Jason Says Vote, North Carolina!

Candidates: 

• Senator Kay Hagan (D): First elected to the Senate - 2008. Prior to that, she was a member of the NC State Senate (1999-2009). Senate campaign site. 
• NC House Speaker Thom Tillis: Speaker of the State House (2011-present), NC State Representative (2006-present) Senate campaign website.

Jason's Bottom Line:

• Kay Hagan is a pragmatic, thoughtful, and thoroughly North Carolina Senator. She is one of the hardest working Members of the Senate, and is running against one of the most partisan Republican challengers this cycle. Speaker Tillis has managed to turn the North Carolina State House into a partisan mess. Under his leadership, the State House passed anti-worker legislation, draconian anti-abortion bills, and even instituted un-democratic voting restrictions. 
• Kay Hagan is a strong advocate for the poor and middle-class. She has fought hard to increase education funding and access to health care for North Carolinians. She is not easily replaced. 
• Tom Tillis is a partisan to the core. His anti-education budgets have become a huge talking point in the state, and a tool to show how extreme he really is.

Issues:

Access to Affordable Health Care

• Kay Hagan: Senator Hagan believes that we need "sensible fixes" to the ACA. She continues to fight to extend CHIP funding and work with bi-partisan colleagues to oppose unfunded mandates by supporting increased funding for Medicaid. Hagan also continues to fight for lower health care costs by implementing electronic medical records, eliminating waste, giving small businesses new opportunities to buy insurance, and allowing the government to negotiate for lower Medicare drug prices. 
• Tom Tillis: Tillis believes that the ACA is a "disaster" that must be repealed. Tillis backed the 2013 shutdown of the government over defunding the ACA because the ACA is a "mortal threat to our economy" and "Republicans should do everything in our power to undo it. That means using every tool available to us..."
• Winner: Kay Hagan
• Kay Hagan will continue her fight to make health care more accessible, affordable, and responsive to the needs of families.

Education/Student Debt

• Kay Hagan: Hagan supports providing a strong foundation by strengthening early childhood education, reducing class sizes, investing in classroom technology, increasing access to higher education with increased student loan assistance, keeping tuition costs under control, and encouraging more people to become teachers by offering competitive salaries so that good teachers stay in the field. Senator Hagan is an original co-sponsor of Senator Reed's bill aimed at keeping student loans affordable and Senator Warren's legislation that would reduce student loan interest rates. 
• Tom Tillis: As Speaker of the State House, Tillis supported allowing community colleges to refuse federal student loans, led passage of a budget that would increase tuition at NC community colleges and universities, and said that college tuition hikes aren't always a bad thing. He even cut public education by nearly $500 million, forcing teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, and freezing teacher pay.
• Winner: Kay Hagan
• Kay Hagan is a huge champion of making education investments - because that is the only way to grow the middle class. 

Pay Equity/Workplace Protections/Expanding the Middle Class

• Kay Hagan: A staunch supporter of equal pay, Senator Hagan co-sponsored the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act, and supports increasing the minimum wage. Senator Hagan also supported ENDA. Senator Hagan has a 100% 2013 rating with the AFL-CIO and a 93% lifetime rating with them.
• Tom Tillis: From calling equal pay laws, "campaign gimmicks" to a dismal record of killing equal pay laws in North Carolina - Speaker Tillis is not a strong advocate for workers rights.  
• Winner: Kay Hagan
• We know where she stands - and it's not a campaign tactic. She's fought for these workers in North Carolina before - and she'll keep fighting now.

Reproductive Rights/Women's Health Care

• Kay Hagan: Hagan supports making abortions safe, legal, and rare. She believes that these decisions are best made privately by a woman in consultation with her doctor. Hagan is a co-sponsor of Prevention First Act - which is designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies before they happen with increased family planning services, responsible sex education, and expansion of Medicaid access. Hagan has a 100% rating from Planed Parenthood for 2014 (and the past 6 years) and NARAL. 
• Tom Tillis: Speaker Tillis believes that abortion should be highly restricted, employers should be able to withhold contraceptive coverage from employees if they disagree with it morally, and that Planned Parenthood should receive no federal funding. As House Speaker he championed a bill (and the veto-override) that requires a 24-hour waiting period for abortion services in NC, where the doctor would be required to give the patient certain information including a real-time view of the fetus and heart tone monitoring. Maybe his campaign says it best, "Thom believes all life is sacred and as Speaker, he promoted pro-life policies and helped reverse the pro-abortion state policies Democrats had put in place for decades. In the Senate, Thom will promote a culture of life and he will champion the appointment of qualified pro-life judges." 
• Winner: Kay Hagan
• When it comes to being a champion for women's rights - Kay Hagan is a stand-out among Senators. North Carolina is lucky to have her representing them.

Marriage Equality

• Kay Hagan: supports same-sex marriage, but believes religious institutions should not be forced to recognize same-sex unions. 
• Tom Tillis: opposes gay marriage and believes that marriage is a religious institution that is between one man and one woman.
• Winner: Kay Hagan
• She supports my equal rights - and I support her for Senate.

Bipartisanship/Willingness to Work Across the Aisle

This is a big one for me as I deal with Congress every day for work. The willingness of a member to bridge the partisan divide is so important to get anything done. The super-partisanship of Washington is the reason that Congress is dysfunctional and has the lowest approval ratings ever. 

• Kay Hagan: Senator Hagan is by far one of my very favorite Senators to work with. She is pragmatic, detail-oriented, and willing to work with whoever has a good idea. She doesn't care about credit, and is in politics for all the right reasons. She's not only an asset to North Carolina, but to the Senate as a whole.
• Tom Tillis: Based on his work in leading the North Carolina State House to be one of the most partisan in history, attacking Senator Hagan and President Obama at every turn, and generally running a cut-throat campaign - I don't think that Tillis would be very apt to work with a single Democrat if he were elected. 
• Winner: Kay Hagan
• The Senator is sure to continue her bi-partisan work - and I look forward to continuing it with her.