3-Term Lawmaker Wins Outstanding Legislator Award

By: State: North Carolina | Source: AARP.org

Representative Jean Farmer-Butterfield, a three-term member of the North Carolina House of Representatives representing Wilson and Edgecombe counties, is the winner of the AARP North Carolina Outstanding Legislator Award for the 2008 session.

Farmer-Butterfield has long been a champion of aging issues in the General Assembly and has sponsored numerous bills pertaining to older adults.

During the closing days of the 2008 legislative session, Rep. Farmer-Butterfield convened a joint legislative press conference on aging to draw attention to the needs of older adults and the imperative for the General Assembly to further address these needs. She was joined by 16 additional legislators at the press conference and noted that she saw that event as a springboard for moving an aging agenda forward in the 2009 legislative session.

She is currently co-chair of the North Carolina Study Commission on Aging, and she is now assigned to the House committees on Health and Pensions and Retirement. She has served in the past on the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services.

Rep. Farmer-Butterfield is employed as Director of Guardianship Services for The Arc of North Carolina. Because of this role, she knows first hand about the need for changes in North Carolina's guardianship laws. In 2006 she co-chaired a House Study Committee on State Guardianship Laws.

Previous recipients of the AARP Outstanding Legislator Award include Senators Martin Nesbitt and William Purcell and Representatives Jennifer Weiss and Martha Alexander in 2007 and Representatives Beverly Earle and Debbie Clary in 2006: Ms. Clary now serves in the Senate.