Name: Brad Hessel
Age: 73
Party affiliation: Libertarian
Campaign website: electbradhessel.org
Occupation & employer: Knowledge Management Consultant/Intelledgement, LLC
Years lived in the area: 34
1. What in your background qualifies you to represent the people of your North Carolina district effectively? What would you cite as your three biggest career accomplishments?
As a game designer and I/T consultant, am accomplished at conducting research and working with people to assess needs, and designing systems, processes, and rules to meet those needs. I’ve also spent time as an insurance agent and as an investment advisor and know my way around a balance sheet.
Career accomplishments:
[a] Five years managing the design and development of products for Simulations Publications, Inc. (“SPI”), the iconic game publisher.
[b] Co-founding and helping guide the CASE tool software and services company Seer Technologies to an IPO and beyond.
[c] Founding a knowledge management consulting practice and running it for 25+ years
[d] Co-ordinating the HS subdivision of CASL’s Rec soccer division (several dozen teams).
2. What do you believe to be the three most pressing issues facing the next General Assembly? What steps do you believe the state should take to address them?
[a] AFFORDIBILITY
• Healthcare—rescind NC’s Certificate of Need health care rationing system that stifles competition and increases costs/wait times/drive times for most North Carolinians.
• Housing—rescind restrictive zoning regulations that inhibit the construction of denser, more affordable housing options.
• Economy—eliminate or reduce state occupational licensing requirements that simply represent financial protection and do not perform a critical role in vital public safety, lower the costs and regulations for starting a new business, and support the sharing economy.
[b] PARTISAN RANCOR
• Government Functionality—Establish a bi-cameral Problem Solvers Caucus in the NCGA prioritizing consensus-driven legislation, promoting bills that both offer practical solutions to serious issues and can earn across-the-aisles political support rather then focusing on nasty tweets attacking each other’s character.
• Fairer Elections—Create a non-partisan commission to redistrict respecting political and community boundaries as called for in our state constitution and ignoring partisan voter registration data that forms the basis for gerrymandering. (See Question #7 for more detail.)
• Better Elections—Implement instant-runoff voting for county and municipal elections to save money (by eliminating the need to conduct separate runoff elections) and provide an incentive to candidates to reach out beyond their base voters (because in one-seat elections, you need a majority to win).
• Fairness for Independents—Mandate at least one independent voter on the state and every county Board of Elections (there are currently zero among the 505 Board of Elections members in NC even though independents now amount to 40% of the voting population) and allow independents to file to run for election in partisan races without requiring them to submit petitions signed by hundreds or thousands of voters (depending on the office)—a requirement that does not apply to Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, or Greens.
[c] EDUCATION
See Question #8.
3. Federal cuts to Medicaid are expected to cost the state $50 billion over the next decade, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. How would you address Medicaid funding to maintain coverage for the millions of North Carolinians enrolled?
We pay more for health care per capita than any other nation but the quality is does not match what we are paying. This is primarily because our health insurance system is rife with perverse incentives and unproductive administrative costs.
Conceptually the notion of “health insurance” is idiotic (except for catastrophic coverage). Everyone gets sick, just as everyone gets hungry, thirsty, and needs oxygen. Building an insurance system with claims and reviews and fees and reimbursements for getting sick makes no more sense than grocery insurance or air insurance.
And tying the system to employment adds an element of insanity to the idiocy.
Unfortunately, this cannot be addressed at the state level; it is a Federal problem. We can nibble at the problem of high prices and low services via measures such as rescinding our Certificate of Need healthcare rationing system, but that is not a strategic solution.
I opposed Medicaid expansion, but now that we have unwisely signed on, so long as the Feds maintain their commitment to cover 90% of the cost, I believe we are ethically obligated to fund our share of the costs until and unless the Federal system is reformed (or collapses). The NCGA already dodged a bullet in April with Session Law 2026-1, which changed the hospital-assessment/IGT structure specified in the Medicaid expansion law specifically to fund additional administrative costs created by the new Federal law, which otherwise would likely have triggered our Medicaid expansion termination process. I would have voted for HB 696/Session Law 2026-1.
4. The General Assembly has voted to put a constitutional amendment on ballots that, if passed, would put a cap on property tax increases. Do you support the amendment? Why or why not?
“I believe the amendment would not per se put a limit on property tax increases, but rather enable the NCGA to do so.
I oppose the amendment; these decisions should be made locally based on each particular county’s situation, not dictated as a one-size-fits-all state mandate.”
5. How would you address the rising costs of housing, childcare, and basic necessities facing North Carolina families?
I would add pricey health care and the need for career opportunities as material “rising costs” issues.
Housing—We need to allow communities to become greener, fairer, and less expensive by increasing the supply of affordable and missing middle housing options. Exclusionary zoning, especially single-family zoning has often been used to discriminate based on income. This limits the opportunities available to working families. We shouldn’t drive our workforce out of our cities which has happened in urban areas in other states. We need to ensure our cities remain adaptable, diverse, and inclusive. Specifically we should allow duplexes and triplexes by-right wherever single-family homes are permitted in low-density areas, and encourage multi-story construction in high-density areas by eliminating off-street parking requirements and permitting more generous setback, height, and size limits. Development projects in those areas should allow for mixed use, including shopping, entertainment, and workspaces.
Childcare—Explore expanding Head Start and Early Head Start to include families north of the Federal poverty line who can afford to pay (possibly with some state funding assistance) and increase the Head Start program from six to eight hours/day.
Healthcare—Access to high quality, affordable healthcare is a critical concern in everyone’s life. We want the rapid pace of innovation and adoption that has cured disease and delivered world-class treatments. We also want a system that is within the reach of everyone in North Carolina. With state regulation controlling every aspect of health delivery, legislative and bureaucratic policy play a major role in the quality, access and affordability of our healthcare system. But healthcare policy that removes the patient from the center of the decision-making process introduces incentives that do not align with the goals of providing high quality, accessible, affordable care. North Carolina can promote a high quality, accessible, affordable healthcare system based on choice. We should rescind our anticompetitive and protectionist Certificate of Need law that hampers the growth and affordability of healthcare services, especially in rural and disadvantaged urban communities, address the state licensing roadblocks preventing innovative healthcare delivery options such as direct primary care, telemedicine, and out-of-state licensed doctors providing charitable care, and
repeal laws and regulations that mandate or prohibit any type of healthcare, medication, vaccination, or medical care or treatment.
Career Opportunities—We rely on corporations, small businesses and entrepreneurs to drive our economy and support a better life for individuals and families across North Carolina. We need the jobs and industries that will propel us forward in the 21st century. We want an economic environment that benefits everyone in North Carolina. Our approach to tax policy and business regulation will determine likely determine whether or not we remain a national and global economic leader. When government oversteps its regulatory or taxing bounds, politically influential special interests leap in in self-defense to determine the shape of those rules. Politicians and agencies, despite good intentions, create a situation that benefits established, well-connected interests, and prevents better ideas and unique solutions from developing. A better approach would be to free individuals, businesses, and entrepreneurs to explore innovative ways to participate in the economy. We can accomplish this by eliminating or reducing state occupational licensing requirements that simply represent financial protection and do not perform a critical role in vital public safety, lowering the costs and regulatory barriers for starting a new business enabling entrepreneurs and small business owners to follow their dreams and create the great North Carolina businesses of tomorrow, supporting the sharing economy and the ability for individuals to define the way they utilize their time and property for their own economic benefit, continuing to support our excellent community college system and vocational training, and eliminating the income tax and replace it with a consumption tax modeled on the Fair Tax, which provides a monthly prebate covering the cost of the tax on essentials to insulate lower income families (it’s perverse to penalize folks for being more productive and give them a pass on overconsumption).
6. Climate disasters are intensifying: Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina in 2024, Tropical Storm Chantal flooded the Triangle in 2025, and coastal erosion threatens the Outer Banks. With much affordable housing located in flood-prone areas and FEMA resources stretched thin, what is your plan for climate resilience and disaster relief?
It’s a challenge to specifically plan for something as unprecedented as Helene. For me, the takeaway from that experience is that we need to maintain our rainy day fund in order to be able to react quickly to disaster situations and we need to do a better job facilitating and coordinating volunteer aid efforts (trying to deliver help to Western North Carolina in the first several weeks following the flooding was a frustrating experience for a lot of folks who were given the runaround or even turned away by authorities).
7. The General Assembly recently passed a new congressional redistricting map. This marks the state’s seventh congressional map since 2016. How do you view the most recent redistricting? And do you support independent redistricting processes, or do you believe the legislature should retain this power?
Gerrymandering is bad for all of us. It results in maximizing the number of one-sided “safe” districts, where the nominee of one or the other establishment party is virtually guaranteed to win in the General Election. In “safe” districts, the only competitive races are the primaries of the dominant party, for which highly partisan voters are the most likely to turnout…handicapping candidates seeking to build consensus in favor of “scorched-earth” candidates focused on besmirching the character of their opponents—and even their opponents’ supporters—to fire up their base. Once in office, the winners of these races are incentivized to prioritize performative politics over serious governing and to avoid compromise for fear of losing to an even more partisan challenger in the next primary. This renders government in general and the NCGA in particular less functional, with a concomitant reduction of faith in/respect for the rule of law.
“Safe” districts also effectively disenfranchise many voters. In a district that is split 71%-29%, the 29% minority party voters may as well not show up on election day, as their candidate has no chance to win. And even if they all show up and vote, it only takes 30% to beat them…so the rest of the majority party supporters may as well stay home on election day, too. In effect, 70% of all voters are disenfranchised, because their votes cannot affect the result.
If we had an independent redistricting commission with the objective to avoid splitting counties wherever feasible—which is the way it’s supposed to be done according to the North Carolina state constitution—and prohibited from considering party registration data, while some one-sided “safe” districts will still occur “naturally”—for example where there are heavy concentrations of Democrats in Charlotte and Raleigh—overall there will be many more competitive districts in which candidates focused on solving problems and governing would have the advantage over partisan political performance artists.
8. North Carolina ranks near the bottom nationally in teacher pay. How would you address teacher compensation, and what will you do to ensure a budget passes that adequately funds education?
There are serious structural issues with our education system. Current public school policy drives districts, schools, and teachers into solutions governed by politics and bureaucracy. It does not promote more personalized and effective learning environments or curricula. It holds back students wanting deeper academic challenges. It does not adequately serve children with special learning needs. When politicians and public agencies play a more prominent role in shaping educational policy than students or families, we not only fail to adequately prepare those students for a diverse society or a dynamic economy, but we are forced to allocate too much money and time to administrative tasks such as creating rules and procedures, mandating methodologies and curricula, and monitoring teachers to ensure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed..
So, while I agree with paying teachers—particularly experienced teachers—more money, I am not sure we need to allocate more money overall to accomplish this. What I do know is that regardless of how much we spend, we should be getting more bang for our educational bucks.
We need to revamp our system to focus on student needs, and we can achieve that with a dynamic, future-oriented educational system based on choice. Students and families need choices among diverse, robust approaches. They need choices tailored to the needs of individual students and the future they face. And teachers need the freedom to create high-quality and responsive educational environments and adapt their efforts to meet the needs of the particular students in their class.
We can achieve this by expanding North Carolina’s state-funded Education Savings Account program to cover more students, allowing better education options for all students, especially students with special learning needs and families with financial hardships,
expanding open enrollment within and between public-school districts, allowing families to find the best school fit within the public-school system without obtaining permission from their home district, expanding and fully funding the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship program, allowing greater access for all families, including those who lack the financial means to enroll their students in a private school, reducing Federal and state mandates that currently impose costly and distracting administrative burdens on teachers, and focus education funding by having tax dollars follow the student (backpack budgeting).
9. North Carolina currently has a 12-week abortion ban with certain exceptions. Some legislators have proposed further restrictions. Do you support the current law, believe access should be expanded, or would you support further restrictions?
Pregnant people should have the option to abort up to the time the fetus is viable outside the womb. That’s a moving target but currently is 20 weeks, so I would push the limit back from 12 weeks to 20 weeks.
10. Federal legislation will ban most hemp-derived THC products, like Delta-8, by December 2026, threatening North Carolina’s hemp industry. Meanwhile, recreational marijuana remains illegal and medical marijuana bills have stalled. What is your position on hemp regulation and would you address the upcoming federal ban, if at all?
Federal law also bans the possession and sale of marijuana, yet it is legal in 40 states. Similarly, we can just ignore the forthcoming Federal hemp ban (although it will make banking more troublesome for purveyors of hemp and effectively prohibit interstate sales).
I oppose HB 328.
11. Iryna’s Law eliminates cashless bail, requires mental health evaluations for certain defendants, and attempts to restart the death penalty by requiring alternative execution methods if lethal injection is unavailable. The law also accelerates death penalty appeals. Where do you stand on the death penalty and these criminal justice reforms?
“We all want to live in a society where everybody, including the police, respect the rights of others. The criminal justice system should protect people from harm caused by force or fraud. Laws should only prohibit relatively few actions that harm others.
By the same token, a fair criminal justice system punishes only those who genuinely deserve it because they have harmed others. If there is no victim, there is no crime. Prohibiting any action that doesn’t hurt someone just because legislators don’t like it is immoral and has no place in a legitimate criminal justice system.
Speaking of immorality, since the Nixon administration launched the “War on Drugs,” the USA has become #1 in the world with respect to the number of people we imprison. Does anyone seriously believe that our population suddenly became intrinsically more criminal than any other nation on Earth in the latter half of the 20th Century?
I know we can’t completely fix this all by ourselves; it’s a national problem. But a good start would be making marijuana legal here, expunging all convictions for possession, and providing compensation for all those folks wrongly convicted and incarcerated. And we should also restore cashless bail for non-violent offenders, eliminate qualified immunity, eliminate the death penalty (state-sanctioned murder), and reorient the focus of our criminal justice system from punishment to restitution. Let’s recognize the right of the victim to come to a private settlement with, or even pardon, the criminal.
12. Tech companies are investing heavily in North Carolina data centers, bringing tax revenue but also consuming significant electricity and water resources. How should the state balance data center investment with environmental protection and community concerns?
Counties and municipalities should be empowered to negotiate with data center developers. Don’t think any new legislation is needed for that, but would be supportive if it turns out there is such a need.
13. Give an example of an opinion, policy, vote or action you changed based on constituent feedback. If you have not yet held elected office, describe a time when you changed your position on an issue after listening to those affected by it.
When we moved to North Carolina in 1992, I was happy to trade our busy Brooklyn street for a quiet cul de sac where our three 7-and-younger kids could ride their bikes and tricycles without worrying about errant gypsy cab drivers. True, I missed being able to walk to the newsstand, deli, grocery store, baker, butcher, hardware store and the like…and I was aware there were environmental concerns with suburban sprawl…but on balance, I considered it a good trade.
Turns out, it was too good.
Turns out that the cost of building/maintaining these spread out half-acre lot neighborhoods—sewer and water lines, electricity, phone/internet/tv cable wiring, refuse collection, police, fire, and ambulance services…that cost generally exceeds the revenue that can reasonably be collected via property taxes from the residents (even though mine seems exorbitant).
So…how do muncipalities survive financially? Downtowns.
Downtown, there are commercial buildings with way higher valuations, on which way higher property taxes are levied. And many downtown residents live in apartment building (also high valuations), for which the per capita cost of linking up infrastructure is far lower.
So, in effect, the folks downtown. are subsidizing my and my neighbors’ lifestyle.
Buy wait…there’s more! For the last half century or so, the Triangle has been a magnet for folks both inside and especially outside the state. With most residential property zoned for single family homes, developers generally did not have the option to build anything besides planned unit developments and (later) one-off upgrades of properties with smaller houses to McMansions. The thirst for such properties was unquenchable, so it was a good deal for everyone involved.
But not such a good deal for nurses and teachers and firemen and policemen and government workers looking for a starter home or rental reasonably close to work…or for lower income families looking for affordable housing. There weren’t many places where denser housing options were allowed.
So, in short, while in 1992 I would likely have been unenthusiastic about apartment buildings or townhomes being built within walking distance of where I live, now I appreciate that—provided the transportation infrastructure is not overwhelmed—such developments are good for the overall financial and social health of the Triangle.
And while I am no longer craving a newsstand, I wouldn’t object if a mixed use development produced a bakery within walking distance. 🙂
14. Are there any issues this questionnaire has not addressed that you would like to address?
ABOLISH THE ABC!
North Carolina’s Alcohol and Beverage Control system is unfair and outdated.
Responsible adults should be free to decide how and where they buy and use alcoholic beverages. But local ABC boards decide how many stores to operate and what to sell. This reduces consumer choice and, as a consequence, sales…which costs the state tax revenue.
Beverage suppliers shouldn’t be limited in the ways they can meet their customer’s preferences. But local distillers cannot sell a product without a local board’s approval…and there are no standard rules for approval. This stifles industry growth and job creation that could bring in yet more revenue.
The ABC system is a perfect example of things government does for no good reason. Other states do just fine without government liquor stores. Consumers, distillers, private retailers, future entrepreneurs, local job-seekers, and local communities would all benefit from freeing North Carolina’s liquor industry from senseless, ineffective regulation.
Let’s dissolve the ABC Boards, and sell all ABC stores and warehouses. Let private businesses manufacture, distribute and sell liquor under state license, as with beer and wine.
DEFEND THE GUARD
Deploying National Guard units overseas is inconsistent with their primary mission of responding to domestic emergencies and natural disasters, as well as serving as a state-level militia. The prospect of an overseas deployment for a National Guard unit is supposed to be an unlikely risk that would only happen in the event of an emergency, not a routine event. In any event, deploying US troops to combat overseas without a declaration of war by Congress is unconstitutional…and it’s irresponsible for us to enable this practice by the Federal government.
Consistent with the name “National Guard”—not to mention, the way things generally worked for the Guard and its antecedents dating back over 300 years to Colonial times—most people who join do so with the expectation that they will be called upon in emergencies to come to the aid of their fellow North Carolinians or other Americans. Deployments overseas are not only inherently more dangerous but frequently have little or nothing to do with guarding US civilians. Unlike active-duty military personnel, National Guard members often have civilian jobs and deep ties to their local communities. Frequent and extended deployments can disrupt their lives, careers, and families, leading to significant personal and financial hardships.
Let’s ensure that our honorable fellow citizens who enlist in the National Guard with the intent of safeguarding us are themselves protected from whimsical overseas deployments: restrict the deployment of North Carolina National Guard units overseas unless Congress has declared war.
