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Posted on 01/12/2004 6:00:06 AM PST by TaxRelief
Lust for power has made lawmakers forget responsibility to public TOM ASHCRAFT, Special to The Observer
(In 2002 Tom Ashcraft, a NC attorney, won the Pope Award from the John Locke Foundation for his efforts that resulted in the demise of forced bussing.)
Politics brings out the best and worst in human beings. When Ronald Reagan lost the GOP presidential nomination to Gerald Ford in 1976, he was the epitome of graciousness and magnanimity. Among other things, he made a warm and rousing convention speech, apparently impromptu, at Ford's request.
By contrast, almost any day the N.C. General Assembly is in session, selfishness and pettiness go on parade. Otherwise reasonable and decent people, once they commence work under that hideous multi-pyramidal roof of the Legislative Building, prove that the doctrine of original sin is still the truest thing in the world.
The best example may be the imbroglio over redistricting. My first brush with the issue came more than a decade ago in a phone conversation with then- State House Rep. David Balmer, a young Republican leader from Charlotte.
He enthusiastically explained how he was pushing a plan to guarantee large Republican gains. The idea that he might use his power to set up fair, equitable and compact districts for the public good was not on his radar screen.
Balmer didn't last long in politics after he was exposed in 1994 for lying about his resume. And his efforts to gerrymander for partisan advantage have proved meager compared to recent ones.
When the General Assembly had to redistrict after the 2000 census, the Democrats held a majority in both houses. The plan they enacted in 2001 not only assured them a continuing majority, but according to reliable projections, it would have led to competitive elections in 2002 for only 14 of 120 House seats and only six of 50 Senate seats. Democracy was being strangled by the Democrats.
In order to accomplish such a sweeping gerrymander, the honorables ignored provisions of the state constitution which bar dividing counties in the formation of legislative districts -- a tradition older than the State of North Carolina as it goes back to colonial days. On the Senate side, 51 of the state's 100 counties were divided; on the House side, 70 were.
For some Republicans this was the last straw. They struck back with a lawsuit filed in Johnston County, Stephenson v. Bartlett. In the end, after stops in federal court and a landmark decision by the N.C. Supreme Court, the 2002 election was held with temporary districts drawn by state Superior Court Judge Knox Jenkins. A few counties were divided to comply with federal law ("one person, one vote" and Voting Rights Act), and Democratic gerrymandering was curtailed but not eliminated.
The 2002 election produced a Senate of 28 Democrats and 22 Republicans, despite statewide vote totals for Senate candidates of 48 percent Democratic, 52 percent Republican; and a House of 59 Democrats and 61 Republicans, despite statewide vote totals for House candidates of 44.9 percent Democratic and 55.1 percent Republican (www.SouthNow.org). After internal Republican betrayals and backstabbing, the House split 60-60, and Democrats retained effective control through a co-speakership under Democrat Jim Black (Mecklenburg) and Republican turncoat Richard Morgan (Moore). The Senate was kept in line by Democrat Marc Basnight (Dare).
According to Judge Jenkins' orders, the 2003 General Assembly was free to enact its own permanent redistricting, which presumably would govern until the next census in 2010. Legislative leaders purposely tarried, however, and did not schedule redistricting until a special session called for Thanksgiving week. Then they presented an elaborate bill and gave members in the House only 45 minutes to consider it, according to Republican Rep. John Rhodes (Mecklenburg).
The fix was in, protecting favored incumbents in both parties, and a successful cram-down was accomplished. Democracy was choked again -- the full extent not yet clear -- but this time on a bipartisan basis, with opposition from principled Republicans.
Among the provisions in the redistricting legislation was this gem: all existing and future redistricting cases must go to a special three-judge panel of the Wake County Superior Court. The law transferred the Stephenson case, still pending in Johnston County, to Wake County.
Legislative leaders were evidently not too keen on Judge Jenkins' map making from 2002.
Nobody really knows where all this is heading in 2004 except that it will be a royal mess, with the courts having to make sense out of the legislative hash. What is certain is that the lust for power among those running the General Assembly has made them forget why they're in public office and the duty they owe the people of this state. At a minimum that should include not engineering a train wreck for their own political self-aggrandizement.
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