James Grubbs "Jim" Martin
(born December 11, 1935) was a Republican governor of the state of North Carolina
from 1985 to 1993. He was only the second
Republican elected to the office since
Reconstruction, and
the fifth overall. He is also the only Republican to serve two full
terms as governor.
Martin was
born in Chatham
County, Georgia
. He was subsequently raised in South Carolina
, and now calls Charlotte
home.
Martin
served as professor of chemistry at
Davidson College, after receiving
his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton
University
in 1960. An avid tuba player, he was a
member of
Phi Mu Alpha
Sinfonia music fraternity while an undergraduate at
Davidson.
Martin was active in the Republican Party even when it barely
existed in North Carolina. As a professor at Davidson, he advised
the school's tiny Young Republicans chapter.
In 1966, he was elected to the Mecklenburg
County
Board of
Commissioners. He served for seven years, chairing the
body from 1967 to 1968 and briefly in 1971. He was a president of
the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.
He was elected to the
United States House of
Representatives in
1972 representing the
Charlotte-based
9th Congressional
district. He served there for six terms. He served as a
Ways and
Means Committee member, and as a House Republican Research
Committee chairman. He became the first elected official to receive
the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award, given by the
American Chemical Society for
outstanding
public service by an
American chemist.
In 1984, with incumbent governor Jim Hunt leaving office due to the
term limit, Martin ran for the Republican
nomination and won. He defeated
state attorney general
Rufus Edmisten by a surprisingly wide
nine-point margin. He was undoubtedly helped by
Ronald Reagan's landslide reelection victory.
He was also helped when
Lieutenant Governor
Jimmy Green endorsed him after being
defeated by Edmisten in the Democratic primary. Green was from
eastern North Carolina, and his endorsement helped Martin win
support among conservative Democrats in that part of the
state.
While most political figures running for office were prone to make
promises covering a wide range of issues from education to health
care, Martin made one promise that garnered a lot of attention; he
said he would address all of the priorities in the state, but his
only
promise (and no small task) was that
construction on Interstate 40 from Raleigh to Wilmington, North
Carolina would be finished before he left office. The
long-neglected and last leg of I-40 from Barstow, California would
open up the southeastern coastal area to the rest of the state. He
was true to his promise; the last unfinished leg of I-40 was
finished before the end of his first term.
Martin was easily reelected in 1988, defeating Lieutenant Governor
Bob Jordan by 13 points. In so doing, he
became the only member of his party to have been elected to two
terms as governor of North Carolina. He was part of a 28-year trend
of Governors of North Carolina who were named James, having been
preceded and succeeded by
Jim Hunt, who in
turn was preceded in his first term by
James Holshouser.
In 1988 Martin commuted convicted murderer Jon Benson from death
row to a life sentence. Benson will be released on December 21st,
2007.
In 1993 he retired from political life and became chairman of the
board of the James Cannon Research Center of
Carolinas Medical Center in
Charlotte, NC.
As of 2009 he was the last Republican elected governor of North
Carolina
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