Will GOP abuse power?

The Mt. Airy News
November 14, 2010

If the Republicans who gained control of the North Carolina Legislature are serious about doing things differently from the Democrats, the redrawing of North Carolina's congressional and legislative districts is an excellent good place to start.

The state's budget deficit may be the toughest issue confronting lawmakers, and the one that looms largest in the minds of many voters. But the maps that determine voting districts will shape North Carolina's political and legislative future for many years to come. How district maps are redrawn won't just determine the fate of individual politicians in future elections. The process will be a prominent force in shaping legislative alignments for at least the next decade.

The question is, now that Republicans have seized the redistricting reins, will they manipulate the process to consolidate their power - as Democrats did - or will they restore some sanity to gerrymandered districts like the N. C. 3rd and 12th, and apportion voting populations along more logical lines? Or, to put it in more familiar terms, will Republicans let voters pick candidates instead of allowing candidates (or, in this case, sitting legislators) to choose their favored groups of voters? In recent years, the out-of-power party argued for reform of the redistricting process. They filed bills calling for the Legislature to surrender redistricting rights and hand over that responsibility to an independent commission, as several states have done.

Now, with redistricting on the agenda for the next legislative session (based on population shifts in the 2010 census), there isn't time to establish such a commission, even if Republicans were inclined to do so. Setting up a redistricting commission would require an amendment to the state Constitution. While state lawmakers should make that a long-term goal, it's too late in the game to have such a system in place for this round of redistricting..

It may not be realistic to think politics can ever be entirely removed from redistricting, but North Carolina deserves something better than districts that appear to have been drawn by an out-of-control Etch A Sketch. If Republicans really intend to wield power in a different way, the redistricting process can help draw that distinction.