NORTH CAROLINA – U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx is holding a different kind of town hall meeting this week — 21st century style.

On Thursday, Foxx will host a telephone town hall on health care reform.

The call-in event is open to all those who live in North Carolina’s 5th District, which includes the northern three-fourths of Iredell County.

“We need sensible healthcare reform that is patient centered, not government-centered or insurance company-centered,” Foxx said. “In the midst of the national debate over healthcare reform many constituents want to know what their government is up to with healthcare.”
Foxx said the healthcare matter is moving too fast.

“North Carolina taxpayers are rightly demanding that Washington slow down the process and listen to their concerns,” Foxx said.

Fifth District residents can call into the town hall meeting by dialing 1-877-850-4133 at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 6 and entering the password FOXX (3699).

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, caused a stir this week with her comments in the U.S. House.

During debate over health-care overhaul plans, Foxx said Tuesday that the Republican version of the bill “is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.”

The statement reflects Foxx’s wish to keep the current House health-care bill free of tax money for end-of-life counseling and abortion, said her spokesman, Aaron Groen.

Foxx’s comments echoed the concerns of several high-profile conservatives who have said that the current House bill could lead the government to encourage euthanasia for ailing seniors.

Bob Garner, a spokesman for AARP North Carolina which is backing the bill, dismissed that threat.
Though a provision of the bill offers Medicare coverage for consultation on life-sustaining treatments and such end-of-life services as hospice, participation in such programs would remain optional, Garner said.

“There’s an opportunity, not a requirement, to prepare a living will,” he said.

A living will allows seniors to tell their family how doctors should handle life-threatening situations. Someone may request measures to prolong their life or refuse extensive medical treatment, depending on their personal wishes.

“The bill does not attempt to dictate in any way what seniors choose to do,” and the idea that the government could tell seniors how to die is a distortion of the plan, Garner said.

Some North Carolina leaders, including Andrew Whalen, the executive director of the state’s Democratic Party, were frustrated by Foxx’s remarks. “I don’t think that any plan, be it Republican or Democratic, is going to put seniors to death,” he said.

State leadership should focus on solving the current health-care crisis instead of making inflammatory accusations, Whalen said.

“There are a lot of folks that suffer every day that we don’t address,” including seniors, children and families, he said.

This is the second time in the past few months that Foxx has aroused controversy on a hot-button political issue. She drew criticism in April for saying that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay man in Wyoming, was not a hate crime. Two men pleaded guilty to killing him and testified that they singled him out because he was gay.

Groen said that Foxx, in her comments Tuesday, wants to keep the government from making moral judgments on such issues as abortion or euthanasia.

“The great thing that she was pointing out is that the Republican alternative (on health care) does neither of those,” he said.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A North Carolina congresswoman has sent an apology about her comments to the mother of a slain gay man whose name is on legislation that adds sexual orientation to the list of hate crimes.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., sent the letter to the mother of Matthew Shepard.

The 21-year-old Wyoming student was robbed and beaten and left tied to a fence before he died. Two men are serving life sentences for his death.

Foxx said during a House floor debate that labeling Shepard’s death a hate crime was “a hoax.” She later said she used a poor choice of words.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation confirmed that his mother received Foxx’s note, but offered no comment on it.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A North Carolina congresswoman says she made a poor choice of words when she called the infamous murder of a gay Wyoming student a “hoax” to justify passing hate crimes bills.

Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx said during debate in the House that the 1998 death of Matthew Shepard shouldn’t be used to justify a hate crimes bill because it wasn’t a hate crime. Foxx said Shepard was killed during a robbery.

The bill approved Wednesday by the House would expand a federal hate crimes law to include acts motivated by sexual orientation.

“We know that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay,” Foxx said during debate. “The bill was named for him, the hate-crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”

Foxx later said her comments didn’t convey what she meant to say.

“The term ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate-crimes bill,” Foxx said in a statement. “Mr. Shepard’s death was nothing less than a tragedy, and those responsible for his death certainly deserved the punishment they received.”

Foxx said in her statement that she relied on two news reports for her comments about robbery being a motive for the slaying.

“Referencing these media accounts may have been a mistake, but if so, it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts,” she said.

The killing of the University of Wyoming student became a rallying point for the gay rights movement. Shepard was tied up, beaten and left for dead on a wooden fence.

The two men who killed him are serving life sentences in prison. Prosecutors’ cases included evidence with elements of robbery, drugs and hate against gays, but the court only determined that the men were guilty of murder and not why they killed Shepard.

Gay rights supporters were critical of Foxx.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said Foxx’s comments were “unreal, unbelievable.”

Jim Neal, a one-time candidate for U.S. Senate from North Carolina and who is gay, said Foxx showed ignorance in her comments.

“I’m baffled that any kind of elected representative would make that kind of absurd and heartless comment about a young man whose life was taken away from him, and taken away because he was gay,” Neal said.

The editor of a Charlotte-based publication for a gay audience said Foxx’s comments showed hatred.

“He was killed because he was gay and she is making light of that fact,” said Matt Comer.

Political wonks use phrases like “constant campaign” and “perpetual candidate” to describe the apparent need of office-holders to motivate the masses into pumping money into their war chests.

With members of the 111th Congress seated less than three months ago, some incumbents already are looking ahead to the next election.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, who represents North Caro-lina’s 10th District, is asking the faithful to help bail him out of the $230,000-plus campaign debt he racked up last year.

In a mass e-mail letter sent out by his campaign, McHenry said last year’s election season was “the worst political environment for Republicans in modern history.”

Because of that, the e-mail continues, “our victory came at a high cost.”

Specifically, McHenry raised about $1.35 million and spent nearly $1.6 million during his two campaigns in 2008.

According to the most recent report McHenry filed with the Federal Election Commission, his campaign has $71,501 of cash on hand. But its debt is listed as $265,000.

The solicitation e-mail lists the debt as more than $230,000 and asks contributors to help the campaign pay it off so that McHenry “can continue to stand up to the Liberal Left and fight for conservative values in Congress.”

Dee Stewart, McHenry’s senior political adviser, said fundraising is essentially a nonstop effort under any circumstances but that 2008 took a big bite out the campaign’s coffers.

“We had a serious primary and a serious general election last year,” Stewart explained. “And it was costly.”
McHenry won both elections handily.

He beat Republican primary opponent Lance Sigmon by a margin of better than 67 to 33 percent and then took almost 58 percent of the vote in his race against Democrat Daniel Johnson in November’s general election.

The goal now is to get the numbers on the campaign’s Federal Election Commission report looking a little less red before the end of the 2009 first quarter, which is midnight Tuesday.

“I need to raise $25,000 over the next 24 hours to send a strong message to the Democrats,” McHenry’s e-mail reads.

Stewart said that those in the know keep their eyes on FEC statements and they are sniffing for proverbial blood in the form of red ink.

“The leaders of both parties are always monitoring these reports to gauge the financial strength of the candidates,” he said.

While McHenry may be against the financial ropes right now, Iredell County’s other member of the U.S. House of Representatives is walking tall.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, who represents the 5th District, has more than $925,000 in cash and no debt, according to FEC reports.

She raised almost $1.1 million during the 2008 election cycle and spent more than $852,000 of that in her race against retired school teacher Roy Carter, whom she beat with more than 58 percent of the vote.
Foxx did not have a primary opponent last year.

Five Questions Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-Banner Elk

Q: Why did you join most Republicans in voting against an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover an additional four million kids?

A: The program was originally designed to provide health insurance to lower-income children whose parents made too much to qualify for Medicaid. But it has been modified to the point that some kids who qualify for coverage are denied because some states used the money to cover adults. We should return the program to its original purpose. Also, the expansion was funded with an increase in the federal cigarette tax to $1.01 per pack, an effort by Democrats to put tobacco farmers and tobacco companies out of business.

***

Q: Tobacco companies and anti-smoking advocates agree that raising cigarette taxes reduces smoking rates. Isn’t that a worthwhile goal?

A: It is, but the government should not tell people how to lead their lives. I love butter, and I probably use too much of it. If they increase tobacco taxes to stop people from smoking, what’s to stop Democrats from increasing taxes on butter to keep people from eating butter?

***

Q: You also joined every Republican in voting against the $819 billion economic recovery package that just passed the House, arguing that most of the spending programs would not immediately create jobs. Were any of the spending programs worthwhile?

A: Not that I can recall. There is a possibility that some of the infrastructure spending on roads and bridges could create jobs, but a lot of the money will not be spent for years.

***

Q: North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue says the state faces a $2 billion budget deficit this year, and the package contained at least $1 billion to fill that gap. What about those funds?

A: I’ve read the Constitution. I don’t see anything that says the federal government should balance state budgets. Why should we bail out irresponsibility? The state needs to take care of its own spending problems.

***

Q: As a former teacher, what grade would you assign to President Barack Obama’s first few weeks in office?

A: I wouldn’t grade a student this early in the term. I certainly don’t agree a lot with the executive orders he has signed. I appreciated his meeting with House Republicans. I take him at his word that he wants to be bipartisan and he wants the country to succeed. We want him to succeed because we want our country to succeed.

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About Five Questions

Each week when Congress is in session, Washington correspondent Sean Mussenden sits down with a different member of the North Carolina delegation for an in-depth interview on issues of importance to you.

The answers have been condensed for space and are not direct quotes. Watch a video of the extended interview online.

By SEAN MUSSENDEN
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON-Regular C-SPAN viewers may have noticed that Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-Banner Elk, has received more face time on the cable network of late.

Since joining the House Rules Committee in January – a powerful body that sets the framework for debate on bills that come to the floor – Foxx has helped manage the Republican opposition to a handful of Democratic bills.

Last week, she led floor debate against a Democratic push to postpone until June the transition from analog to digital TV signals. The measure passed largely along party lines.

Foxx said party leaders asked her to manage the debate, and she was happy to oblige.

“I don’t seek to be in the spotlight, I don’t seek being on C-SPAN,” she said in an interview.”

“What I have told the Republican conference is that I want to help where they need me to help. If they need me to speak on the floor, I’ll speak on the floor. If they need me to stuff envelopes, I’ll stuff envelopes,” she said.

PRAYER BREAKFAST
At prayer breakfasts each week, members of Congress gather to read scripture, share stories, and pray. And they sing hymns – usually not very well, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, told the crowd at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Thursday.

As co-chair of the annual breakfast, Shuler introduced President Barack Obama, telling an international audience that included former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that his young children were moved by Obama’s inauguration and said, “Daddy, let’s pray for the president.”

“Children, politicians and everyday citizens around the world are showing their hope, their faith, through their prayers for this president,” he said at the breakfast.

Before introducing Obama, Shuler introduced Casting Crowns, a Christian rock group whose performance, he said, spared the audience from listening to members of Congress sing.

“I think God really appreciates that,” Shuler said.

CENSUS CONTROVERSY
A decision by Obama to have the White House directly oversee the 2010 Census brought fierce opposition from Republicans.

In a letter to the Obama administration last week, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Cherryville, the top Republican on a subcommittee that oversees the Census, said he was “shocked and dismayed” by the decision, which he called an attempt to “politicize the operations of the Census Bureau and jeopardize the fairness and accuracy of the 2010 Census.”

Traditionally, the Census is overseen by the Commerce Department. But Hispanic advocates questioned whether Obama’s nominee to head the department, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., would conduct a fair accounting of minority groups.

ADOPTED DOG
Rep. Walter Jones, R-Farmville, will be honored by the Humane Society of the United States on Tuesday for helping the family of a Marine killed by a rocket blast in Iraq adopt his German Shepherd, a military bomb-sniffing dog who was injured in the attack.

The military initially denied the adoption request from the family of Cpl. Dustin Lee, saying the dog, Lex, had to remain in service for another two years. That changed after Jones, whose district includes Camp Lejeune, lobbied top Marine officials to allow the adoption to proceed.

Lee’s family and are planning to bring Lex to Washington for the ceremony.

By SEAN MUSSENDEN
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON-The House voted Thursday to block President Barack Obama from accessing the second wave of funds from the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions.

Because the Senate killed an identical measure last week, the passage of the bill sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., is unlikely to stop Obama from distributing to ailing banks and foreclosed homeowners the $350 billion remaining in the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Congress created TARP at the behest of the Bush administration last fall to help thaw frozen credit markets.
The Bush administration’s oversight of the first wave of funds prompted protests by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers after banks held onto the cash instead of lending it and the program was expanded to include auto companies.

Foxx, like many Republicans and some Democrats, opposed the program from the start. She and other early TARP opponents argued that it would reward financial firms that made bad decisions while expanding the deficit, projected to hit $1.2 trillion this year.

“Any money that Congress spends is taken from hardworking Americans paying taxes or is borrowed from foreigners,” Foxx said Thursday while leading debate on the House floor.

The measure was approved 270-155, with all five North Carolina Republicans in the House voting to block the release of the money. North Carolina Democrats were split.

In the Senate vote last week, Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., voted to release the funds, while Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., voted to block them.

At this point, only approval of Foxx’s bill by both chambers could block the release of the funds. There is little chance the Senate will bring Foxx’s version up for a vote, because the Democratic majority wants to let Obama access the money.

“This bill is dead…This is an exercise,” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., head of the House Financial Services committee, said before the vote Thursday.

The Obama administration has promised several changes to TARP, including improved disclosure of banks receiving funds and a plan to direct between $50 billion and $100 billion to homeowners facing foreclosure.

“I know there are serious concerns about transparency and accountability… confusion about the goals of the program, and a deep skepticism about whether we are using the taxpayers’ money wisely,” Obama Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner said at a Senate hearing Wednesday.

The House passed a bill sponsored by Frank on Wednesday that would have written many of those promised changes into law, but Democratic leaders in the Senate have declined to take it up.

Though Frank said the vote on Foxx’s legislation would not stop Obama from using the funds, he said the new president should read it as indication of the public’s dissatisfaction with TARP as written and make the promised changes.

“There is a degree of anger in the American public at what they think is a very unfair system that gives benefits unduly and disproportionately to some who caused the problem,” he said.

Foxx said in an interview that she was troubled by the “lack of accountability” with TARP and hoped the strong vote in the House would convince the Senate to reconsider its decision and bring her bill up for a vote.

“I cannot find where Congress has given the administration a blank check like this. We’re saying, ‘Here’s $350 billion, go to it’,” she said.

How North Carolina House Members Voted

Yes (to block release of TARP funds)
Howard Coble, R
Virginia Foxx, R
Walter Jones, R
Larry Kissell, D
Patrick McHenry, R
Mike McIntyre, D
Sue Myrick, R
Heath Shuler, D

No (to release TARP funds)
G.K. Butterfield, D
Bob Etheridge, D
Brad Miller, D
David Price, D
Mel Watt, D

Highlights of President Barack Obama’s Proposed Changes to TARP
–Direct $50 billion to $100 billion to homeowners facing foreclosure.
–Improve public disclosure of institutions receiving funds.
–Require healthy banks that receive funds to increase lending to businesses and consumers.
–Limit some dividend payments by publicly held companies receiving assistance.
–Prevent firms receiving assistance from using funds to buy other firms.

WASHINGTON-Democrats on Thursday lashed out at Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., for suggesting that the Democratic Party supports “anti-American” policies.

“My colleagues on the other side don’t seem to be in favor of more American energy. They seem to be anti-American energy, just as many other things that they support seem to be anti-American power and anti-American control,” Foxx said of Democrats during a speech on the House floor last month.

The campaign of Foxx’s Democratic challenger, Roy Carter, criticized Foxx’s “anti-American” remark, which was reported by CQ Politics on Thursday.

“Her partisanship is a big deal. It will hurt her ability to get things done for this district,” said Ben Salt, a spokesman for Carter.

Aaron Groen, a spokesman for Foxx, said Carter’s campaign misinterpreted the comment Foxx made on September 17, during a debate on energy policy.

“She’s not calling anyone anti-American. She’s talking about energy policies, about American sources of energy versus foreign sources,” Groen said. “She was talking about the fact that she favors policies that give Americans power over where we get our energy, control over where we get our energy.”

Like many Republicans in Congress, Foxx has been an outspoken advocate for drilling for oil and natural gas off the North Carolina coast.

Two other House Republicans – Rep. Robin Hayes of North Carolina and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota – have come under fire in recent days for suggesting that liberals and Democrats hold anti-American views.

Appearing on the MSNBC show “Hardball” last week, Bachmann asked the news media to investigate which members of Congress were “pro-America” and which were “anti-America.”

Warming up the crowd at a campaign rally for John McCain in Concord, N.C., last week, Hayes said “liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.”

Hayes’ campaign initially denied that he made the remark. After news organizations produced taped evidence of the comment, Hayes said it “came out completely the wrong way.”