Hello neighbors,
My name is Steve Luking, and I am running for Senate District 26, the seat currently occupied by Phil Berger. Please spend a few minutes with me…..
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION TO RUN
I’m a family doctor, not a politician. In 1989, after a stint of overseas volunteer work with the United Methodists Volunteers in Mission, I decided to settle down and start a family practice. North Carolina had a great reputation back then for public schools and public health, so I decided to move here.
I met my wife Sara (a public school teacher) and we had two kids. They attended public schools here in Reidsville. Melinda is now married and a public schoolteacher in Asheville with our first grandchild. Forrest is a professional fisherman in Homer, Alaska. My brother Scott and I established Reidsville Family Medicine, and our practice cared for over five thousand patients. I had many families that had four generations that relied on me as their family doctor. Recently, I retired.
To spend a few decades in a community, caring for thousands of folks as their family doctor, is to take a master class in humanity. You see up close what helps families thrive.
You see what hurts: The thin ice of near poverty. The lack of medical insurance coverage. Not receiving a solid education. The shattering burden of addiction. Community shortages in primary care and mental health care. You see what helps: Good paying jobs. A safe and cohesive community. Committed educators. Volunteers donating their time and energy. All the givers: nurses, caretakers, police, firefighters, emergency personnel. Supportive churches helping families through joys and sorrows. Leaders who tell the truth and truly lead.
For over a decade I’ve watched our legislators’ support for two of the issues I care most about—the health of our citizens and our communities, and a quality public education system—deteriorate considerably. And I have seen many of the people I care about treated with clear disrespect by some legislators in Raleigh, including Phil Berger.
I have my most fundamental concerns in three key areas: Healthcare, public education, and the critical importance of integrity when it comes to serving the citizens of Rockingham and Guilford Counties—and our state. We are now on a sorry path of decline in these important areas. A path that will bring harm to many of our citizens, and damage our economic growth.
So I’ve taken off my hat of retired family doctor and part-time fisherman, and put on a politician’s cap. It doesn’t fit quite right, but in this moment it seems about the best thing I can do with the year ahead. There’s a little baby girl in Asheville I’m thinking about, too.
HEALTHCARE MATTERS
For ten years, Phil Berger spearheaded in the State Senate the effort to deny Medicaid access to over half a million of our working poor residents. Most of whom were women. Hundreds were my patients. I tried every way I know to get Berger and the other legislators to change their unforgivable stance. They muddled through weak, pathetic explanations for their partisan denial, but the truth is this past decade will go down as one of the most devastating lost opportunities in the history of our state.
Thousands of lives were lost prematurely; billions of our tax dollars were sent elsewhere. The states who did not expand Medicaid, including NC, saw rural community hospitals declare bankruptcy at a rate nearly four times higher than those who had the good sense to expand access. Eden’s Morehead Hospital, in Rockingham County, is just one of many that declared bankruptcy. I had several uninsured, working poor patients die relatively young during that lost decade; I am sure their lack of medical insurance contributed. Unforgiveable.
For more discussion on women’s healthcare rights, access to affordable healthcare, reducing drug prices, and lowering the influence of insurance companies, etc., please see the ISSUES section.
Evaluating a Sick Patient Early in the Pandemic
PUBLIC EDUCATION MATTERS
A quality public education for all is crucial to the ongoing success of our kids and our state, and is guaranteed in our constitution. Yet, our state’s public school system is now in an intentional free-fall. From 2002-2022, North Carolina was the only state in the nation to actually cut the amount of funding, in inflation-adjusted dollars, budgeted per K-12 public school student. The only state. We were 49th in the nation last year in public school funding effort, as a fraction of our economy. We are jeopardizing our kid’s futures, all to save a buck! Let that sink in for a moment.
I have spoken with many concerned parents, teachers, and schoolkids. Our kids feel neglected; families are worried; and teachers feel disrespected, underpaid, and often overwhelmed—and for good reason. A common theme I have heard: “It seems like we are being set up to fail.” And they’re right.
Hell-bent to cut corporate taxes to the lowest in the nation, it appears to me that Berger and Company are more than willing to run public education into the bargain basement. A generation of schoolkids is facing the serious likelihood of a substandard public education, all because of upside-down priorities. Even corporations are starting to question NC’s commitment to public education.
I will fight hard to reverse this assault on our public schools. The next generation deserves a fighting chance. My proposal: push corporate taxes back up to 2016 levels, and apply the difference directly to public schools and teacher pay—shooting for not 49th in the nation in public school funding, but 25th!
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2016 Press Conference for Medicaid Expansion
INTEGRITY MATTERS IN GOOD GOVERNANCE
The citizens of Guilford County and Rockingham County deserve better and more honest leadership. To me, integrity in governance means making good decisions on behalf of and while listening to your constituents. And making sure these decisions are free of unethical influence!
Matters should be decided on their merits alone and what it means to the citizens of your district. It should not depend on how much a business or developer has donated to your campaign coffers. It should not depend on your hopes for “dark money” flowing into the PACs that will support your party in the General Assembly. It should not depend on your desire to kowtow to the interests of powerful corporations or individuals, or to fight partisan culture wars that ultimately help no one and hurt many.
And so we’ve watched our current senator make some really bad decisions that have seriously harmed our communities—dramatically underfunding public schools while slashing corporate taxes and pushing private school vouchers for the wealthy, denying lifesaving health care access to working poor women and bankrupting our rural hospitals, pushing casinos that pull down our rural community and ultimately provide dumb economic growth with substandard wages, forcing communities like Summerfield to knuckle under to powerful campaign donors’ wishes, and who can forget last summer: holding up healthcare access to over a half million NC residents when the casino proposal wouldn’t pass. And on, and on.
We could remove the influence of money upon legislator’s decisions with a simple policy change. But only if we have the courage to do what is right. Please see the ISSUES section for my proposal. We are allowing legislators’ excess focus on campaign donations to damage the future of our communities and our citizens.
Folks, we desperately need a major change in leadership, and fast. North Carolina still has so much going for it, and so much yet to lose. I always said to my patients: “Fight the good fight.” This is the good fight. Please support our campaign—volunteer, donate, spread the word—the time to act is now.
Sincerely, Steve Luking