Senate District 23: Jonah Garson

Name: Jonah Garson

Age: 39

Party affiliation: Democrat

Occupation & employer: State Senator (NC Senate); Attorney in Private Practive (Parry Law, PLLC)

Years lived in the area: 33

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?

“I have been a political organizer for going on two decades, working in every corner of our state, from the most rural to most urban, with folks of all different backgrounds to achieve shared progressive goals. The Senate district I represent (District 23), consisting of all of Caswell, Orange, and Person counties, is like a core sample of our state–it has it all, rural and urban, and it couldn’t be more diverse. From the college town of Chapel Hill to some of the agrarian parts of the Piedmont, it’s a district that requires a love and knowledge of this state in all of its variation, and real experience working to organize communities across difference. My work has been driven by that love, and has led, over many years, to that knowledge.

There are a number of accomplishments I’m proud of from that work. As with most accomplishments, none of them were achieved alone, and all of them were the product of organized, collective action. Here are three I’d highlight:

As Vice Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party from 2023 to 2026, working alongside Chair Anderson Clayton and many talented leaders whom we recruited to the cause, we rebuilt and rewired a reform-minded Party devoted to focused, boots-on-the-ground, year-round organizing in every corner of the state; created a Judicial Caucus to focus people on the importance of the judicial fight to unrigging our legislature and democracy; and defeated Republican attempts to overturn the election of Justice Allison Riggs. While not perfect, I believe that we’ve created a model Democratic party for the country that we can all be proud of.
After the Republicans attempted to steal the 2018 election in the 9th Congressional District through absentee ballot fraud, the courts called for a special election in September 2019. I was a voter protection director in that race. I’m proud of our efforts to ensure that thousands of voters in historically marginalized communities in southeastern North Carolina had their votes counted and their voices heard.
In my first few week as a State Senator, Republican leadership moved to put another bad constitutional amendment to voters (beyond the 3 deceptive GOP amendments which were ultimately put on the ballot, on which we should all vote NO) to further enshrine Jim Crow-era “Right to Work” laws prohibiting employers and unions from forming agreements that make union membership and the payment of union dues mandatory for employees. These laws were specifically designed to prevent Black and white workers from organizing together for better wages (it was a real danger to white supremacists like Vance Muse, the inventor of so-called “right to work” legislation: In 1947, the Winston Salem-based Local 22 of United Tobacco Workers, led by Black women, broke barriers and organized Black and white workers together to win fairer wages and other concessions from a worker-hostile RJ Reynolds corporation). I was proud, particularly as someone from a family with a long labor organizing history, to have a significant role in fighting that amendment on the Senate floor as part of a well-organized response by Senate Democrats to call the amendment what it was: Anti-worker dog-whistling.”

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?

1. Democracy and the rule of law.

For almost two decades now–beginning prior to the rise of MAGA authoritarianism–North Carolina has been ground zero for voter suppression, map-rigging, and for attacks on American democracy generally. We need to flip that script and lead as a state in America’s post-MAGA democratic revival. This means, among many other things: working to finally enact redistricting reform to prevent racial and partisan gerrymandering and to ensure meaningful political representation for every community; departisanizing our now hyper-partisan, MAGA-dominated Boards of Elections; introducing automatic registration for all voting eligible North Carolinians, including those turning 18; fighting against photo ID specially designed disenfranchise voters of color, poor, older voters and voters on college campuses; expanding the right to vote and participation in our democracy through greater access to voter registration, early voting, and vote-by-mail; and by enacting campaign finance reform to take big money and dark money out of our politics.

Re-electing Justice Anita Earls this year, and then flipping 3 GOP justice seats in 2028, is the most important thing we could do in service of all of these goals.

2. Guaranteeing healthcare for North Carolinians as a right.

Far from being a state that treats healthcare as a right, we are a state where even most basic Medicaid supports remain under constant threat. While we organize for passage of Medicare for All or something better at the federal level, I will continue to fight at the state level for fully-funded base- and expanded-Medicaid. I’ll also advocate for big increases in funding for behavioral healthcare and addiction support/recovery programs, including programs based in our public school systems. Beyond that, I will continue to work to address existing inequities in our current healthcare system by supporting community-based healthcare programs designed to address social determinants of health; fight to protect reproductive healthcare and abortion as a right; to lower the cost of prescription drugs; and to support the community pharmacies that are critical to many rural communities.

3. Compliance with our state constitution’s public education obligations.

Every North Carolinian has a constitutional right to high-quality public education, and to fulfill that right, our legislature must finally fulfill its corresponding obligations. We deserve great public schools that serve all students equitably, and where teachers are properly valued and empowered. This means fully funding our public schools; raising educator and staff pay dramatically; introducing and fully funding universal pre-K; creating new, state-funded programs to recruit and retain Black teachers and other teachers of color; championing greater funding for school social workers, psychologists, and counselors; prohibiting censorship and book bans; introducing universal school lunch and other nutrition programs; and ensuring that all of our public colleges and universities can operate in the best interests of their students, free from destructive political interference.

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?

“As a threshold matter, to avoid a GOP-engineered fiscal disaster underway that will deeply compromise our most basic commitments to fully fund Medicaid, we must reverse the deeply regressive tax policies enacted by the gerrymandered “Project Redmap” majority over the past 15 years. If we want to protect Medicaid and expand healthcare in this state, the wealthy and profitable corporations must pay their fair share (currently, the GOP majority has us ratcheting the corporate income tax rate to 0% by 2034).

Profit motive in this country’s private healthcare system has also caused astronomical rise in costs in patient care across the board (see, for instance, ABA therapy for people with autism); any sustainable solution to preserve Medicaid must also examine rising costs.

Finally, new work requirements and eligibility restrictions imposed by the state this past year, in addition to being cruel and unnecessary and detrimental to care, will also significantly increase Medicaid costs. I will continue to work to win the legislature that will repeal these measures.”

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?

Everyone should VOTE NO on all 3 deceptive GOP-backed amendments on the ballot, including the amendment in question, which WOULD NOT cap increases to anyone’s property tax bill, but would rather impose a levy limit on the amount of tax revenue GOP legislative majority-starved counties could receive from property taxes, cumulatively.

It is so cynical. For 16 years, the GOP majority in Raleigh has starved our communities of resources they need for schools, roads, and public safety, while creating a tax policy that serves only the very wealthiest North Carolinians. Now the GOP is trying to make our counties the villains for having to rely on property taxes to pick up their slack.

Again, this amendment won’t limit the amount of a tax bill. It’s a trick. It’s about the GOP majority passing the buck & shifting the blame.

5. How would you address the rising costs of housing, childcare, and basic necessities facing North Carolina families?

This is a pretty terrible time for many people in our state. From the price of gas and diesel to groceries to clothing to childcare to health insurance premiums to utility bills, costs are out of control, and we have neighbors making impossible choices between paying for groceries and paying for medication. For most of us who aren’t making those impossible choices, the economic situation is still very challenging–99% of us are feeling the pinch in one way or another.

The situation 99% of us are facing is a result of real, bad policy choices.

The Trump administration is starting wars–military and trade–across the world, and we’re paying for them in the increased cost of everything, at the same time GOP politicians in D.C. and Raleigh rig the economy (and our democracy) for the super rich and special interests.

At the North Carolina General Assembly, specifically, while the gerrymandered GOP legislative leadership ratchets our state’s corporate income tax rate down to 0%, they’ve let over a decades’-worth of bills pile up for investments owed to our counties and local communities–schools, roads, fire stations, you name it. For public employees, the “raises” and “cost of living” adjustments contained in the late budget we passed in July aren’t retroactive, and don’t even keep up with inflation (which, in most people’s books, would constitute pay cuts…).

All counties across the state are feeling it, and local leaders of all political affiliations are faced with their own tough, if not impossible, choices in their budgeting to fill the breach and take care of their people when the Republican-controlled legislature has failed for 16 years to do its job. They should not be on their own.

Unrigging our economy and providing relief for rising costs is going to take a number of legislative and constitutional reforms at the state level, including:

– Flipping our backwards tax system, so that the wealthy and profitable corporations shoulder their fair share of the tax burden, to take some of the tax burden off the rest of us, who are paying more than our fair share. (Again: The PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS on our ballot might sound good, but they’re all GOP tricks designed to lock in the bad system they’ve created. VOTE NO).

– Restoring the Earned Income Tax Credit in North Carolina, and other tax credits that support working families in our state, and ending tax loopholes and sweetheart tax deals for things like sports betting losses and predictive market gambling platforms.

– Allowing more sales tax revenue to stay local.

– Enacting real protections for folks struggling to pay property taxes (NOT the PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, which is a trick, and on which folks should VOTE NO).

– Passing budgets that comply with this state’s constitutional obligation to fully fund public education (and that don’t take money from our public school students to give to wealthy private school parents).

– Raising our minimum wage to a wage North Carolinians can actually live on.

– Enacting universal childcare and early childhood education programs.

– Enacting legislation to prohibit energy companies from raising rates on all of us to cover the costs of anticipated energy usage from data centers.

– Enacting policies to prohibit gerrymandering, and enacting campaign finance laws to prohibit dark money and cap spending in elections. Lack of safeguards in our republic are how special interests have been able to run the table on all of us to begin with.

These are just a few of many course-corrections we need to make. Some are more immediately attainable than others, but all are critical to finding our way out of the plutocratic nightmare we find ourselves in on our 250th birthday.

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?

“The Climate crisis remains the existential crisis of our time. Many of the systemic solutions we need can only be achieved at the national and transnational level. But while those remain bogged down in gridlock, states can lead the way. While I cannot lay out an entire plan in response to this question (I do believe that the NC Comprehensive Climate Action Plan provides a necessary, but not sufficient, starting point), here are three state policies I support (some more immediately attainable than others):

Our state’s decarbonization goals must have teeth; the rapid expansion of hyperscale data centers in NC, and the correspondingly enormous new demand for new energy production facilities, jeopardizes decarbonization goals. We must enact legislation requiring that new energy supply to meet the new demand come from renewable energy sources, and be subsidized by data center developers themselves.
I support the creation of a “Climate Emergency Superfund Laws” to place the cost of recovery from devastating superstorms caused by climate change back on the biggest contributors to the climate crisis per market share allocation.
With FEMA foundering under Trump, North Carolina needs to massively expand its own rapid response and rehousing efforts with greater investment in Gov. Stein’s Renew NC.”

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?

As stated above, I support independent redistricting as a core democracy reform, and was proud to join all of my Democratic Senate colleagues in signing a discharge petition to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot to guarantee independent redistricting and end gerrymandering in this state. The latest congressional redraw in this state at the behest of Trump is undemocratic and disgusting, and should revolt any conservative who truly cares about federalism.

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?

See my answer to question 2 above, and throughout. I voted against the year-late budget in July in large part because of its disrespect to our most experienced educators in this state in frozen pay-scales. I will do all I can to shift the balance of power in this state, with an eye on this November 3rd, such that no budget can be passed that isn’t at the very least the product of intensive bipartisan negotiation. Right now, with their supermajority in the Senate, the GOP runs the table, and Democrats have no input on the budget. I believe that’s about to change.

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?

Reproductive healthcare is healthcare. Healthcare is a right. Politicians have no business undermining that right. I oppose the 12-week abortion ban. I will oppose any further attempts to restrict abortion care, and will fight to expand the right to abortion (and guarantee that right in our state constitution). I will further fight to end tax-payer funding for unregulated, harmful “crisis pregnancy centers.”

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?

“I oppose the federal ban, and will advocate for its repeal.

I believe hemp and marijuana should be fully legal for medicinal or recreational use, and that we should regulate and tax both industries to provide new tax revenues for our communities. Further, as we open up the industry, we should create programs that support small market entrants to avoid immediate market capture and monopoly, and that we should use revenue generated from the new taxes to invest in the communities hit hardest by decades’-long policies of overpolicing of low-level drug offenses, especially in Black and brown communities.”

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?

I oppose the death penalty in all circumstances. With respect to the other provisions of Irynia’s Law: I believe that the new pretrial detention requirements will lead to a massive jail overcrowding crisis, and further exacerbate our state’s crisis in our state’s broken involuntary commitment system.

Ultimately, I do not believe that this law will not make North Carolinians safer.

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?

I believe the most significant issues caused by new hyperscale data centers using current technology relate to energy consumption, and the demand to produce new energy production facilities. Per my answer to Question 6, we need to at the very least enact policy to require hyperscale data centers to pay for the renewable energy to support themselves, and prohibit increases to residential energy consumers based on increased demand and production costs.

Additionally, while it’s good we ended the sales tax exemption for data centers’ energy purchase, those sales tax dollars should stay local to be reinvested back into affected communities, instead of all going to the state, per the policy passed through a budget technical correction this summer.

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.

North Carolina enacted one of the most restrictive laws in the country on private litigation financing this summer. I was one of the few legislators who voted against it, but I likely would have voted with most of my colleagues had I not heard directly from a constituent who shared examples where private litigation financing was critical to successful public interest impact litigation in an otherwise impoverished ecosystem for civil legal resources nationally.

14. Are there any issues this questionnaire has not addressed that you would like to address?

I oppose laws mandating collaboration of local law enforcement with ICE, and oppose any collaboration of local law enforcement with ICE. I believe we should enact laws to keep North Carolinians safe from ICE’s terror campaigns until the agency is abolished.

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More detailed policy positions can be found at jonahgarson.com/on-the-issues.

I try to use my social media for good–folks can follow me on most platforms at @jonahgarsonnc.

Vote NO on the GOP’s trick constitutional amendments.

Vote FOR Justice Anita Earls, Judge John Arrowood, Toby Hampson, and Christine Walczyk, the most important races on our ballot.

I believe that we will win.