Political Career
Ballance was first elected to the House of the state legislature in 1983 and served until 1986. In 1988, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate; that same year, he had served as chair of the Warren County chapter of the NAACP. Ballance served in the state senate until 2002, including as deputy president pro tempore from 1997 to 2002. He was appointed to the Board of Trustees for both North Carolina Central University and Elizabeth City State University.
Ballance ran for, and was elected to, the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina's 1st congressional district in 2002. After election to Congress, he served as the president of the 108th Congress's Democratic freshman class. Ballance served on the House Agriculture Committee and the House Small Business Committee.
On June 8, 2004, Ballance resigned from his seat due to health issues after being diagnosed with myasthenia gravis. Ballance's successor, G. K. Butterfield, was elected in a special election on July 20.
Read more about this topic: Frank Ballance
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)