Sen. Tony Rand was a political power who served NC and its university

In the midst of legislative battles, Tony Rand would call the editorial offices at The News & Observer on Fridays — when he’d be back home at his law office in Fayetteville — and he would be heard pacing. He was agitated because a news story or an opinion piece had referred to him as the iron-willed Democratic majority leader in the state Senate who was directing his colleagues to do his bidding on this issue or that.

“Now lemme tell ya’ll,” he’d say in that voice of maple syrup, “Ahm not nearly as powahful as ya’ll say ah am.”

Then everyone would laugh.

For during his long tenure as Democratic leader, Rand, along with President Pro Tem Marc Basnight of Manteo, was indeed a hurricane force on Jones Street. What he wanted done usually got done. In many cases, he was advocating for public education and traditional Democratic causes, and to be sure he’d represent business interests as well. He ruled at a time when Republican voices were muted — a not entirely healthy circumstance that has changed considerably, to make a monumental understatement.

But Rand, who died Friday morning in Blowing Rock after a long fight with cancer, was one of the last of the old-time characters of North Carolina politics — a tall, smooth-talking, good-humored student of political history who was not afraid to turn his wit even on his colleagues.

Once, in a committee meeting, some senators engaged in a long, very long, debate over a proposal to tighten the rules on making them pay expenses on trips to conferences of one kind or another. At one point in the discussion, one senator said, “I would like to know what Sen. Rand thinks of this. Senator, have you been following this discussion?”

To which Rand replied, “Ah’m afraid so.”

“All North Carolinians have lost a dear friend and a committed public servant,” said Brad Wilson, the retired president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, a long-time Rand friend. Wilson also worked with Rand during Wilson’s tenure as chair of the University of North Carolina system Board of Governors. “He did all the good that he could, every time in every place in every way for every person … until the end,” Wilson said.

Rand was a champion of his alma mater in Chapel Hill, and would defend the university even when students or professors had done something with which he disagreed. “Well,” he’d say, “Ya know, sometimes you gotta protect ‘em and kinda allow ‘em to mess up.”

And though he was a tough partisan, even Republican colleagues recognized that Rand cared about the institution of the Senate with a reverence. And he respected its members personally regardless of party affiliation.

Tony Rand was 80 at his death, And he had spent more than half of that long life in service to North Carolina.

This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 2:11 PM.