Best Week in Raleigh: Jeff Jackson

by | Feb 20, 2015 | Ads, Campaigns, Carolina Strategic Analysis, Features, NCGA | 2 comments

Friday is usually when we do our “Worst Week in Raleigh/NC Politics” feature, but today we’re doing something a little different. On occasion, someone in NC politics has a week that is so spectacularly good that it just has to be documented. Today, then, we’re going to be looking at the person who had the best week in Raleigh. These don’t come by as often, so when they do, you know the person in question had a really, really good week.

State Sen. Jeff Jackson (D-Charlotte) clearly had the best week in Raleigh. What Jackson, 32, did just two days ago has already become the stuff of political legend, so a brief recap will suffice: on Wednesday, while every other legislator stayed home to avoid the snow and ice, Jackson, undaunted, showed up for work and for a while was the only lawmaker in the Legislative Building. While there, he took the opportunity to tweet the laws he “passed”, including Medicaid expansion, nonpartisan redistricting, restoring funding to universities, and ending puppy mills. At one point he even tweeted that he had defeated his own filibuster by stopping for a drink of water. In the process, Jackson generated a hashtag “JustOneLegislator”, which could be a ready-made campaign slogan whenever he seeks higher office.

Understandably, the pretend coup was seized upon by state media outlets in search of stories on a slow news day, subsequently making national news and even Buzzfeed. It’s the second time Sen. Jackson has been featured on the entertainment website. The first time was a couple months ago, when he excoriated his Republican colleagues for a closed budget process. This media attention has cemented Jackson’s position as a rising star in the state’s Democratic Party and speaks to the desire for a new brand of politics, based on optimism, nuance, and reaching across the aisle, not cynicism.

Not everyone was thrilled, however. Legislative counsel Brent Woodcox said he was still waiting on Jackson to pass a balanced budget. And observing that everything comes with a price tag, the Civitas Institute investigated how much Jackson’s snow day proposals would cost. The amount: $2 billion up front, with this number increasing going forward.

These concerns were, of course, downplayed in the media excitement over Jackson’s tweets, but conservatives should avoid raising them, lest they be accused of lacking a sense of humor. After all, the tweets were all in good fun. We need more public servants who can see the lighter side of things and who understand the new media. If Wednesday was any indication, Sen. Jackson embodies both of those traits.

Jeff Jackson, for “winning” Twitter and becoming perhaps the fastest Democratic rising star in state history, you’ve more than earned the “Best Week in Raleigh” award. Congrats – really.

Unlike Sen. Jackson, these people failed to win “Best Week” awards, but they did win “Worst Week” at one point or another, which is the next best thing:

February 13, 2015 – Dana Cope
February 6, 2015 – Thom Tillis
January 30, 2015 – Julia Howard
January 9, 2015 – NC House Democrats

2 Comments

  1. Eilene

    Well, that’s easy, Lily… we won’t. We just won’t clean it up. No biggie. Let the next generation deal with it. We’re making money, and creating jobs, right? Even though they have already proved that most of those jobs will be temporary, while drills are being assembled, and many of the longer-term jobs will be lower wage jobs, like driving trucks full of water to the fracking sites, tearing up the roadways in the process. And in the meantime, the guys who own the rigs make tons of money, and everybody else gets hosed. And then they take their big pile of money and leave, and we’ll just stare at the wasteland and wish we could do something to fix it.

    My husband worked for DENR up until last October, and didn’t get a raise for 7 years. When he started, there were 13 people in his office, covering land and water quality for 13 counties. When he left, he was one of 5, and they didn’t replace him when he left. This legislature wants the environmental regulations to just go away. They cost money. They went so far as to pass a law that says that no county, city, etc can pass any environmental regulations that are stricter than federal guidelines, even though the guidelines are just a skeleton to build on. Who cares about that…. we’re making money, right?

  2. larry

    Tell me….who is “we”?
    “price tag…Civitas”….wow, do you have to get a hall pass for everything, even when you pontificate?

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