Education

North Carolina State education policy is absolutely critical as we push forward into the future. We owe it to our children, grandchildren, and our posterity to provide North Carolina's schoolchildren with the best educational opportunities in the world.

The key to eliminating poverty in our lifetime is found in education. Currently, we are immersed in a Federally mandated system that has artificially eliminated competition and radically reduced the quality of our schools. North Carolina must assert our Tenth Amendment reserved powers to opt out of the failed “No Child Left Behind” program that has abandoned actual education in favor of test preparations. We must restore genuine competition and school choice if we have any hopes of developing in our State the finest education system in America. By allowing school vouchers, district transfers, charter schools, as well as encouraging private schools and homeschooling, we will allow parents to take their children out of failed schools and enroll them into successful schools. This will create intense competition for students and resources based in the quality of of an institution’s education, thereby lifting the children of poor families -- who now only have access to substandard education -- out of poverty and giving them access to the American Dream.

Redistricting

One of the most critical aspects of the 2010 race for the NC State Assembly is redistricting.

Redistricting is the process by which state legislatures redraw the boundary lines for congressional districts.

The State House elected in 2010 will be responsible for redistricting. For nearly a century, the North Carolina Legislature has gerrymandered the state's congressional and legislative districts-- as recently confirmed by the United States Supreme Court decision Bartlett v. Strickland -- which leads to a condition where the citizens of North Carolina are not fairly represented. Glen believes that our House and Congressional districts should reflect the local and geographical communities which they contain. Mis-shaping our districts in order to influence the people they will elect, is a kind of establishment 'loading the dice' against the North Carolina citizens. In the current scheme, it is virtually impossible to vote out an incumbent from a gerrymandered district. We can only be fairly represented when our districts are fairly drawn. Glen will stand up and fight on the House floor for fair, community based redistricting, that will give the voters the largest voice we have ever had to demand change.

Jobs and the Economy

"The most important aspect of economic recovery is job growth. In the midst of skyrocketing unemployment, Governor Perdue continues to push jobs and revenues out of the State by establishing affiliate taxes on Internet sales, and increasing the regulatory and legislative burdens to business and barriers market entry. In order to enhance job growth in North Carolina, it is crucial to reduce the cost of doing business, allowing employers to hire more employees. As your State House Representative, I will work to make it easier for companies to hire workers, while laboring to prevent undocumented aliens from undercutting the opportunities for legal residents and citizens." -- Glen Bradley

North Carolina can, and should be the model for economic growth and recovery that the rest of the United States can follow back to prosperity.

The primary roadblock to creating jobs in North Carolina and experiencing a full economic recovery, are the regulatory and legislative roadblocks that have been set in place to prevent competition amongst providers of goods and services.

What is not often discussed is that many, if not most of the regulations effecting local businesses are not imposed with an interest towards public safety or fairness, but they are usually written by the companies themselves as a means of artificially preventing competition, and thereby creating an artificial monopoly for their goods or services under the force of law.

Anybody who has attempted to create a startup entrepreneurial business can testify that all the laws, regulations, and taxes create barriers that the large companies are not hampered by.

By reducing or removing these barriers to market entry, while maintaining public safety regulations, Glen Bradley will work to attract manufacturing, goods, and services companies into North Carolina, thereby creating jobs, and boosting the general prosperity of every citizen in the State.

State Budget

The North Carolina State budget has been rife with abuse for years. Friends and family members have been given do-nothing jobs that pay out at six figures, while our schools suffer through shrinking budgets and increasing student to teacher ratios.

The budget passed this year is effectively a one year solution that passes on this year's problems to next year, a non-election year. The budget does not plan for Fiscal Year 2012, which will be voted on next year, when the stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act end. It also does not include further federal government aid coming to an end next year. After last year’s $1 billion tax increase on North Carolinians, it is obvious that the North Carolina Legislature is not able to control spending, especially in times of Recession. It has been estimated that North Carolina could be facing a $3 billion budget deficit comes next year when the federal aid ceases.

Glen Bradley believes that the solution to this crisis is less government, not more. Glen supports going line-by-line through the state budget to eliminate waste and end departmental overlap. A tax increase should be the absolute last resort, not the first item considered. Glen pledges to never vote for a tax increase on North Carolinians.

Forced Annexation

Forced annexation is a very controversial policy in North Carolina related to eminent domain. Eminent Domain assumes that the citizen does not own their own property, but the municipality, county, and State does.

The policy of forced annexation allows cities and townships in North Carolina to to expand their borders to encompass communities whether they want to be a part of that city or not: to "annex" people's property against their will, thus increasing their taxes, and placing them under onerous local regulations.

Many cases of forced annexation can be traced to a simple desire for cities to increase their tax base. Often they will annex rural communities who already have all of the services which the municipality offers, and the quality of the community in question will decline.

Other times, annexation is necessary, and desired by the citizens in the communities being annexed. There can be no question but that sometimes cities and townships need to expand, and to entirely prevent all growth of a municipality can lead to stagnation.

Glen Bradley opposes forced annexation but supports voluntary annexation, and will introduce legislation to mandate that no community can be annexed without a properly certified and victorious ballot referendum of the people themselves who are facing annexation by a growing city or township.

State Corruption

Clearly, we have a problem with political corruption in North Carolina. Between special interests, lobbyist influence, favor trading, and cronyism, something desperately needs to be done. The solution is to stop the illegal district gerrymandering that keeps the corrupt in power, by establishing fair, community based redistricting, and setting term limits for the NC General Assembly at three terms.

The large amount of corruption in North Carolina government is the direct result of special interest influence. We can put an end to special interest corruption by binding down our State government to those roles defined in the NC State Constitution. Further, the lack of term limits in the State House creates an environment where lobbyists can continue in perpetuity to fund those campaigns continue to give them whatever they want.

Glen Bradley will introduce and vigorously champion bills to impose term limits at three terms, and mandate that every bill introduced in the State Assembly contain it's Constitutional justification.

Citizen Responsiveness

The year is 2010. The internet in its current form has been around for nearly 30 years. In its former form for nearly 60 years. There is simply no excuse for the extreme lack of accountability which we see in our elected officials at all levels.

Public officials set up websites to dictate things to the public, but they have forgotten that the public is their employer, and the public officials are the employees.

A means of gauging and carrying out a constituent consensus is long, long overdue.

As your State House representative, Glen Bradley will set up and establish an internet community specifically designed for maximizing the input of any given individual constituent, and establishing a consensus of the entire district, so that he can represent you in Raleigh in an informed way.

In America, and in North Carolina, public officeholders are supposed to be public servants -- not public masters. It is time that we put an end to the practice of electing lords over ourselves and instead elect partners in a democratically representative republican form of government.

You, the people of NC House District 49 deserve responsive and accountable representation. Someone who will carry YOUR concerns into the State Assembly and not only the wishes of the millionaire centered and ideologically slanted League Of Municipalities.

Glen's campaign funding comes entirely from the individual people at large, in programs such as "10,000 Ten's for Glen in 2010." Therefore he is in no way beholden to corporate or special interests, does not answer to the PAC's or parties that haven't given him a dime, but only to you, the constituents of NC House District 49, who are funding his campaign and who will elect him to office.

Therefore, his responsibility is clear and without confusion. Glen will represent you, only you, and in order to facilitate that he will use every piece of technology that he can bring to bear to usher in a new era of transparency, responsiveness, and accountability to his office.

Abortion

The American Constitutional Republic was designed to keep all controversial social issues as local as possible. Abortion is just such a controversial social policy that was intended to be decided in the several States. Without a Constitutional amendment, there is no Constitutional provision that would allow the federal government to dictate policy on abortion whether to allow or to disallow it. Therefore, regardless of one's position on abortion specifically, the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade is a travesty of justice and a violation of the Constitution, and should be overturned.

On the state level, where such matters are supposed to be determined, it is critical to remember that all people are endowed with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to life, therefore, is perhaps one of the most critical rights which we as free people should uphold.

I personally am informed of when life begins by my faith. Beginning in Genesis 9:4, continuing in Leviticus 17:14 and repeated through the scripture and also in the New Testament in Acts 15:20, we learn that "life is in the blood."

Therefore, it is my fervent belief that human life begins when a human embryo begins to pump and process blood. Medical knowledge would place this point around 18 to 21 days after conception. For my part, and to be on the safe side, I would consider the developing baby to be a human life at 14 days after conception.

Therefore, it is 14 days after conception when it becomes incumbent upon us to consider that the child warrants the full protection of law, as with all other humans he or she has the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

For situations where the baby has progressed beyond the point of developing a heartbeat and a blood supply, and should be considered a "life" in it's own right, but whose continued existence genuinely threatens the life of the mother, then this is a moral decision that the mother and her doctor must make for themselves. It is no more in the realm of the State to dictate that the mother should die, than it is to permit babies to be killed. This is no different than a doctor with two patients who need a heart, and having to decide which patient lives and which patient dies. This is a decision to be left between the doctor and his or her patients.

However, absent any threat to the mothers life, from 14 days after conception the developing embryo should be considered a living human, and therefore subject to every protection of law.

Glen Bradley supports an amendment to the Constitution of the State of North Carolina that will recognize that an embryo should be considered a living human being at 14 days after conception, prohibiting the practice of abortion after that point except when the life of the mother is genuinely at risk, and banning the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion entirely.