[1] Payne overcame a stutter after attending the Hollins Communications Research Institute in Roanoke, Virginia.

[5][6] At the beginning of the 1989 legislative session he joined with 19 other Democrats and the Republican members of the House to unseat Speaker Liston B. Ramsey and replace him with Josephus L.

[9] In 1992, Payne ran for North Carolina Commissioner of Labor, challenging John C. Brooks, the incumbent, in the Democratic Party.

Brooks' reputation had suffered due to a deadly fire at a chicken processing plant the previous year.

[14] Governor Mike Easley appointed Payne as chair of the North Carolina Employment Security Commission in 2001.