Associated Press
RALEIGH — Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand helped pass seemingly every significant piece of legislation Democrats have crowed about over the past decade — from the lottery to probation reforms and the annual budget.
But Rand protected fellow Democrats from issues they’d rather not discuss — like abortion and taxes — by blocking votes on Republican amendments that might prove difficult to explain to voters come election time.
He gave hundreds of thousands of dollars for colleagues’ campaigns and kept the Senate Democratic Caucus on a policy track that’s protected its majority in the chamber going on 110 years.
So it was a seismic surprise announcement that Rand was leaving the Senate he had served in since 1982 by year’s end to head the state parole commission for Gov. Beverly Perdue.
In short, Rand was indispensable.
“Tony knew about how things worked. He knew where the bodies were buried,” quipped Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston. “He knew how the agencies worked ... he really, really knew what was going on everywhere.”
Rand’s departure will shake up the leadership structure within the Senate, possibly divvying up his responsibilities among two or three Democrats.
It also foretells the potential for a retooled leadership team under Senate leader Marc Basnight that may be more populist and liberal in political leanings than the business-oriented majority that has ruled the chamber.
“His departure will mean more of a diversification of the responsibility of running the Senate,” said Sen. Doug Berger, D-Franklin. “It’s going to a signal a new direction.”
The 70-year-old Rand was a workhorse in the Senate, serving as the majority leader and chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee simultaneously since 2001 as the chief lieutenant to Basnight, D-Dare.
Rand was also a chief negotiator in each year’s budget negotiations and was Basnight’s “enforcer” — solving problems between senators and interest groups with opposing views and persuading wayward party members to stay in line.
Rand’s departure, expected to become official by the end of the year, will require the other 28 Senate Democrats left behind to step up both in and out of the chamber.
One candidate already appears to be the front runner for the majority leader’s post. Basnight endorsed Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, in a letter late Friday.
Nesbitt has a history in the Legislature as long as Rand, joining the House 30 years ago and serving as an Appropriations Committee chairman. He switched to the Senate five years ago.
A group associated with the conservative Civitas Institute ranked Nesbitt as the least conservative senator during this year’s legislative session, based on his voting record.
Berger, who is backing Nesbitt, said Rand should be praised for keeping Senate Democrats in charge of the chamber at a time when legislatures in the South switched over to Republican control.
The loss of Rand’s Senate institutional and policy knowledge could be the most difficult to replace. But Rand, who suggested he wanted to try something new, sounded like he thought the Senate wouldn’t miss a beat with his departure.
“It goes on,” Rand said. “It won’t even stop.”
