Devin Rooney
Assistant State & National Editor
2/12/08

Bob Orr, a former N.C. Supreme Court justice who also served on the Court of Appeals, retired from the bench in 2004 and is now a Republican candidate for N.C. governor. Assistant State & National Editor Devin Rooney sat down with Orr in his Raleigh office.

Media Credit: Kaitlin McKeown Bob Orr, a Republican candidate in the N.C. governor's race, maneuvers through a busy morning at his election office in Raleigh on Monday.

DTH: Why did you choose to run for governor?

Bob Orr: I felt like the challenges at stake … were enormous.

I didn't see candidates talking about issues I thought were important, about the kind of reform that needs to take place. So I felt like the best way to talk about and get the public engaged in and discussing where the state needs to go and how we need to get there would be for me to get in the race.

And, you know, I love this state. I grew up here; I went to school here; it's important to me, what we leave for our kids and grandkids.

DTH: Why do you think you are the best candidate?

Bob Orr: Well, I think my experience on the court is unique in the sense that for 18 years I was required to answer tough questions (and) deal with complex issues. I did that. I did it working with Democrats, Republicans (and) other judges of different philosophical bents.

Part of the process of the appellate courts is to bring people together, (to) work together to get the right answer. And many of the issues that we deal with - on education, for example, environmental issues - were all at various times before the court.

I think that my record on the court for independence and fairness will give the public a special sense of confidence. I hope that what we'll be doing will be in the public's interest and not in the interest of a special interest.

DTH: What do you think of the job North Carolina is doing serving its students?

Bob Orr: I think, unfortunately, our public school system is struggling badly. And that's not to say that we don't have success, that we don't have anything that's going right, because we do.

We have a lot of good people in the education system trying their best to provide sound educational opportunities for our kids. But you just have to look at the overall record, whether it's the dropout issue, the achievement gap, the opinions of employers, universities who say that many of the graduates don't have the requisite skill that are needed. My sense is that overall, if we stay on the course that we're on, we'll simply not keep competitive in the next 20 (to) 25 years.

Community colleges are underfunded and underutilized. They're sort of the sleeping giant of our education system, I think.

Historically we've done a pretty good job with our university system. I have a lot of confidence in (UNC-system) President (Erskine) Bowles. I think he's been able to accomplish some things both management-wise and structure-wise.

(But) we're going to need to expand the number of college graduates, whether that means making existing campuses larger or looking at other opportunities for the creation of new members of the consolidated university.

DTH: What do you plan to do for the affordability of college?

Bob Orr: Well, I think we probably have to do a better job in managing our state educational budgets for higher education.

As you know, the state constitution contemplates that the cost be as low as practical for the students. So the question is, "What's that mean?"

We hear all this time that we have to have more money in order for the university to keep and retain our best professors, but my sense is that we need to take a step back and say, "Where's our focus? Is it really on the research end? How much money is driving that? Are we providing programs? They cost money to provide, but are these the programs we really need to be providing?"

Like I said, I have a lot of confidence in President Bowles, if he's going to look at that, but ideally you want the university system to be as affordable as possible, either on the front end or at least that there are enough financial packages that they're able to help kids who need it.

DTH: Focusing on K-12 education, what do you think the state should do to keep teachers here?

Bob Orr: Well, I think we've got some fairly in-depth proposals on our Web site. One, we've got to redefine the teaching profession. We've got to make it just that, a professional career in which we provide not only adequate salaries, but we provide the kind of professional development that I think teachers want.

We need to be able to reward teachers who want to stay in the classroom as opposed to saying, "Well, in order to move up, I've got to move into administration." We lose a lot of our good teachers that way.

We've got to be in control of the classroom. There really is a classroom discipline issue out there in which the environment in which teachers are having to try and educate our kids, really in some schools, in many schools, is pretty disheartening to them.

So, I think you retain them by allowing them to really fulfill why most of them went into teaching, and that is the love of teaching, and the sense of accomplishment in seeing young people meet their full academic potential.

You can't do that if you have disruptive classrooms, you have no support for the teachers and if they're burdened by paperwork and other duties that take away from education. We've got some pretty specific ideas about that.

DTH: What do you think should be done to maintain the reputation of technical and scientific expertise that North Carolina has?

Bob Orr: Well, I think we've got a great base to start with here. So, part of it is that we create a kind of culture of innovation or that we strengthen the culture of innovation so that new businesses and existing businesses in these emerging fields, whether it's biotechnology or nanotechnology (or) green energy, that we try to make sure that there's the kind of business climate that encourages people to start and grow and start those kinds of businesses.

I think we've got a great base to start with, we've just got to do a better job.

DTH: Voters in North Carolina seem to be concerned about the loss of jobs to overseas. What do you think should be done about that?

Bob Orr: Well, I think realistically that has to be a concern, but reality is what it is. Cheap labor and cheap materials overseas are inevitably going to impact those kinds of jobs.

I think we need to take a long view and figure out where are the job sectors that will be least impacted by the overseas flow of jobs. Some of it has to be done, of course, at the national level with trade treaties that are fairly enforced instead of the United States seemingly being on the losing end of these trade agreements.

DTH: Do you think something should be done for people who lose their jobs due to outsourcing?

Bob Orr: If there's a trade issue that causes jobs to be lost, there's a safety net that the state has between unemployment opportunities and training opportunities. There are numerous provisions that qualify as short-term safety nets.

I think the trouble is when you have older workers, perhaps not particularly well-educated, who have not developed the skill on an ongoing basis. It's harder for them to go into the job market and find anything other than perhaps low-level service jobs.

And I think maybe we talked about it the other day, we need a lifetime of education. People need to realize when you finish high school, or you finish community college, that's not the end of your education.

There's sort of an ongoing process by which people are picking up skills to meet the emerging challenges and the emerging job opportunities.

DTH: What do you think should be done about providing pubic transit in the state?

Bob Orr: The question with public transit is cost and efficiency - does it make sense to do it. If there is a cost-effective way of providing public transportation, then I'm all for it. Obviously, it's something you need to do.

My concern is that sometimes these transit proposals, they look cool and they're great to have, but if you're bleeding millions of dollars a year, you have to question whether that was a sound investment. So, I think you need to look at those components.

DTH: What would your plan be for the roads and transportation infrastructure in North Carolina?

Bob Orr: We talked at length with some people who are very knowledgeable about the operation of the Department of Transportation and transportation issues, and we again have a pretty much dysfunctional organization in the operation and delivery of road projects.

I think - they put a list of projects to be completed in the course of a year, we're maybe hitting about 50 percent of those.

So then you have the escalating cost of construction. Each year that you put a project off, cost goes up 10, 15, 18, 20 percent, thus costing tax payers more in the long run.

So the first thing I would do is a complete restructuring, reorganization of the management principles in the Department of Transportation to make it a much more efficient, less politically driven operation.

DTH: How do you plan on managing costs for road-building and other transportation infrastructure?

Bob Orr: Well we have the current system that provides and creates a lot of money for transportation; it's just not being efficiently and effectively used.

I think we need to take the money from the highway trust fund and instead of spending it on other budget items, we need to use it on transportation.

We need to look at our options, whether it's toll roads, whether it's private contract roads, and see what we can do.

The cost goes up as the cost of oil goes up. Oil is a component of asphalt, so therefore the price of oil goes up, the price of asphalt goes up, the price of roads goes up.

You know I keep saying, "Is there nothing else? Is there no other less expensive, more accessible substance to replace oil, or to use as a way of surfacing?"

So far, everybody says no, but I'm confident that the brilliant young generational scientists can maybe come up with one, that we can actually build roads less, without having a dependence on oil.

DTH: What's your stance on undocumented or illegal workers?

Bob Orr: If the federal government says somebody is not here legally, and therefore they are not a legal resident of the United States, then they can't be a legal resident of North Carolina.

And if that's the law, then you follow the law, whether you like it or don't like it, whether it seems fair or unfair. If you don't like it or you think it's unfair, you try and change the law, you don't ignore it.

And so, my sense is as long as the federal government is making these decisions as to who's legal and who's not, it'd be my job as an elected official. You take the oath, you swear to uphold the constitution and the laws of the United States and the state of North Carolina. It's just that simple.

DTH: Do you think there could be an impact on North Carolina's economy if we crack down on illegal immigrants?

Bob Orr: It will have an impact. And I think there are two things I've said. One is, the governor needs to get all the players together, the industries that are using immigrant workers, get them all together. We need to get advocates for these workers.

We need to start anticipating, "What's the federal government going to do?" and, "What's the impact going to be?" and, "What can we do to ease that impact?"

So that's one thing, get everybody together, try and find a solution.

Secondly, there are programs that bring properly documented temporary workers to the United States. And I think we'd have to expand, simplify and make it a more practical business decision for these employers, to make sure they've got properly documented workers.

And then those who are not here don't get proper documentation, and won't have jobs.

DTH: In North Carolina there's solid health care in the metropolitan areas, but it's lacking in rural areas, and everywhere it's expensive. What should be done?

Bob Orr: If you go to our Web site, we've got a pretty comprehensive plan. We have to examine our programs for educating people in the health care fields and finding the necessary incentives to get those people out into our rural areas.

A company doesn't want to locate in an area where they don't have good health care. I think we need to do a better job of looking at the shortages that we're experiencing now, in various segments of the health care field: How do we get those people out into the rural poor areas?

We stress preventive care; that's an important way of containing costs. I think there are ways we can improve access, quality and affordability. There's a lot of talk about insurance … but I think our first focus has to be you got to have health care, you got to be able to get to it, and it has to be - at least within some parameters - affordable.