Michael Oakes, a third-year studying mechanical engineering and a member of the Wake Libertarian Party, is running for District 49 in the North Carolina General Assembly. Oakes said he hopes to represent the interests of young voters and plans to focus on marijuana legalization, education reform and housing affordability.

Steven Greene, a professor of political science, said he appreciates Oakes’ drive to be involved in state politics. 

“One of the things, honestly, that can be frustrating as a political scientist is that everyone wants to focus on national politics,” Greene said. “But what happens in your local state legislature and what happens in your city or town council can usually have far more of an impact on your daily life than what’s going on in Washington, D.C.” 

A primary aspect of Oakes’ platform is legalizing marijuana possession and distribution for individuals over 21. Oakes said implementing sales and excise taxes on marijuana could reap a substantial amount of tax revenue.

“The government has this market where their current policy is to punish people, who are going to get it one way or another, for really no gain, whereas, from a pragmatic perspective, they could be tapping into this and reaping the benefits of making it a white market,” Oakes said.

According to Greene, legalizing marijuana has minimal drawbacks. 

“There’s almost never anything that’s a pure benefit and no cost,” Greene said. “We’ll probably have some non-trivial number of people who develop marijuana dependencies who did not before, and we should recognize that. And maybe part of the [tax] revenue should go to help with that, to help people who have developed unhealthy dependencies on marijuana and to addiction treatment centers. But even accounting for that, there’s so much more upside than downside.”

Oakes said he wants to remove barriers that restrict parents from determining which public school is suitable for their children and enable open enrollment. He said traditional school zoning requires parents to submit an application for transfer to a different public school and provide their own transportation, which leads to inequitable educational outcomes.

“We know the effect that economic stratification has on a lot of minority groups, and  what ends up happening is, these application processes and associated costs end up disproportionately affecting them,” Oakes said.

Oakes said instead of allocating funding to public schools based on property values within individual school zones, funding should be based on other factors, such as enrollment and test scores, to provide an incentive for schools to boost performance.

“If there’s one school that is outperforming the others so impressively that it is able to draw in people from a significant distance, I say we reward the school because clearly they’re doing something right,” Oakes said.

Oakes said another critical concern to young voters is lack of affordable housing. He seeks to encourage inventive solutions to rising housing costs by simplifying the process of rezoning non-residential areas to residential space or eliminating zoning laws altogether. Oakes said other cities serve as a model for this plan.

“Houston, Texas rescinded city zoning — now that’s not to say that there’s a nuclear power plant next to the kid’s playground or anything — but what happens is, the land usage is decided by ordinances, and the areas that are developed for certain things, whether it’s residential or commercial, are just decided by the demand,” Oakes said.

According to Greene, this strategy could enable housing development to increase, which would lead to lower housing costs.

“Everybody knows supply and demand,” Greene said. “You increase the supply, costs go down.”

Oakes said he stands out from his competitors because his platform is directed at addressing key issues faced by young people.

“This is about the young voices in North Carolina,” Oakes said. “We need to make sure that North Carolina is ready to accept all these young people, because if we don’t, we’re kneecapping ourselves. The next decade is going to be decided by how we accommodate, or how we let people accommodate, these young families, these young students. What sets me apart is that I’m a very young voice.”

Greene said voter turnout is lower for young voters, which could present a challenge to Oakes’ campaign. 

“Young people are the least attentive and attuned to politics, and I always like to point out, it is not their fault,” Greene said. “As you grow older, and you have a mortgage, and a job, and a family, and kids in schools, and you’ve lived in the same place for 20 years and have a sense of community, all of these things make you more likely to vote. 20-year-olds have none of these things.”

Greene said another foreseeable challenge for Oakes is that independent campaigns for state legislature rarely come to fruition. 

“For somebody outside the two-party system to break through, you need truly extraordinary circumstances,” Greene said. “People vote based on party more than ever. So to be a state legislator that is going to break out of that mold, especially the Libertarian party, forget about it.” 

Although campaigning as an independent candidate can be tough, Oakes said he hopes voters will see past partisanship and resonate with his platform. 

“What I like to say is, the purpose of my campaign — and the purpose of any campaign, truly, even though it’s been a bit obfuscated by the two party system — should be to get your views and your ideas that you genuinely espouse and think will help people to them, so they can decide for themselves if it’s a good idea,” Oakes said.