# Edgar V. Starnes

Edgar Vance Starnes is a North Carolina politician and an investor in real estate. He served as a Republican member of the North Carolina House of Representatives for a total of approximately 20 years, from 1987 to 1988 and from 1997 through January 2015. He then resigned to become legislative liaison for North Carolina State Treasurer Janet Cowell. At the time of his resignation, Starnes represented the state's eighty-seventh House district (Caldwell County).

## North Carolina House of Representatives

He was elected House Majority Leader by his colleagues in December 2012, for the legislative session beginning in January 2013. After the 2014 election, in which he was re-elected to the House without opposition, Starnes chose not to seek a second term as Majority Leader because he was already discussing the position with the State Treasurer's office.

### Nullification resolution

In April 2013, Starnes and ten Republican colleagues introduced House Bill 494, a resolution in the Assembly which repudiates any federal court power in ruling on any Constitutional topic in North Carolina, a legally discredited theory known to historians of the antebellum U.S. as nullification.
"The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people," the resolution asserts, continuing, "Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion".

### Electoral history
#### 2014

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2014 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 16,148 | 100% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 16,148 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2012

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district Republican primary election, 2012 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 8,472 | 70.07% |
| | Republican | Jordon Greene | 3,619 | 29.93% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 12,091 | 100% |
North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2012 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 25,757 | 100% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 25,757 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2010

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2010 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 14,295 | 100% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 14,295 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2008

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2008 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 15,444 | 52.76% |
| | Democratic | John A. Forlines Jr. | 11,487 | 39.24% |
| | Libertarian | Timothy J. "T. J." Rohr | 2,342 | 8.00% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 29,273 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2006

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2006 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 11,548 | 100% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 11,548 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2004

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2004 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 15,519 | 59.84% |
| | Democratic | Woody Tucker | 10,415 | 40.16% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 25,934 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2002

North Carolina House of Representatives 87th district general election, 2002 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 11,813 | 51.48% |
| | Democratic | Ray Warren | 11,132 | 48.52% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 22,945 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |

#### 2000

North Carolina House of Representatives 91st district general election, 2000 :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Edgar Starnes (incumbent) | 15,050 | 85.98% |
| | Libertarian | Joe Young | 2,454 | 14.02% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 17,504 | 100% |
| | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold | Republican hold |