He's now a member of the US House of Representatives, where he voted for Trump's Big Ugly Bill, which is a disaster for environmental protections.
Headline: Governing, 7/14/2025
Alan Ehrenhart reports:
This November, residents of Charlotte, N.C., and surrounding Mecklenburg County are likely to be voting on a referendum to increase the local sales tax from 7.25 percent to 8.25 percent, raising nearly $10 billion for transit projects over the next 30 years. Predictions are risky, but the consensus among local leaders is that it will pass.A
1-point tax increase isn’t exactly remarkable. What’s remarkable is that if it takes effect, the change will mark a turning point in a war between Charlotte and the state that has been going on for nearly 30 years.
All the way back in 1997, the city asked for new taxing authority, and the state legislature balked. This was still going on in 2020, when a local task force called for a 1-cent increase, and the legislature proclaimed the idea dead on arrival.
These are key events in a seemingly endless city vs. state transportation war, but the war involved other issues as well. In 2013, the legislature tried to take control of the Charlotte airport out of the city’s hands and turn it over to a state-created commission. That ploy failed when a Superior Court judge ruled it out of order. But the rocky relationship continued.
An effort in 2023 to raise the local sales tax to fund new transit projects got nowhere in Raleigh. The Republican House speaker, Tim Moore, complained that too much money was already being spent on transit and said the city “needs to be focused on road capacity.” A local news publication, Carolina Forward, accused Moore and other legislative Republicans of harboring “a long-running resentment of Charlotte.” It was hard to dispute that.
More roads = more congestion.
The next time a Republican tries to sell this principle, just laugh in his face.
FYI. WisGOP abandoned it years ago.
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