Incumbent North Carolina Sen. Bill Purcell, who has represented Richmond County in the General Assembly for more than a decade, has announced he will seek re-election. One Republican candidate is already mounting a public campaign for the spot.

The challenger is Albemarle resident P. Jason Phibbs, who is seeking public office for the first time.

Phibbs works as the supervisor of a team of analysts at the Charlotte call center of investment firm The Vanguard Group.

Purcell, a retired pediatrician and former city councilman and mayor of Laurinburg, announced his plan to run for another term in a press release Friday.

“Serving in the Senate has been an honor and a privilege that I take very seriously,” Purcell said in the release. “I look forward to working with others to make the right investments in our future and to responsibly work toward keeping taxes as low as possible.”

Along with Richmond County, North Carolina’s 25th Senate District is composed of Scotland, Anson and Stanly counties.

Phibbs, who addressed the Richmond County Republican Party at its January meeting in Ellerbe, explained he was led to seek public office for the first time in this race after working as the Stanly County Coordinator for the non-profit group NC4Marriage.

The group supports a voter referendum on whether or not to amend the North Carolina Constitution to define marriage.

He said his work with the organization put him in contact with Purcell, whose support he was unable to secure.

“Polls show that about 70 percent of the voters in North Carolina support traditional marriage - the union between one man and one woman,” he said. “I just felt like the people of our district weren’t being represented in line with their social values.”

While the debate over same sex marriage drew Phibbs into the political arena, he, as did Purcell, said the economy would be the focus of his campaign.

In the weekend release, Purcell said his top priorities for the next term will be jobs, educational opportunities and affordable health care for North Carolina families.

“We are in the most difficult economic time since the Great Depression of the 1930s,” Purcell said. “My primary concern is finding jobs for the counties I represent. But to compete for jobs we must have a well educated work force. That means we must continue to support our public schools, community colleges and university system.

“With Scotland County having the highest unemployment in the state last year, and Anson and Richmond counties ranking in the top 15, our district’s unemployment rate is at about 14 percent while the state average is about 11 percent,” Phibbs said Monday. “(Purcell’s) response, as a member of the Senate’s Finance Committee, was to vote for one of the largest tax increases in state history, which basically raised taxes across the board.”

Phibbs pointed that North Carolina has the highest marginal personal and corporate income taxes in the Southeast, as well as the eighth highest combined sales tax in the nation.

“I would propose cutting $1 billion in wasteful spending to offset eliminating the state’s corporate income tax,” Phibbs said. “My contention is this would shift $1 billion out of the state’s hands and back into the private sector where businesses can use it to stimulate the economy through lowering prices, business expansion which would create new jobs and increasing benefits, such as medical benefits, for their employees.”

He said this would also give the state more of a competitive edge to attract businesses, while also benefiting existing businesses in the state, “rather than giving tax breaks to multi-million dollar corporations that can pick up and leave at anytime because they don’t have anything vested in North Carolina.”

He referred to North Carolina’s practice of granting tax incentives to recruit businesses as “the government choosing the winners and losers.”

“I’d rather give tax breaks to everyone, so that businesses that have helped to build up the state would also benefit, along with the citizens,” he said.

As for targets for his proposed $1 billion in cuts, Phibbs said university research, state grants awarded to non-profit organizations and privatization of the activities of the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Commission, as well as cutting bureaucratic waste in state government, would be in his sights.

“It wouldn’t be easy to do, and there would be some short-term pain for long-term gain, but if we’re going to break the tax and spend cycle we’ve been in for probably about 60 years, cuts will have to happen,” Phibbs said.

As co-chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services and the Senate Health Committee, Purcell noted two public health issues he supported during his last term.

The release says he played “a major role” in passing legislation that prohibits smoking in North Carolina bars and restaurants, and “worked diligently” for legislation that requires the state to take over Medicaid expenses.

“This legislation is now saving counties in Purcell’s district millions of dollars each year,” the release said of Medicaid costs picked up by the state.

In addition to his positions on these committees, Purcell is a member of the Commerce Committee, the Finance Committee and the Education/Higher Education Committee.

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.