Minority status awaits U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx with House shift

By Scott Nicholson

nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Though 5th District U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx handily beat back her challenger in last week’s elections, she returns to a Congress in which she is now in the minority party.

Foxx acknowledged that the second term is usually the most difficult one for an incumbent to win, and Foxx not only bucked a national trend that saw voters turning out a number of Republican incumbents, she solidified Republican dominance of a district that was last held by a Democrat in 1994.

The district’s representative before Foxx, Richard Burr, made a successful run for U.S. Senate in 2004. Foxx ran an underdog campaign to replace Burr, eventually defeating Vernon Robinson in a hotly contested and controversial primary before taking the 2004 election over Democrat Jim Harrell, getting 59 percent of the vote.

Last week, Foxx’s margin of victory slipped by four percentage points as she beat challenger Roger Sharpe with 57 percent of the vote. Even more telling, she lost her home county of Watauga by about 1,000 votes, a county she had carried by nearly 2,200 votes two years before.

Foxx attributed hard campaigning, satisfactory constituent service and her sharing of the district’s values as factors in her victory, even though nationally the Democrats swept back into control of both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

“From what voters tell me, they understand that I work hard,” Foxx said after the election. “Over and over again, they say they appreciate my voting record and being accessible. The district and I share the same values and I represent the values of this district.”

Foxx, who has a stated goal of having the best constituent service in the House, credited her staff and said voters had positive experiences with her office. She said a legislator’s work is divided into two areas, both important: constituent service and voting on legislation.

Foxx said she wasn’t really surprised by the Democratic victories in Watauga County, and even expected to lose it herself. However, she said she was surprised by the losses of Sheriff Mark Shook and Republican N.C. Senate candidate David Blust. She credited the county-level Democratic Party with reaching out and actively working to get people to the polls. She also said the Democratic Party had been more aggressive this year, targeting many races that had once seemed unthinkable. She noted the loss of eight-term incumbent Charles Taylor to Democrat Heath Shuler, a former NFL quarterback. “They’ve been going after Charlie for years,” Foxx said.

She said national leaders got a message from the American voters. “The American people want the people in office to listen to them,” she said. “If you don’t, they are not very happy about that.”

Foxx knows the landscape in Washington, D.C., will change in the next term, with a Republican president working with a Democratic Congress. Having served 10 years in the minority party while at the state senate level, Foxx doesn’t foresee any major concerns or a major shift in the way she does daily business.

“I had 10 years in the minority in Raleigh and I was able to get things done,” Foxx said. “I have good ideas to put forth and I’ll work with the party to do things we think need to be done.”

Foxx’s three committee seats may be up in the air, as she is in the minority party and only in her second term. She currently serves on the agriculture, education and work force and government reform committees.

“We won’t know until after the (party) leadership election,” she said. “The majority party always has more committee seats. As a sophomore, I won’t be a ranking member, and so much is based on seniority. Those (three) committees are important to the Fifth District.”

Foxx said the Republican Party has already been rethinking its positions and expects a busy week ahead during leadership meetings as the parties organize themselves and select House and Senate leaders.

“Many will say we have not held fast to our principals,” Foxx said. “Some will say we have held too fast. It’s not a secret that was one of the problems. The scandals hurt us. We have to figure out some way to deal with that.”

Foxx, who has vigorously supported most of Pres. George Bush’s policies, said he is willing to develop a bi-partisan approach, though some political observers expect Bush to wield more veto power now that his party no longer controls two of the three legislative branches.

The third branch, the judicial, is where the Democrats can exert their muscle by turning down Bush’s court nominations.

“The president has already shown he will do his best to work with the Democratic majority,” Foxx said. “I don’t know exactly how it will change his agenda, but I’m concerned about the Supreme Court.”

Barring any changes during recounts, Democrats are poised to have a 51 to 49 edge in the U.S. Senate and at least 12 more than the 218 required to hold a majority in the House of Representatives.