Brian Caskey
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Brian Caskey (Democratic Party) ran for election to the North Carolina State Senate to represent District 48. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Caskey completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Brian Caskey was born in Miami, Florida. He earned a bachelor's degree from Stetson University in 1995 and a master's degree from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington in 2014. Caskey’s career experience includes working in IT and as a project manager. He and his wife own a tutoring and test preparation business.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: North Carolina State Senate elections, 2020
General election
Democratic primary election
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Incumbent Chuck Edwards advanced from the Republican primary for North Carolina State Senate District 48.
Campaign finance
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Brian Caskey completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Caskey's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Brian Caskey currently serves as the mayor pro tem for the Town of Mills River.
After working his way through college, Brian graduated from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, with a BS in Biology. Brian then began a long career in information technology, eventually acquiring a Master's degree from UNC-Wilmington. At Barnes and Noble and Sterling Publishing, Brian worked as a Digital Project Manager, where he was responsible for developing departmental budgets, multi-million dollar websites, and IT infrastructure projects.
Along with his wife, Stacey, Brian opened Biltmore Tutoring in South Asheville, and they have worked with thousands of area students since 2010.
Brian's family has lived in the Asheville area since 1997, and moved to Mills River in 2014. As someone who has a unique blend of business experience, education, and community interests, Brian has taken a keen interest in maintaining WNC's quality of life. He is a firm believer in low taxes, financial responsibility, and small town values, but he also believes in promoting businesses and attracting tourism dollars to the natural beauty of the area.
Brian's family enjoys kayaking, fishing, swimming, playing with their three dachshunds, and golfing badly.
- A healthy environment is a key to a prosperous Western North Carolina. Agriculture, tourism, and even light industry rely on clean air, clean water and green mountains.
- Expanding Medicaid is crucial to the health and well-being of North Carolina.
- All North Carolinians are guaranteed a quality public education. We must make sure that our teachers are valued as professionals, that they are well-compensated, and that they have the tools they need to educate our youth.
I am extremely passionate about protecting the environment from corporatization. We all know that polluters are going to pollute if they can get away with it, and we all know that certain members of our legislature are busy writing laws that favor polluters. This must stop.
Robert F. Kennedy said, "Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children." We are given a role as the protectors of the world that we come into, and if we leave it in worse shape than we found it, we are failing our children.
I also believe that state legislators have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable citizens in our state. Currently, Medicaid has not been expanded in North Carolina for purely ideological reasons. 635,000 North Carolinians are being denied health care services as a result. We must make decisions that are for the common good, do the job that we were elected to do, and not base our decisions on partisanship.
In District 48, fully 21% of our children live in food-insecure homes. That means that after mom and dad pay the bills, there may not be enough left over to buy food. A friend of mine ran into one of her students, and she asked her if she was ready to go back to school. She said yes, that she loved school because only there was she was able to eat breakfast.
It's time for decency in NC. My biggest personal hero is Robert Kennedy, because he embodied the convictions and toughness, but also the empathy, that can be found in the Democratic Party. He said, "Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children." These are words that become more important by the day.
My favorite book is 'All The Kings Men' by Robert Penn Warren. The main character in the book is modeled after Huey 'Kingfish' Long of Louisiana, and the central message of the book is that the ends do not justify the means. Even if the outcome is good, corrupt methods cannot be used to get to that good end.
Honesty, character, and integrity. Flexibility can also be a good trait, but these three things are essential and in Raleigh, they are currently in short supply.
I have an innate sense of honesty, and integrity and fairness are central to my core values. I believe in equity, and that the current system is stacked against the working man. While I believe in keeping taxes low (and have advocated and been successful in increasing services while dropping the tax rate), I do not believe that corporations and the wealthy should enjoy a special advantage, as they do now. I believe that we should take advantage of the greatness of our capitalist system, so that we can extend a helping hand to those who need it.
Representing their constituency; that is a core responsibility. Too often, as we are seeing now, people who are elected to a state office begin doing the bidding of the leadership instead of representing the needs and desires of their communities. That's an easy trap to fall into, but I think the voters back home should be at the forefront of every decision that a legislator makes.
In Bernard Malamud's famous book, 'The Natural', Roy Hobbs says, "I want people to see me walking down the street, and say, 'There goes the best hitter that ever lived.'"
That is a tough question, but I think the best answer is that I'd like for people to see me as open and honest and as someone who did everything they could to provide a level playing field for all. I would like to be seen as someone who did his best to raise up his community and to provide opportunities. I would like to be seen as a fierce advocate for children and for the environment.
The first historical event that I can remember was the Centennial of 1976, and all of the parades and celebrations that took place around that event. I was five years old at the time. The next event that I can remember was the presidential election in 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter.
My very first job was working in a frozen yogurt store. I was the only male working there, and I was paid more than my female counterparts because I was supposed to 'unload the truck' when it came in on Friday afternoons. Each box of frozen yogurt contained two gallons of yogurt in plastic bags, which would then be placed into a large, walk-in freezer. That was my first experience with pay disparity; and the first time I realized that men were being paid more to do work that very easily could be done by females.
I mentioned this before, but it's 'All The King's Men,' followed closely by 'The Glory of Their Times' by Lawrence Ritter. That's a fantastic series of interviews with early baseball players like Rube Marquard, Sam Crawford, Fred Snodgrass, Smoky Joe Wood, Babe Herman, Goose Goslin, Hank Greenberg, and Paul Waner.
Each gives his sense of their career, their times, and the game of baseball. Many of the comments are incredibly insightful. The vignettes also provide a sense of what baseball was like in the very late 19th century and first half of the 20th century.
Spiderman, for sure. I collected Spiderman comics when I was a kid. I like a lot of science fiction, and am a tremendous Star Wars buff - I really appreciate the whole Joseph Campbell, mythic hero component of Star Wars - but if I had to choose one character, it would have to be Peter Parker, the Amazing Spiderman.
The last song that got stuck in my head was 'The Bells of Rhymney' by the Byrds. It's an old Welsh poem that has been set to music bu Woodie Guthrie and it's incredibly beautiful and haunting. It's also a great example of the California sound from the last 60's.
Oh, what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
Is there hope for the future?
Say the brown bells of Merther
Who made the mine open?
Say the black bells of Rhonda
And who killed the miner?
Say the grim bells of Lina
Who aband' us in court?
Say the bells of Newport
All will be well if-if-if-if-if
Say the green bells of Cardiff
Why so worried, sister why?
Say the silver bells of Whye
And what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
Oh, what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
Is there hope for the future?
Say the brown bells of Merther
Who made the mine open?
Say the black bells of Rhonda
And who killed the miner?
Say the grim bells of Lina I have been poor. I have been in a situation where I haven't known where my family's next meal was coming from. I have worked incredibly hard to put myself and my family in a position to succeed, and I have great empathy for people who are in that situation. It's not easy. And it's getting harder all the time, as we see the Federal government taking away things like food stamps and the State government waging a war on the working poor and denying them healthcare.
Representatives in the State House are much more accessible to the people than our State Senators. I recently spoke to a Republican who told me that my opponent in the general election (a Republican) is one of the most inaccessible people in state government. I aim to change that, and ensure that each person who needs something gets the help that they need. I am already out in the community every day, so I really don't need to change my behavior at all. The State Senate has been described as a 'mafia' organization, one that votes as a bloc. I intend to change that, because I am a maverick and a free thinker, and I don't allow myself to be bound by party ideology when 'the right thing' for the district, and for the common good, is generally pretty easy to find.
Yes, I do think it's important that legislators have previous experience in government. Unfortunately, the tendency in Western North Carolina has been for legislators to run for re-election, retire, and then have someone be appointed in their place. I think that this is clearly wrong and is just an attempt to retain control of a seat by a political party. I have been working as an elected official at the municipal level for years, and have been working on committees and volunteering for community organizations for even longer than that. This experience has helped me to understand what the responsibilities of the different government organizations are, who to contact when a problem arises, what solutions can be found, and so on. I think that everyone who wants to be involved and make a positive difference in their community should start at the local level.
The biggest challenge for North Carolina is going to be climate change. Our state relies heavily on agriculture and tourism, and both will potentially be heavily affected by a changing climate. Already, farmers in Western North Carolina are transitioning from traditional farms towards agribusiness, because it's much easier to control the quality and quantity of a product when it's in a greenhouse. And tourism relies on clean water and air, clean beaches and lakes and mountains. We have to do a better job of protecting our resources than we have done over the last decade.
The ideal relationship between the governor and the legislature is one of cooperation and negotiation. Currently we have a Democratic governor and two houses of the legislature that are controlled by Republicans. We also have a budget impasse, because the governor wants to expand Medicaid and the legislature will not advance any budget that contains a provision for Medicaid. We need to stop the foolishness and the partisanship in Raleigh and begin to work together again.
Absolutely, it's very important to build relationships. I am a Democrat, and yet I have very good relationships with members of my council in Mills River (all of whom are Republicans). On the Henderson County Transportation Advisory Committee and on the French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization, in a lot of cases I couldn't tell you who was a Democrat or a Republican, because we are there as elected officials to solve local problems and to advocate or services that impact our communities. That 'roll up your sleeves' mentality is something that I value highly, and I will do everything in my power to bring that spirit of cooperation to Raleigh.
I am very interested in business development and have been successful in helping to bring good jobs to my community. I also have a great deal of interest in the environment and in education.
I do not currently envision running for a higher office. I am focused with a laser-like intensity on the problems and the solutions for my own district.
I was recently in a nursing home, and I was talking to an elderly gentleman who is a paraplegic. He has several advanced mathematics degrees and in fact still writes scholarly articles, using a computer to translate his text to speech. However, he was telling me that the care in this particular facility has regressed dramatically in the past few years, and the facility - which was previously a 'five star' Medicare facility - is now rated as a 'one star' long term care facility. I asked him what happened, and he explained that a corporation had bought out the retirement home, and had fired at least half of the staff. He is supposed to receive medical treatments every other day and he's lucky to get them once every two weeks. He sometimes lies in his own filth for days at a time because no one has the time to clean him up. Long term care facilities are now being used as corporate profit centers. This is how we are treating our elderly? He said, 'Brian, I'm going to die in here. But if we don't get you elected, it's going to happen a whole lot sooner.' That experience made me much more determined to pursue elder care as a core interest once I'm elected.
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External links
- ↑ ’’Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 9, 2020’’
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