax relief.

Incumbent Phil Haire

“I’m a man from the mountains working for the mountains,” said District 119 State Rep. Phil Haire, D-Sylva, who is seeking his sixth term in the Nov. 4 election.

Haire, a Sylva attorney, said people should vote for him because, “I have a proven record and experience throughout the state of North Carolina.”

The state budget will be the big issue facing the Legislature in the next year, he said, adding that budget cuts must be made.

“We’re going to have to go in and look at the expenditures,” said Haire. who is the co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, which deals with how state money is budgeted.

Haire, 72, said there is an estimated deficit of between $800 million to $1.6 billion for 2009-2010.

“That’s a big cut out of the budget,” he said.

North Carolina has a budget of $21.4 billion for 2008-2009.

He said about 56 percent of the budget goes to education, 23 percent to health and human services, 10 percent to public safety and the remaining to other state agencies.

He said education is not an area he wants to cut, saying he supports education and got more classrooms added at Western Carolina University.

Unemployment is a big reason for the budget woes he said, because people are not paying income tax or purchasing many things, which cuts down on sales tax collections.

Another issue facing the state is growth, he said. The population is expected to increase by three million people by 2030. With growth comes a lot of other important issues, he said.

Haire says he has been an advocate for the environment by preserving farmland and the mountains and authored a clean air bill requiring utility companies to clean up emissions.

He said the clean air bill led to the state filing a lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority, which have power plants in the Midwest that emit pollution that gets blown this way.

Another bill he is proud of getting passed is the “safe haven or safe surrender” law that allows a mother to give up her baby to entities such as doctors’ offices and sheriff’s offices within seven days of the birth if she doesn’t want to keep the newborn.

He said the law was prompted by several cases of women abandoning their children in trash containers after they were born. Under the safe surrender law, a woman can give up her baby and have no charges filed, Haire said.

“If you save one life it’s worth it,” Haire said.