Thompson, Robert (Spider)

Meet the Candidate

Party Legend

  • DDemocrat
  • GGreen
  • LLibertarian
  • RRepublican
  • UUnaffiliated

Running For:
NC House
District:
89
Political Affiliation:
D
Candidate Website:
https://www.spiderfornchouse.com

Survey

Response Legend

  • YYes
  • NNo
  • UUndecided
  • WView Candidate Comments
  • −No response given by candidate
  • *Comment provided, see Candidate page

Question Response Comments/Notes
1. Should North Carolina parents who choose to educate their children in a non-public school be eligible to receive a state-funded scholarship grant to assist with the cost of tuition and fees? N* As a public school educator, I already have real concerns about the accountability of the private-school voucher program as it exists. The state audits testing compliance at only 4% of participating schools a year. Extending that same taxpayer funding into homeschooling, which by design has even less state oversight, would make that problem worse, not better. If the concern is supporting families who homeschool children with disabilities, we already have a targeted program for that, ESA+. I want public education tax dollars to be tracked and accounted for wherever they go. Right now we're not doing that well with one program, I'm not ready to sign up for a second program that has even fewer checks in place."
2. Should the N.C. General Assembly authorize non-tribal commercial gambling casinos in North Carolina? Y* I'm not gonna say no just to say no. Truth is, people are already driving up to Virginia and handing them our tax dollars at those casinos right over the border, that tax revenue should stay right here at home. But I will not support some backroom deal either, where casinos get snuck into a budget bill like they tried back in 2023, with Medicaid expansion. This is too big of a decision to slip in another bill or in the budget... it deserves its own up-or-down vote, out in the open. If this does pass; two things must happen: 1. The money's gotta go toward helping folks who get in over their heads with gambling, real and fully funded treatment options. 2. The counties where these casinos get built need to have a real say, not have it forced on them from Raleigh. So show me a clean bill that does right by our communities, and I'll give it a fair look. Anything less, and it's a no from me."
3. Should abortion be prohibited in North Carolina once a fetal heartbeat is detected? N* I don't support that. A heartbeat bill bans abortion around six weeks, before most women even know they're pregnant. That's not a policy, that's taking the decision away before there's even a decision to make. I trust women and their doctors... not politicians in Raleigh to make these deeply personal medical decisions. That said, I'm not someone who thinks there should be no boundaries anywhere. I believe reasonable, medically-grounded limits later in pregnancy make sense, with the mother's life and health always protected. But a six-week heartbeat ban isn't a reasonable limit, and I can't support it."
4. Should North Carolina voters be required to show a photo ID in order to vote in North Carolina? Y* This isn't about whether people have a picture ID... most North Carolinians do, including plenty with REAL ID. But if citizenship is the issue a REAL ID doesn't prove citizenship; it's issued to non-citizens with legal status too. NC voter law already requires a picture ID, So struggling to understand the question here? My bigger issue is with HB 958 and what it does after you're already registered. It cuts early voting from 17 days to 10, creates a costly new signature verification program, and gives the State Auditor, a political office, power to direct county boards to challenge specific voters' ballots by name after the election. That's the actual mechanism of voter suppression in this bill... not paperwork, but the power to target individual ballots after votes are cast."
5. Should the N.C. General Assembly legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes? Y* Honestly, this shouldn't even be a partisan question anymore. Seventy percent of North Carolinians support medical marijuana, including a majority of self-described very conservative voters. We're one of only ten states left in the country without it. The State Senate has passed this bill with strong bipartisan votes, multiple years in a row, and it's died in the House every single time; not because voters don't want it, but because a small number of legislators won't let it come to a vote. Even the federal government has now reclassified marijuana to acknowledge its real medical value. I support legalizing medical marijuana, full stop. Long-term, I think we get recreational too... It's already happening in states around us, it takes a three-billion-dollar illegal market and brings it into the light where it can be taxed and regulated, and it stops criminalizing people for something a majority of North Carolinians already believe should be legal. This isn't a radical position, it's where the people of this state already are. It's time Raleigh caught up."
6. Should state nondiscrimination laws include "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as protected classifications? Y* Right now, if you get fired or turned away from a place to live just because of who you are, whether you're protected or not depends on nothing more than what zip code you happen to call home. That's not right, and it's not how North Carolina ought to do things. The Supreme Court already settled this back in 2020 with Bostock v. Clayton County. I just believe a hard day's work oughta be judged on a hard day's work, and every family deserves a fair shot at a roof over their head, no matter what county line they're standing on. State law needs to catch up to that plain and simple idea, same rules, same fairness, for every North Carolinian, not just the ones lucky enough to live in the right city."
7. Should biological male students who identify as female be allowed to participate on female sports teams? N* This is a hard one, and it involves real kids... I don't take that lightly. Let's start with the actual numbers, because this gets talked about like it's a flood, and it isn't. Out of 180,000 high school athletes in North Carolina, we're talking about roughly 15 transgender student-athletes statewide. That's it. But I still don't support biological males competing on girls' teams, because the physical differences from male puberty don't fully go away, and girls deserve a fair, level playing field. That's not in conflict with caring about these kids though... I think we can protect fair competition for girls and still make sure every one of those 15 kids has a real place to belong, through options like open or co-ed teams. Both things can be true at once. Fair competition for girls and a place to belong for every kid aren't in conflict, we can protect both.
8. Should organizations that provide abortions be allowed to receive state funds? N* Organizations that provide abortions already receive zero direct state funding in North Carolina, as state law prohibits it except for narrow Medicaid cases. Medicaid does reimburse clinics, including Planned Parenthood, for separate non-abortion services like cancer screenings and birth control, but that's not funding for abortion itself. Meanwhile, the state has sent over $12 million a year to crisis pregnancy centers, growing from just $300,000 a decade ago, to a network of 93-100+ centers, roughly seven times the number of actual abortion clinics in the state. An investigation by The Assembly, a North Carolina newsroom, found less than a quarter of that funding went directly to helping pregnant women, with little oversight on the rest. I think the real accountability question here is about that $12 million, not about funding that doesn't exist.
9. Should North Carolina law allow a medical professional to assist another person in ending their life? Y* At the core of this, I believe a mentally competent adult has the right to make decisions about their own body and their own life, including how it ends, when they're already dying. This isn't a decision anyone else gets to make for them; not a family member, not the state, not me. If someone is terminally ill, of sound mind, and tells me they don't want their last days defined by suffering they didn't choose, I trust them to know that better than any of us watching from the outside. I want to be clear about where the line is: this is only ever for someone who is mentally competent enough to make that decision themselves. It would never apply to someone with an intellectual disability who isn't able to make that call on their own, that's not what this is, and any law has to be built to make sure it never becomes that. This is a personal choice for the person whose life it is. Nothing more, nothing less."
10. Should a health care practitioner, who is present at the time a child is born alive after a failed abortion attempt, be required by state law to exercise the same degree of skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of that child as would be expected for any other child born alive at the same gestational age? Y* This is already North Carolina law, enacted in 2023, This isn't about abortion; it's about the standard of care for any newborn, under any circumstances. I trust doctors' medical judgment here, the same way I trust it in every other complicated birth, including tragic cases where a fetal condition means aggressive intervention wouldn't help the child. That clinical judgment belongs with doctors, not politicians. To be clear, none of this changes where I stand on a woman's right to make her own decisions about her pregnancy, those are separate questions, and I won't let anyone blur them together.
11. Should North Carolina public schools be required to allow students to voluntarily participate in “released time” religious instruction during school hours—provided that it takes place off-campus, with parental consent, and at no cost to the public school unit? N* This isn't a minor accommodation as the bill circulating in NC Senate Committees allows students to miss up to five hours of instructional time a week for off-campus religious instruction, which is close to an entire school day, every week, all year. Families already have every evening, every weekend, and in many high schools an actual religious elective to pursue that, without touching the school day. As an educator, I don't think that trade-off makes sense, especially with where our kids already stand on reading and math. I'd also note this bill strips what used to be a local school board decision and turns it into a statewide mandate, removing local school control.
12. Should N.C. law (G.S. §90-21.5) continue to allow minors to consent to the treatment of venereal disease or other reportable communicable diseases, pregnancy (not including abortion), abuse of controlled substances or alcohol, and emotional disturbance, without parental consent? Y* I support keeping this law. It's not about excluding good parents, it's about the kid who doesn't have a safe home, who won't seek treatment for an STI, addiction, or a mental health crisis at all if it means a parent has to be told first. Take away that confidentiality, and you don't solve the underlying problem, you just make a vulnerable teenager stop seeking care entirely. I'll always come down on the side of making sure that all kids are supported and have the support they need.
13. Should churches and other qualified religious organizations continue to receive tax-exempt status? Y* Yes, unless they engage in political movements, including endorsing candidates and or parties.
14. Should a person’s religious beliefs influence the decisions they make while serving in public office? N* My values come from my faith, same as they do for a lot of people. I don't think anyone fully separates the two, and I'd be wary of someone who claims they can. But when I take that oath, I'm not there for my church or my faith, I'm there for everybody. The decisions I make will be for all the people I represent, not by writing individual faith's beliefs into laws for people who may not share those same beliefs. My character comes from my faith. My decisions belong to the people of North Carolina, and especially the 89th District.
15. Should the number of terms a state legislator may serve in the North Carolina General Assembly be limited? Y* I support term limits...and I think you have to look at this alongside another problem: how gerrymandered our maps are. My opponent has held this seat since 1999, 27 years, and he's the second-longest serving member in the entire NC House. People will point to his lopsided win margins and say, 'well, voters clearly want him there.' But when a district is drawn to be safely one party before a single vote is cast, a big margin doesn't mean voters had a real choice, it means the map made sure they didn't. This district is drawn nearly three-to-one in one party's favor. That's not competition. That's a district engineered to produce exactly the outcome we're seeing. Term limits matter most precisely in a state like ours, where gerrymandering already protects incumbents from real electoral accountability. If the maps won't create competition, and elections alone can't dislodge someone, then term limits become one of the only tools left to make sure power doesn't just diminish in the same hands for decades. Our governor is term-limited. I think a legislature that draws its own safe seats has even less excuse to exempt itself from that same standard.