Rep. Virginia Foxx (R)

The congresswoman from the 5th District is Virginia Foxx, a Republican first elected in 2004 after emerging from a fiercely contested Republican primary. She graduated from the University of North Carolina and had a diverse professional and political background before winning election to Congress at age 61. She owned a nursery and landscape company, and taught sociology and was assistant dean of the General College at Appalachian State University. Later, she was president of Mayland Community College. She served 12 years on the Board of Education of Watauga County, on the western edge of the district (nearly as close to Knoxville, Tenn., as to Winston-Salem). In 1994, Foxx was elected to the state Senate. In the Legislature she sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and a bill to deny Social Security benefits to illegal aliens. She actively supported gun rights and home schooling, and she opposed abortion rights.

In 2004, Foxx was one of five serious candidates in the Republican primary for the U.S. House seat. Collectively, they spent more than $6 million. Ed Broyhill, the son of former Republican Sen. James Broyhill, started off as the early front-runner. Broyhill was endorsed by his father’s onetime colleague Sen. Jesse Helms. Also in the race was Winston-Salem Councilman Vernon Robinson, a retired Air Force officer who campaigned as a staunch conservative, “the black Jesse Helms,” as he put it. Robinson finished first in the primary, with 24% of the vote. Foxx unexpectedly finished second, with 22%, just 511 votes ahead of Broyhill.

The four-week campaign for the runoff was heatedly contested. Robinson said that Foxx was “fighting the cultural war on the wrong side,” and he aired several controversial ads targeting his tougher position on illegal immigrants. Foxx warned voters that Robinson’s aggressive style would make him a weak general election candidate who could lose, although that seemed unlikely in a district that twice voted 66% for George W. Bush. Foxx won 55%-45%, with between 73% and 82% in her home area in the three mountain counties. Robinson carried Forsyth County, which cast 40% of the vote, but by only 38 votes. In the general election, Foxx won 59%-41%.

In the House, Foxx has a solidly conservative voting record and an outspoken style. She reinforced her reputation as a tightfisted spender when she was one of 11 members voting against House passage of the $52 billion relief package following Hurricane Katrina. “The real issue for me was accountability,” Foxx said. She was more generous for local projects, taking credit for $500,000 for a teapot museum in Sparta, which President Bush later criticized as wasteful spending. After such earmarked spending became controversial, Foxx said in December 2007 that she no longer would seek earmarks, but she also criticized Democrats for “hypocrisy” when they attacked the lack of “transparency” in her requested projects. Foxx opposed federal support for embryonic-stem cell research, which uses frozen embryos from in vitro fertilization. “Killing human life does not have to be accomplished to create efficacious treatment,” she said. In November 2008, Foxx sponsored legislation to prevent unspent portions of the $700 billion in bailout funds for the financial industry from being distributed, complaining there had been no meaningful oversight of the way the first $290 billion was were used by private companies.

Foxx has been re-elected by unimpressive margins against low-profile opponents.