The Republican takeover of the N.C. legislature, the first time the GOP has led both houses since 1898, is a huge shift in power that’s brought a lot of new faces, and people new to doing business on Jones Street. In what we hope is a regular feature this session, N.C. Policy Watch will try to talk with some of the newest members to offer a bit more insight on who they are and what they plan on doing this session in Raleigh. This will be an ongoing feature, with the goal of profiling all the new members. Haven’t been contacted for your profile yet? New legislators can contact reporter Sarah Ovaska at sarah@ncpolicywatch.com.

Name: Rep. Craig Horn (Republican)

Hometown: Weddington (represents Union County)

Family: Wife Lorraine; four grown children and seven grandchildren

Occupation: Retired owner of a food broker business in Maryland. Moved to N.C. in 2005.

Education: No college degree, but did take classes through Indiana University, Syracuse University and University of Maryland during his seven-year service to the U.S. Air Force.

Previous political experience: Served six years on the city council in Laurel, Md. in the 1970s.

Organizations (charities, churches, civic groups) you’re active in: president of Churchill Center for the United States; on the Board of Governors for the International Churchill Center; president of the Churchill Society of North Carolina.

Biggest political influences: Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan

Campaign website: http://www.hornfornchouse.com/

Hobbies: Spending time with grandchildren; studying, talking or reading about Churchill.

Any pet peeves?: “I hate being late. I hate it when people say, ‘To tell you the truth,’ I hate it when people wag their fingers at me. I understand if other people are late, but if I’m late I feel like I’m insulting the people that are waiting for me. I’m also really put off by bad grammar.”

How you plan on unwinding from the legislative grind? “I wish I could relax. I’ve had a hard time adjusting because there’s been no period of adjustment. Based on what I’ve heard from others, there used to be a gradual gear up. We didn’t gear up, we just hit the ground. It reminds me of being dropped in combat. I had hoped for a more lengthy learning curve. But we weren’t sent to Raleigh to lollygag, we were sent to get to work immediately.”

Why’d you run? “I have seven grandchildren and that’s why. All my life I’ve tried to live by example, to never ask people to do something I haven’t done. It sounds like I’m being very altruistic. I enjoy the attention, but there’s a whole lot more to it.”

What are you expecting from this session? “I’m expecting that we will begin the serious process of putting this state back on a sound fiscal footing. I believe that’s the reason why we’ve had such a change in the complexion of the legislature. I have no illusions about being a big shot. I expect our feet to be held to the fire. I expect that we are all to live up to all those words we used in the campaigns.”

What (policy-wise) keeps you up worrying at night, when it comes to state policy matters?“When I first walked in the door, I put a sign up — 3,700,000,000 (the initial estimate of the state budget gap). I noticed when I wrote one number on a piece of a paper and hung it up, it took up most of the wall of my small office. That’s a big hole. It’s also a big responsibility.”

Contact: 1010 Legislative Building, (919) 733-2406, Craig.Horn@ncleg.net

Just after Governor Beverly Perdue finished her State of the State address in the House chamber Monday night, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger made his way to the podium in the all but empty Senate chamber to deliver the Republican response to the television audience.

There was little left to say. Perdue spent the better part of her 38-minute address calling for lower corporate taxes, a smaller government, and an end to burdensome regulations on businesses, all significant parts of the Republican agenda.

Berger gave it the old college try, recycling the Republican campaign talking points about taxes and why Democrats in North Carolina are to blame for everything that went wrong in the national economy. But after Perdue’s address, Berger’s remarks rang as hollow in substance as they did acoustically, echoing weakly in the empty chamber.

Perdue did do a little more than endorse the Republican corporate agenda. She vowed to protect every state funded teacher and teacher assistant currently in public schools and to expand her College Promise initiative to give high school students a chance at two years of career training or a two-year college associate degree.

She also announced that the state budget shortfall is now $2.4 billion, down another $300 million from last week when it was reduced thanks primarily to rosier revenue projections. Reducing the corporate income tax could cost as much as $400 million, which means the budget hole is roughly $2.8 billion.

Perdue didn’t propose any new revenue to address that shortfall. She was silent about keeping the 2009 temporary tax increases in place or letting them expire. And there was no mention of her thoughts about legalizing video poker to raise several hundred million dollars.

We’ll find out Thursday how Perdue wants to balance the budget when she presents her spending plan to lawmakers. She did say Monday night that there would be further funding reductions and that as many 1,000 state jobs will be eliminated through early retirement.

A lack of specifics about budget cuts and revenue was not all that was missing. Perdue talked about the need to invest in education, but said nothing about the state’s troubled mental health system and the need for more investments in community services.

Nationally recognized early childhood programs like Smart Start and More at Four didn’t warrant a mention either. Neither did desperately underfunded affordable housing programs or the 45,000 children currently on a waiting list for subsidized child care, making it impossible for their mothers to work or go back to school to increase their chances for a higher paid position.

People in Wake County hoping for a statement of opposition to the efforts by the current school board to resegregate the schools came away disappointed. And folks worried about the troubled State Bureau of Investigation and Highway Patrol were also ignored.

No speech can cover everything, but an effective State of the State address gives the General Assembly and people of the state a broad overview of how North Carolina is doing and how the governor plans to make improvements.

Perdue made a different choice, using most of her time to present Republican talking points and repeat her earlier commitment to teachers in public schools.

Progressives in North Carolina looking for inspiration didn’t find much. Families who rely on state services to take care of a loved one with a disability or mental illness who were looking for reassurances didn’t receive any.

Maybe Perdue’s budget will be different and call for new revenue to protect programs that the state’s most vulnerable people need. Maybe she will recommend keeping the 2009 tax hikes in place to fund More at Four and Smart Start so at-risk kids don’t start school well behind their peers.

Maybe her budget won’t exploit low income people by legalizing video poker instead of raising money honestly and fairly.

Maybe, but it’s hard to be too optimistic after Monday night.

Perdue’s staff issued a news release after her speech that said she had laid out her vision for North Carolina. The problem is it seemed like only one of her eyes was open.