Candidate Biography (submitted by candidate):

Currently I serve as Senior Chair of the House Finance Committee; I have been a co-chair of that committee since 1999.

My other committee assignments are Rules (vice-chair), Election Laws (vice-chair), Environment, and Energy and Energy Efficiency.

During the interim, I am the House chair of the joint House-Senate Revenue Laws Study Committee.

I was first elected to the House in 1990, and am now running for my eleventh term. Besides serving in the State House, I am a sociology professor at UNC Greensboro. My special areas of interest are political sociology and social change. My books -- Tar Heel Politics (1990) and Tar Heel Politics 2000-- have both been published by UNC Press.

I graduated from Valparaiso University in 1966, and received my Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975.

I am married to Carol Gallione, a researcher at Duke University Medical Center. We have two children, Theo and Emily, and a granddaughter, Adele Rose.

As senior chair of the House Finance Committee, my priority is to reform state tax policy so that the burden does not fall disproportionately on the middle and low-income majority. I support raising the income tax rate on families making more than $250,000.

My second priority is to fund public education well. My emphasis is on early childhood education, K-12 schools, and community colleges. Two important goals for our economic future are to raise the achievement levels of low-income students and to reduce dropout rates.

Other priorities include correcting the policy errors that have plagued our mental health programs, increasing the state's commitment to environmental protection, and supporting the effort to develop alternate energy sources.

Finally, a long-range priority is the implementation of a comprehensive public financing system. All state-level offices, from the state house to the governor, should be publicly funded.