#ncga: Jimmy and the pigs
No, that’s not an Elton John classic. Or a new NBC sitcom.
The lefty praetorian guard over at IndyWeek is accusing our old, um, *pal* Jimmy Dixon of protecting dirty hogs and campaign
donors at the expense of poor black folks:
State Representative Jimmy Dixon, R-Wayne and Duplin, the first to speak during a packed committee hearing inside the legislature last Wednesday, kicked things off with a strange request.
“I want to take us back a few years, to 1859, when soon-to-be President Abraham Lincoln addressed the opening day of the Wisconsin Agriculture Fair,” he said. “I will use that [speech] as a springboard in explaining this bill.”
It’s an apt metaphor for the modern state GOP: Why go forward when you can go back 150 years? The irony didn’t go unnoticed. “I was hoping that you would at least come to the later eighteen-hundreds, when African Americans weren’t enslaved,” quipped Representative Amos Quick, D-Guilford. […]
Hmmm. *Rough crowd. Rough crowd.* NOT a good start. MORE:
[…] Quick understood that Dixon’s reference—a meandering way to remind the crowd that farmers produce our food, so we should support them—was all the more curious given the demographic makeup of the communities likely to suffer under the bill they were there to discuss: people of color living near industrial hog farms.
The legislation, House Bill 467, would shield the hog industry from myriad kinds of legal claims. It would prevent plaintiffs from recovering damages that aren’t property-value-related, including anything stemming from health, pain, or lost-income concerns. (Property owners could likely only collect about $7,000 in damages over a three-year period, per a statutory limit.) And, because it doesn’t grandfather in active cases, it would also block twenty-six pending federal lawsuits filed against Murphy-Brown, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods.
Now, WHY would Dixon — who is already earning the ire of the commercial fishing industry along the state’s coast — be bending over backwards to help the pork industry? IndyWeek thinks they have the answer:
[…] North Carolina’s industrial hog farms are notoriously toxic, storing millions of gallons of feces and urine in open-air cesspools. When those pools fill up, activists say, the hog waste sprays into the air and can even make its way into people’s homes.
Dixon, a longtime farmer, said he just wants to find the “proper remedy when there is an instance of temporary or permanent nuisance.”
Perhaps. But when you look at his campaign contributors, it’s hard to imagine that Dixon’s not acting as a friend of the pork industry. He’s certainly its beneficiary. According to campaign finance records, over the course of his career Dixon has received more than $115,000 from Big Pork, including: $9,500 from the N.C. Pork Council; more than $20,000 from the Maxwell family, which owns the Goldsboro Milling Company, the tenth-largest swine producer in the United States; $9,000 from Walter Pelletier and $3,000 from John Pike, both of whom also have ties to Goldsboro Milling; $37,500 from Prestage Farms; and $36,250 from donors associated with Murphy-Brown, the company facing more than two dozen federal lawsuits that this legislation would effectively negate.
Amid the outcry, the committee delayed a vote on HB 467. Dixon did not respond to the INDY‘s request for comment.[…]
For 66 of my seventy years i have fished for fun, competition, or a living. I also, thank God, I got to help my granddaddy farm. Having those mules hitched up for the days work was exciting. It is a pleasurable memory I will carry to my grave. I have been close to the farming world every since. I must say that Rep Dixon is the only N C farmer that i have ever met or talked with that works against the existence of a commercial fishing industry existing in N C. That is wrong! Just not smart to lose a food producing industry to corporate bullies like the Coastal Conservation Association who want all coastal waters as their playground. $$$$$$$$ Even Pat McCrory has admitted to some of his past employees and appointees that making those MFC appointments was part of the demise of his Governorship. Thanks go to Robin Hayes for his admittance of his involvement in the MFC appointment process. So how can it possibly be concluded any other way than that GOP Ch Robin Hayes aided and abetted Pat McCrory’s loss? Knowing so at that. The CCA got the appointments and the Governor they wanted. Again, thanks to the very persistent efforts of the NC GOP Ch Robin Hayes culminating on Nov 2nd midway of early voting.
I am still a bit in question as to why Rep Dixon called me at 3:40 a m on the morning of the HB2 vote to discuss the same.
Browny Douglas
Agree Rep. Dixon was not supporting NC Commercial Fishing during Governor Pat McCroy 4 years, and Robin Hayes wants to stop all Commercial Fishing! Support Commercial Fishing to have NC local Seafood.
This is just another example of Jimmy Dixon prostituting himself for the special interests against the people. He does that all the time and he is nothing but a rent boy for the special interests.
In eastern North Carolina, white folks have been up in arms (in at least one case, literally) against the often outsider owned industrial hog farms just as much as black folks. Some years ago in a largely white rural area in the east, when an outsider got a building permit to erect one of these industrial hog farms, local citizens grabbed their guns and prevented the contractor from going on the property to build the hog barns. The sheriff refused to do anything against the citizens, and the farm was never built.
Dixon would allow these industrial hog farms to impose on the right to enjoyment of their property of surrounding landowners and take away those landowners remedies for compensation. Dixon’s bill would goosestep all over the property rights of nearby landowners. This is something one would expect out of Obama or Clinton, not someone who claims to be a Republican.
But this is not new for Dixon. He recently supported the LGBT special interest against NC Christians and women in the repeal of HB2. He has consistently supported the radical environmentalist special interest against our hardworking commercial fishermen, and actually wants to put the latter out of business. He has been on board throughout with the ripoff solar goon special interest against our electric customers and taxpayers.
It is hard to know which term fits Jimmy Dixon better; an Obama Republican or a special interest Republican. He seems to be a cross between Jim Black and Marc Basnight. One term that hopefully will fit him after 2018 is ex-legislator. Jimmy Dixon badly needs a primary and needs to be defeated if we are to reestablish any integrity in our party. When we talk about draining the swamp, this guy does not even qualify as an alligator or a snake. He is the slime in the swamp.