By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Anna Ferguson wants to bring a Cherokee voice to Raleigh. She is seeking the District 119 seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives.
Ferguson, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) born and raised on the Qualla Boundary, will face Mike Clampitt and Mike Yow in the Republican Primary on Tuesday, March 3. Mark D. Burrows is the sole Democratic candidate so there will not be a Democratic primary.
She said her main goal is to truly represent the EBCI and western North Carolina – who she feels has been forgotten about in Raleigh.
Anna Ferguson (Photo contributed)
“My big overall message is I’m hoping, if I’m elected, to go down there and to be able to make enough noise to say, ‘hey, we’re here. I know we’re geographically about as far as we can get from Raleigh, but because of that we are often overlooked and that needs to not be happening. So many resources are being sent east or central, you need to start distributing to the west’. We’re rural, but that makes us no less important to the state.
For the Tribe, specifically, we need someone in there that has our voice. There are other people in there that do not have our voice and who actively are working against our voice. So, we’ve got to just get our foot in there so somebody’s in there saying, ‘hey, we’re first in line when legalized marijuana comes because it will come to the state. When it comes, we need to be the ones that are first in line. We’ve established ourselves in that industry. Recognize us. We’re your first federally recognized tribe here’.”
She added, “I am the only candidate in this race who will take Cherokee into consideration like I will. When people ask what the district covers, I always say it’s Transylvania, Jackson, Swain County, and the Qualla Boundary. I’m the only candidate that knows to make that distinction and knows why to make that distinction.”
Ferguson serves on the EBCI Planning Board, the EBCI Governing Board of Audit and Ethics, the advisory board of the Eastern Band of Cherokees Community Foundation and has served in many other capacities over the years.
Getting into politics was not in her plan, but she wants to make a difference. “You can’t expect change if you’re not involved in change and you just sit on the sidelines and complain about it. So, when I first started considering it, the more I thought about it the more I thought, ‘I have to try. I can’t say I left this place a better place if I don’t at least try’.”
Two major areas she wants to address in Raleigh, if elected, are education and health care.
“We’re last in the country for dollars spent per student in public education. I don’t know how you could lay your head down at night and know you’re last in the country. Something has to change there.
It comes down to teacher pay, and you’ve got to make sure that funding makes it to teacher’s salary without being siphoned off before it gets there.”
On health care, she said funding cuts can be catastrophic. “We’re going to have federal health care cuts. Those are being translated to state health care cuts and the place they want to hit first, of course, are your rural communities. I know there are hospitals that have already been closed down east….so, you can see the writing on the wall. It will start coming to, not so much Cherokee, but it will start coming to Swain County, Transylvania County. I don’t know that they understand when you close a facility here, it’s an hour to get to Asheville.”
Ferguson said she has her own ideas and doesn’t like being lumped in with any other politicians.
“I get hit with questions about the current administration. It’s the Trump administration…it’s kind of posed to me as a litmus test and I don’t like it because I feel like it makes me one-dimensional, and it forces me to co-opt someone else’s platforms and someone else’s agendas. That’s not what I’m doing this for. I’m doing this because we need things to change here and I want to be a part of that change. If people want to ask me about my ideas, ask my opinions, or what I see coming, ask me that. Don’t ask me to piggy-back off somebody else’s. We’re going to do it differently and we’re leaving the past in the past. We’re moving forward.”
She went on to say, “If you have a question, please ask me. Don’t assume that you know what I’m standing for because you might not. And, it’s important that you do before you decide if I’m your candidate.”
In the end, she encourages everyone to go vote. “It’s the only way you’re going to change anything. It feels insignificant, but it’s not.”
Ferguson can be reached via an email link on her website: https://www.voteannaferguson.com.
She related to the One Feather that she personally answers each email.
