Larry Pittman's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
Inferred Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, but Vote Smart inferred this issue based on the candidate's public record, including statements, voting record, and special interest group endorsements.
Unknown Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, or we could not infer an answer for this candidate despite exhaustive research of their public record.
Additional Information: Click on this icon to reveal more information about this candidate's position, from their answers or Vote Smart's research.
Other or Expanded Principles & Legislative Priorities are entered exactly as candidates submit them. Vote Smart does not edit for misspelled words, punctuation or grammar.
Larry Pittman has failed to provide voters with positions on key issues covered by the 2020 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart and voters like you.
This candidate has responded to a Political Courage Test in a previous election. As a continued effort to provide the American public with factual information on candidates running for public office, these archived responses are made available here.
North Carolina State Legislative Election 2008 Political Courage Test
The Political Courage Test asks candidates which items they will support if elected. It does not ask them to indicate which items they will oppose. Through extensive research of public polling data, we discovered that voters are more concerned with what candidates would support when elected to office, not what they oppose. If a candidate does not select a response to any part or all of any question, it does not necessarily indicate that the candidate is opposed to that particular item.
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding abortion.
| X | a) Abortions should always be illegal. | ||
| b) Abortions should always be legal. | |||
| c) Abortions should be legal only within the first trimester of pregnancy. | |||
| d) Abortions should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape. | |||
| e) Abortions should be legal when the life of the woman is endangered. | |||
| f) Abortions should be subject to a mandatory waiting period. | |||
| g) Require clinics to give parental notification before performing abortions on minors. | |||
| The first priority and main function of legitimate government is to defend innocent human life from conception to natural death, and to punish those who violate it. Termination of a pregnancy may sometimes be necessary due to conditions threatening the mother's life. However, the effort should always be made to save the baby, as well. The baby should never be deliberately killed. These cases are extremely rare, and in no way justify the millions of abortions committed in America. Abortionists are murderers, and should be tried and executed for first degree murder. God's judgment is upon us otherwise. | |||
State Budget: Indicate what state funding levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.State Taxes: Indicate what state tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.
| Maintain Status | a) Education (Higher) | ||
| Eliminate | b) Education (K-12) | ||
| Slightly Increase | c) Emergency preparedness | ||
| Slightly Decrease | d) Environment | ||
| Greatly Decrease | e) Health care | ||
| Greatly Increase | f) Law enforcement | ||
| Greatly Increase | g) Transportation and highway infrastructure | ||
| Slightly Decrease | h) Welfare | ||
| Maintain Status | a) Alcohol taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | b) Cigarette taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | c) Corporate taxes | ||
| Greatly Decrease | d) Gasoline taxes | ||
| Eliminate | e) Income taxes (incomes below $75,000) | ||
| Eliminate | f) Income taxes (incomes above $75,000) | ||
| Slightly Increase | g) Sales taxes | ||
| Maintain Status | h) Vehicle taxes | ||
| No | 1) Should state sales taxes be extended to Internet sales? | ||
| No | 2) Should accounts such as a "rainy day" fund be used to balance the state budget? | ||
| No | 3) Should fee increases be used to balance the state budget? | ||
| No | 4) Do you support the construction of toll roads? | ||
| On education (k-12), I believe the government has no business controlling or running this. Parents should be in charge of their children's education and discipline. Home schooling is the preferred choice. For those who can't do that, there is a need for public schools. However, they should be locally controlled, by the parents, not by the government. School boards should not be government entities, but should be merely administrative boards, chosen by the parents, and replaceable at any time by the same. I realize this will probably never happen. I would, therefore, reluctantly support funding the current system as necessary. | |||
| I favor eliminating income taxes and substituting a modest sales tax increase, together with eliminating waste or inappropriate items from the State budget. Sales taxes on vehicles should be limited to the purchase of new vehicles. There should be no sales tax on used vehicles. I opose all corporate incentives, which are given to wealthy businessmen who really don't need them, and unjustly burden the average taxpayer to do so. I don't know enough about alcohol taxes to support any change in them at this time. Things like "light rail systems" or bus systems should be private, not public, enterprises. | |||
| The diversion of funds, such as has been done from the Highway Trust Fund and the Volunteer Firemen's Retirement Fund, should be a felony, for which even the governor should be jailed. The govenment needs to focus on its legitimate priorities, and stop funding things, such as "the arts" or "mass transit" which are none of its business. Money saved by removing these wasteful and inappropriate items from the budget could be used to supply all law enforcement officers in the State with bullet proof vests and fix our roads and bridges. | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding campaign finance and government reform.c) Do you support limiting the following types of contributions to state legislative candidates?
| Yes | a) Do you support the current limit of terms for North Carolina governors? | ||
| No | b) Do you support limiting the number of terms for North Carolina state senators and representatives? | ||
| No | 1) Individual | ||
| Yes | 2) PAC | ||
| Yes | 3) Corporate | ||
| No | 4) Political Parties | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support requiring full and timely disclosure of campaign finance information? | ||
| No | e) Do you support imposing spending limits on state-level political campaigns? | ||
| No | f) Should North Carolina participate in the federal REAL ID program? | ||
| When you think "REAL ID," think "George Orwell's 1984," and "Big Brother." | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding crime.
| X | a) Increase state funds for construction of state prisons and hiring of additional prison staff. | ||
| X | b) Support the death penalty in North Carolina. | ||
| c) Support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills and job-placement assistance when released. | |||
| X | d) Implement penalties other than incarceration for certain non-violent offenders. | ||
| e) Decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. | |||
| X | f) Minors accused of a violent crime should be prosecuted as adults. | ||
| X | g) Support state and local law enforcement officials enforcing federal immigration laws. | ||
| h) Support hate crime legislation. | |||
| On providing prison inmates with vocatonal and job-related skills and job-placement assistance, I am not totally opposed. I just think this should be a very specialized, limited, and carefully screened program. As for the death penalty, I think we should make it a deterrent again, by returning to public hangings. Also, just as DNA testing may be used to exonerate people wrongfully accused of murder, it should also be used to confirm the guilt of those justly convicted, so that we may have greater confidence in applying the death penalty. | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding education.
| a) Support state funding of universal pre-K programs. | |||
| b) Support federal education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students (No Child Left Behind). | |||
| c) Support state education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students. | |||
| d) Support requiring public schools to administer high school exit exams. | |||
| X | e) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public school. | ||
| X | f) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any private or religious school. | ||
| g) Provide state funding to increase teacher salaries. | |||
| X | h) Support using a merit pay system for teachers. | ||
| i) Provide state funding for tax incentives and financial aid to help make college more affordable. | |||
| j) Support allowing illegal immigrant high school graduates of North Carolina to pay in-state tuition at public universities. | |||
| Illegals should not even be here, and should not be allowed in any school or college whatsoever. Education should be about the subject being taught, not "teaching to the test." Phonics should be taught to all first grade students, at the very least. Those who educate their children at home or in any other form of "non public" system should be given a tax credit equal to the amount of that taxpayer's taxes the State says are going to support the government-run school system. | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding employment.
| a) Increase funding for state job-training programs that re-train displaced workers and teach skills needed in todays job market. | |||
| X | b) Reduce state government regulations on the private sector. | ||
| X | c) Provide low interest loans and tax credits for starting, expanding, or relocating businesses. | ||
| X | d) Provide tax credits for businesses that provide child care for children in low-income working families. | ||
| e) Increase state funds to provide child care for children in low-income working families. | |||
| f) Include sexual orientation in North Carolina's anti-discrimination laws. | |||
| g) Include gender identity in North Carolina's anti-discrimination laws. | |||
| h) Increase the state minimum wage. | |||
| i) Support laws that prevent employers from dismissing employees at will. | |||
| X | j) Support financial punishments for those who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. | ||
| X | k) Support increased work requirements for able-bodied welfare recipients. | ||
| l) Increase funding for employment and job training programs for welfare recipients. | |||
| m) Other or expanded principles | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding the environment and energy.
| a) Promote increased use of alternative fuel technology. | |||
| X | b) Support increased production of traditional domestic energy sources (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil, etc). | ||
| c) Support providing financial incentives to farms that produce biofuel crops. | |||
| d) Use state funds to clean up former industrial and commercial sites that are contaminated, unused, or abandoned. | |||
| e) Support funding for improvements to North Carolina's power generating and transmission facilities. | |||
| f) Support funding for open space preservation. | |||
| g) Limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming. | |||
| h) Enact environmental regulations even if they are stricter than federal law. | |||
| If there are oil reserves in North Carolina, or offshore, we need to allow private enterprise to tap into them. A refinery needs to be built in every State, to take care of that State's domestic fuel production needs, but without taxpayer funding or corporate incentives. Get off this "global warming" farce. Human activities have no effect on the cyclical climatic changes on the enormous order of this planet's system. That whole global warming fraud is completely based on political and socio-economic extremism. There should be no public funding of activities that should be the responsibility of private enterprises. | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding guns.
| No | a) Should background checks be required on gun sales between private citizens at gun shows? | ||
| Yes | b) Should citizens be allowed to carry concealed guns? | ||
| No | c) Should a license be required for gun possession? | ||
| No | d) Do you support current levels of enforcement of existing state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns? | ||
| No | e) Do you support current state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns? | ||
| If someone is not going to use a gun to commit a crime, it is no one else's business, government included, to know what guns he/she has. If someone is going to use a gun to commit a crime, he/she will ignore such regulations, anyway. Registration is the prelude to confiscation. Legitimate government should never fear or restrict the possession of firearms by non-criminal, non-violent citizens. Background checks should be used to prevent purchase by the insane or known criminals. However, no record of such a check should be kept unless the person is disqualifed for one of these reasons. | |||
Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding health.
| a) Ensure that citizens have access to basic health care through managed care, insurance reforms, or state-funded care where necessary. | |||
| X | b) Guaranteed medical care to all citizens is not a responsibility of state government. | ||
| X | c) Limit the amount of damages that can be awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits. | ||
| X | d) Allow patients to sue their HMOs. | ||
| X | e) Require hospitals and labs to release reports on infections that are a risk to public health, while not compromising patient confidentiality. | ||
| f) Legalize physician assisted suicide in North Carolina. | |||
| g) Support allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to their patients for medicinal purposes. | |||
| While they should be given what medical care they need, persons found to be infected with HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, or other very dangerous communicable diseases, should be quarantined and/or identified to the public, as the case may warrant, for the sake of public safety. Illegal aliens genuinely in need of emergency medical care should be cared for, and, when well enough, deported. Our emergency rooms should not be allowed to be abused as primary care facilities for illegals. Physician assisted suicide is first degree murder, and should be punishable by death. | |||
['Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding social issues.', 'Legislative Priorities']
| No | a) Should North Carolina recognize civil unions between same-sex couples? | ||
| No | b) Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry? | ||
| No | c) Should North Carolina provide state-level spousal rights to same-sex couples? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support a moment of silence in public schools? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support voluntary prayer in public schools? | ||
| No | f) Do you support sexual education programs that include information on abstinence, contraceptives, and HIV/STD prevention methods? | ||
| Yes | g) Do you support abstinence-only sexual education programs? | ||
| No | h) Should the state government consider race and gender in state government contracting and hiring decisions? | ||
| No | i) Do you support affirmative action in public college admissions? | ||
| No | j) Should North Carolina continue affirmative action programs? | ||
| Yes | k) Do you support state funding of stem cell research? | ||
| No | l) Do you support state funding of embryonic stem cell research? | ||
| Yes | m) Do you support allowing pharmacists who conscientiously object to emergency contraception to refuse to dispense it? | ||
| Any sexual intercourse other than that between a husband and wife is sin. Even if such activity can not be banned or totally eliminated, the government must not encourage or condone it. Abstinence until marriage should be the expressed goal of any sex education. Warnings about STD's are appropriate. Instruction in contraceptive use is not. Parents should be responsible for teaching their children about these things. Stem cell research should be limited to blood from placentas in live births or adult stem cells. A human fertilized egg is a human being, whose right to life must not be violated. | |||
| I will work to protect property rights by repealing "Quick Take" and severely restricting the use of eminent domain to matters of genuine public use, in the sense of public necessity. In connection with this, I will seek passage of an amendment to the State Constitution, prohibiting forced annexation, and allowing residents of a proposed annexation area to vote, requiring a 75% majority to approve any annexation. I will work to protect gun owners' rights, hunters' rights, parental rights, and taxpayers' rights. This will include efforts to reduce taxes, eliminate waste, and get our roads and bridges in good shape. | |||
Vote Smart does not permit the use of its name or programs in any campaign activity, including advertising, debates, and speeches.