Harmonizing Notes: House Democratic Leader Robert Reives

It’s not uncommon for a state legislative session to carry a theme of sorts, or a buzz focus that might dominate conversations and news narratives. Anyone involved in North Carolina politics roughly 10 years ago probably remembers the oft-noted “urban-rural divide” that spotlighted the dynamics of the state’s populations, growth trends and needs. Rep. Robert Reives remembers it well, having entered legislative office in 2014 with a lifetime spent in a region that essentially sat evenly in the dichotomy. Rep. Reives represents Chatham and Randolph counties in his District 54 and lives in Goldston with wife Cynthia and children Brianna and Robert III. Having grown up in the nearby Sanford area (in Lee County), where he still works as an attorney, Rep. Reives has long been a quick car trip from the much more populous capital city of Raleigh, where he’s currently serving as democratic leader of the state House and sharing his experiences with growth, balance, history and preparation. As a chamber leader, he’s also primed on the considerations of communication and harmony—the latter incidentally a sort of continuation of skills he developed much earlier in life, with an aptitude for musical instruments and the articulation that’s so involved with their playing. Southern City recently sat down with Democratic Leader Reives to learn more about his background and how it applies to his work in public office.

You grew up in the Sanford area. Can you tell us what life was like and what interested you?

RR: Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. It’s funny, you know, when you talk now because there’s so much discussion about rural and urban and all that kind of stuff. And, really, I just kind of felt like I had the best of both worlds in the sense that I got a nice hometown place where everybody knew everybody. But at the same time, you know, when we wanted to do things, we could pop up to Raleigh in a little bit of time and do dinner and movies and things like that. But it was really rather idyllic. It was funny. I was actually having a discussion with somebody recently about that, and I think we really kind of hit a sweet spot with my age group, and it was because I was born in 1970. My mom’s little sister and little brother had a chance to go to an integrated high school, but they got moved mid-high school. I was the first person to go to an integrated school from kindergarten through 12th grade. And I think with a lot of the kids, it was a good time. We got a chance to really delve in, get to know each other. You got to interact with people in a different way. And I think that even helped adults in town in a sense. Just everything was kind of unique with Sanford. We had a police force that was very reflective of the community—and still got the same police chief from when I was younger. But it was just a really good time and a lot of those folks that I grew up with, we still are friends today. Obviously, you don’t keep up with everybody in the same way, but a lot of them are there, like my campaign manager is a friend that I met in fourth grade. The folks teaching at schools now, all my high school classmates and schoolmates. Music was a big thing to me. I loved to play sports. But music was my number one.

You played in the school band, didn’t you?

RR: Yeah, played marching band, played concert band. I actually had a couple of house bands when I was in high school. And it’s funny how it all really started is that I decided to pick up sax in middle school. And at the same time, my dad found this old antique piano. And so, we had moved what became our first piano into my house when I was in third grade. There was a guy that down the street from us happened to be a piano tuner. And so, I taught myself piano from there, and that was a wrap. Like I really enjoyed sax, I was really good at saxophone, but that piano did it. I was having to teach myself on that. I’d always loved Prince; Purple Rain was out, so that was one of the first songbooks I bought. And it was great. We really had a good childhood.

With music standing out as an interest and a potential direction for you in life, how did government come into focus?

RR: My mother is really the person that got both me and my father (Robert Reives Sr., the first black person elected to the Lee County Board of Commissioners) into politics. He got elected in 1990, when I was in college. Lee County was really interesting in the way that it went, and I don’t think it was dissimilar than a lot of places. So, the city of Sanford dominates Lee County, but Lee County also has Broadway, Tramway, Lemon Springs, all these places. And so, the outside of the county was still very—you just didn’t have a lot of African Americans in the county itself, but a lot of African Americans bought homes in the city. And so, what happened is that the city was a heavily minority community, but the county as a whole wouldn’t necessarily be. What happened is, and it was really kind of odd, because my father was definitely not into politics, but he was very focused about social ills. A lot with his background and how he grew up. And so, they ended up suing the county, because of our commissioner districts. Because what the districts did is almost perfectly divided all of the African American community in each of these districts, so that there was no way for African Americans to really ever elect somebody, elect a candidate of their choice, which became the term used later.

Department of Justice jumps in, and they’re just like, yeah, this violates constitutional law, and made the county redraw the districts. And so, one of the districts ended up being kind of a city district. I think anybody who knew my father at that time would know he was kind of like, “Cool, I’m done.” My mother, in a parallel track, had been getting very active in the Democratic Party. And so, she did a stint as chairperson of the Democratic women’s group, which was a really powerful organization when I was growing up. And just stayed really active. She was active, and in the church, things like that. And so, a lot of people were approaching my father and saying we think you’d be the right person to run for this seat. And it wasn’t even a consideration for him. One of the most significant points in my life that I think later guided me about public service is she had a sit down with him. I happened to be there for it. She made a very good argument. And by the end of that argument, she’s just like, “So, if it’s not you, then who would it be?” So, he said, fine, he’d run. He always has been a real spiffy dresser, and especially during that time in his life, and so he literally had his blue suede shoes on when he walked the whole district, to make sure everybody knew him. This isn’t something he took lightly. He knocked on every door and has been serving ever since. This is year 35. I think what that did for me is it set in my mind that you’ve got to give back. We weren’t wealthy, but we were happy. And of course, my parents as a generation had it better than my grandparents did. So, their position was, I have that because of my community, and we’ve got to give back. And so, I joined the county party. (Much later, when the House seat came available,) I had a Republican call, Democrat call, Republican call, Democrat call, and they were all like, you know, you really ought to consider it. So, I was like, OK, that makes sense to me.

Your district again is situated more on the growing rural side but essentially in the mix of the urban Triangle region. How have you seen those dynamics change or evolve over time and what comes to mind when it comes to understanding your local communities’ visions?

RR: It’s really good when you’ve got people who can see that the job I’ve got isn’t for the now; the job I’ve got is to set us up for the next five, 10, 15 years. I think our business community did a good job getting behind that. Simultaneously, you had some real pushes, like the Lee County Education Foundation, where I got a chance to meet a whole lot of business leaders that I never would have had a chance to meet, was very good and very active. So, I was very proud understanding what your goal should be in government. In my mind, it’s trying to figure out how to raise the standard of living for everybody. I think there are two schools of thought that you see—if I raise the standard of living for the upper 1% or 2%, they’ll make sure everybody else is taken care of; and then there’s a school of thought that says if I raise the standard of living for everybody, then everybody moves up a spot, it’s literally the rising tide. I mean, I think it’s easy to think of in terms of a business. When businesses decide where they’re going to locate, they look and say, “Can this population afford our product?” And so, the more successful the average person is in that community, the better the businesses are there in the community, as far as retail, as far as restaurants, things of that sort. And so that makes it pretty easy, because their thing is, if most of you can’t afford to come here, I can’t locate here. And so, I think that that is what has made me happy. Because, as you know, I’m co-chair of the (Legislative) Life Sciences Caucus, and that became a big deal.

Lee County really leaned into the life sciences area. Pfizer made a huge investment, and at the same time Chatham County leaned into really heavy economic development. And so, they ended up getting VinFast and then, ultimately, the big dog was Wolfspeed (both in Chatham County). Now, because I’ve got Randolph County, I’ve also got Toyota. But it’s got the electric car battery plant, which makes us kind of a clean energy silo. And that’s good, because that’s where we’re headed. And so, I think that what it requires is everybody working together. And so for instance, even after I lost Lee County as part of my district (with legislative redistricting), we had such great bonds between the two counties, and I’d like to think I was part of that, to help set up so that when Chatham County suddenly needed water, Sanford, which had actually over-invested in water years ago … in the late 60s, (was able to provide it). And so now, of course, Sanford is selling water left and right. And if not for Sanford, Siler City would not have water, Pittsboro would not have water, we would not have the expansion that we’ve got now. That’s the part of government I love, being able to set up a situation so that everybody does well. Same thing when investing in our community college … and there could be some synergy. I remember when they got Caterpillar into Sanford. Caterpillar immediately entered into a partnership with the community college, and suddenly people had opportunities they did not normally have. Pfizer did their expansion and immediately got with the community college. And that helped get people into the workforce. And when the Great Recession hit in ‘08, you had adults in their late 30s, 40s suddenly having to figure out another career after 20 years, and they were immediately able to go to the community college and turn something around. To me, that’s what we ought to be doing. And at the same time, we did it without being divisive. So, I think Sanford has done a good job as a city staying there. I think Chatham has done an excellent job of staying in that space of understanding that we don’t get anywhere unless our Republicans and our Democrats understand we’re working to make Chatham better.

What are your thoughts on achieving that? What does successful, healthy communication in this space look like today?

RR: What you’ve got to understand is that comes from leadership. That’s why I’m giving (House) Speaker (Destin) Hall credit at this point. I think what he understands is the stuff that we differ about. Let me be real clear. I know government shouldn’t tell me as a small business owner who I should hire, how I should hire, and what my workforce should look like, ever. I am a strong believer that the government doesn’t need to be in my bedroom. The government does not need to be in my personal life. The government doesn’t need to tell me how I practice my faith. Those are social factors that, you know, I think that society polices. But the thing that folks higher up than all of us recognize is the more chaos there is, the more division there is, the better chance they’ve got to stay in power, because then people can’t focus on what’s really happening. I’ve said this since I got in, in 2014, when you see these incredibly divisive social issues come up that, ultimately, when you look at them, they don’t change anything about your life. They don’t raise your wages, they don’t foster economic development, they don’t do anything to make houses more affordable, they don’t do anything to make your school education any better, they don’t do anything to help your healthcare. So, if you’re not covering those five things, why are we running that bill? … It’s sad, but it’s a hard thing to do because this divisiveness plays on emotion, and that is the hardest thing for human beings to regulate. It is so, so hard once we get emotionally invested in something to pull ourselves back and say, “What should be the goals of this particular institution?” Like, I’ve got one institution I want to help me get closer to God. That’s my church, or whatever church I go to. I feel like they’re more qualified. I don’t think I’m ever going trust anybody who tells me, “Vote for me because we both believe in God.” Nah, I need to see what you do. I’m an attorney. If I need plumbing done, let the plumber do it. I’m not so unintelligent that I can’t figure something out, but I’m betting he knows some stuff that I don’t know. So let people who do their thing stay in their lane, and when you look at government, this hyper-partisanism starts because we make every single thing partisan. The first thing the folks that founded this country realized is we need our independence. We can’t keep sending our tax money and all of our wealth overseas and not being able to put it in our communities. The second thing they recognized is our folks have got to get educated, and we can’t make education just a province of the wealthy. We’ve got to make education accessible to everybody, because remember, that’s what they left when they left Europe. In Europe, it was hard to get educated, and in some of these second- and third-world countries it was fatal to get educated. And so, what they recognized was we’re going to make sure everybody here gets educated, and we’re going to make sure we pay for it because it pays for itself, because the better educated our population is, the better prepared they are to do the jobs that we need to move forward as a community. That’s a simple concept, but suddenly, with this hyper-partisanism, it’s not a simple concept. Suddenly, there’s a hint of maybe everybody shouldn’t be educated, or at least be educated the same way. The things that I think have made us a world leader, the things that I may think have made this state amazing, are basic and they’re not based on party. They are based on an ideal that we are here to make sure that we take care of everybody or provide them the opportunity to have their best lives, whatever that is. You know, nothing wrong being a ditch digger if that’s what you want to be. But if you’ve got the ability to cure cancer, why wouldn’t I want to encourage that?

Your role as democratic leader in the House is on top of your general role as a legislator, which is on top of your professional life as an attorney and your family commitments. Do you ever unplug? Or revisit your music? How do you balance all this?

RR: Yeah, it’s a freight train all the time. The number one space that I keep open is for my family and my kids, and so that causes me not to be able to do some of the stuff I love to do. Like, I actually got on (an app that teaches users how to play different musical instruments), and I’ve been stuck on the first chapter of the piano side for three years. Because it’s most important to me that I invest that time with my kids. And the problem with politics, especially now: … everybody is so angry now. And that’s what’s so different than when I grew up in Sanford. I couldn’t tell you the political affiliation of one person that I was in high school with. I wouldn’t have known their political affiliations until now, when it became so important. … What I most hope is not Democrats getting control, or anybody else gets control of anything. What I most hope is that we can somehow get our voting population back to a point where they understand what defines you is not your party. In fact, that should be so far down your list that it should be a happenstance. What defines you is the family person you are, and that doesn’t necessarily mean being married, having kids or anything like that, but you as a family member. What defines you is your relationship with your faith, whatever that is. Because, to me, faith is about how you treat others who aren’t in your family, who aren’t your friends, who you do not know. What should define you is your ability to contribute to a successful society and a successful community, because civilization, great civilizations, don’t happen by happenstance. … But, you know, hopefully we’ll get back to that time. I know that there are people who believe, like I do, all across the political spectrum, but I don’t ever want what my children have seen with government to be how they view government going forward. I want them to know the greatness that can come from a great government.