Danger to Democracy: In NC, a national fear plays out in a fight over representation

Ned Barnett

North Carolina's threatened democracy

From Opinion: With narrowed access to polls, gerrymandering and claims of rigged elections, is the state's democratic system 'corrupt'?

On April 12, 1776 – a date emblazoned on North Carolina’s state flag – 83 delegates from the province of North Carolina unanimously passed the Halifax Resolves, a set of resolutions supporting a break from Great Britain that is regarded as a forerunner to the Declaration of Independence.

Now, two and a half centuries later, the state is at the forefront of a national unraveling of what the Revolutionary War achieved – self-determination through democracy.

North Carolina representatives who struck a first blow against oppression have been succeeded by representatives willing to curtail the rights of others through extreme gerrymandering and repressive election laws. The state Supreme Court recently ruled that North Carolina’s Republican-led General Assembly was so distorted by partisan gerrymandering that it lacked the legitimacy to propose constitutional amendments in 2018.

Since Donald Trump’s polarizing presidency, his claims that his 2020 loss was a stolen election and his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, the concern in North Carolina has been subsumed into a broader fear that the United States is losing its grip on democracy and sliding toward autocracy.

A recent NBC News poll found “threats to democracy” was the top issue among voters, higher even than concerns about the economy and inflation. President Biden recently addressed the issue in a speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. “For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed,” the president said. “But it’s not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.”

In North Carolina, those fears about the loss of democracy are playing out in a more subtle but systematic grabbing of power.

Progress halted

Through the eras of slavery and Jim Crow, true democracy was foreign to North Carolina and other southern states, but the state made great progress in extending civil rights and promoting democracy in the latter part of the 20th century and early in this one. That progress halted after Republicans, long in the minority, took full control of the General Assembly following the 2010 election.

The years since have been marked by Republican lawmakers’ drawing of illegally gerrymandered voting districts, moves to limit the voices of Black voters and efforts to weaken the checks and balances provided by three co-equal branches of government. Those actions have brought lawsuits, protests and negative attention in the national press.

“We are kind of the poster child for bad democracy,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of North Carolina Common Cause, which successfully sued to block partisan gerrymandered maps.

The Democrats’ frustration in Raleigh famously came to a head on Sept. 11, 2019. House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican, allowed a surprise vote to override Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget. Many Democrats were absent after being told that no votes would be held in the early morning session.

State Rep. Deb Butler, a New Hanover County Democrat, rose in protest and refused to yield the floor. In a speech that drew national attention and support, Butler shouted: “You shall not do this to democracy in North Carolina, Mr. Speaker.” Repeatedly declaring “I will not yield,” she told Moore, “If you usurp the process in this fashion, you will answer to the people of North Carolina.”

The House went on to override the veto with almost half the House members absent, but there were not sufficient votes in the state Senate to do so.

Despite Butler’s passionate assertion, Moore and the Republicans did not have to “answer to the people of North Carolina.” Republicans, helped by favorable district maps, gained four seats and expanded their majority in the 2020 election. Ensconced in his safe district, Moore defeated his Democratic opponent with 63 percent of the vote.

Republicans counter Democratic complaints by saying that turnabout is fair play. And it’s true that when Democrats were in power, they drew favorable district lines, used the legislative calendar to their advantage and ignored Republicans’ views. But Democrats and nonpartisan observers say the Republican gerrymandering – enhanced by the precision of computers – has taken the practice to a level that renders elections meaningless.

“One could argue they have democracy in Russia because they have an election, but the outcome is already predetermined,” said state Sen. Dan Blue, a Wake County Democrat and Senate minority leader.

With extreme gerrymandering, Blue said, North Carolina is also trending toward sham democracy. It may look like democracy, he said, but given the almost certain results in many districts, “It’s some kind of autocracy.”

Nonpartisan observers agree that gerrymandering has undercut the will of the people in North Carolina. David McLennan, a Meredith College political science professor who studies state elections, said only about 15% of North Carolina’s 170 legislative districts are competitive. “That means,” he said, “that 85 percent of North Carolina House and Senate members face no consequences for voting against the public’s opinion on issues.”

Election cases

The Republican push to put a finger on the election scale in North Carolina has led to two major U.S. Supreme Court cases that could undermine democracy in the nation as a whole.

In the first, Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court declined to outlaw partisan gerrymandering, calling it a matter for state courts. In the second, Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by North Carolina Republican lawmakers on the so-called “independent state legislature theory.” A ruling in the Republicans’ favor would give state legislatures across the nation control over election district maps and election outcomes without any state court oversight.

That prospect has alarmed election rights advocates and leading state judges across the U.S.

“State courts still provide guardrails,” said Thomas Wolf, deputy director with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “You take those state court checks away and it’s basically no-holds-barred going forward.”

U.S. Rep. David Price, a Democrat who was a political science professor before representing much of the Triangle area for decades, serves as vice chair of the House Democracy Reform Task Force. He has backed legislation that would prevent states from gerrymandering and narrowing access to the polls. But that legislation has stalled in the face of Republican resistance in the Senate.

Now Price fears that Trump has moved the Republican Party away from what is essential to democracy – accepting the results of elections.

“There were plenty of things to be worried about with Donald Trump the first three years, but the turn he took after the election, that was unheard of,” said Price. “You would think that a reputable political party would have rejected that. But they have embraced it. I’m very worried about that.”

Rise in voter turnout

For Michael Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, claims that Republicans have diminished democracy in North Carolina are refuted by the rise in voter participation. The 2020 general election saw a record 75% voter turnout and it was strong for the May primary and apparently will be for the November midterms.

“I think democracy is doing great in North Carolina when we see record turnout, record number of votes year over year,” Whatley said.

Voting restrictions the Republicans support are about stopping fraud, not voters, he said: “We want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. I don’t see how that combination would offend anyone on either side of the aisle.”

But making it “hard to cheat” when there’s virtually no evidence of fraud can make it harder to vote. That’s why many Democrats oppose requiring a state-authorized photo ID to vote, unnecessary purges of the voter rolls and interference by partisan poll observers.

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, agrees with Whatley that North Carolina democracy is vibrant as measured by turnout, but there are problems created by Trump’s false claims of rigged elections. In the May primary, more than a dozen counties reported problems with Republican poll observers, who repeatedly questioned poll workers, tried to photograph election documents and enter prohibited areas.

More interference is expected in November, but Brinson Bell said skepticism about the integrity of the election process is not widespread. “What is making this even a question is a small group of people who have found a way to be very vocal. But their message isn’t resonating beyond that small group of people,” she said. “They are getting more and more wild in their assertions and yet have not been able to prove any of the falsehoods.”

Strong voter turnout is not the only measure of the health of democracy. Indeed, turnout may be up because more voters think democracy is at risk. By another measure – whether the will of the people is reflected in the actions of their representatives – democracy is suffering in North Carolina.

The North Carolina General Assembly has acted in ways contrary to popular will on a host of major issues: expanding Medicaid, increasing school funding, more support for the UNC system, gun control, bail reform, ending the death penalty, legalizing marijuana and providing paid family leave and universal pre-kindergarten.

“We are smack in the middle of the country as far as preferences, but what comes out of our state is conservative policies,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University.

Cooper said the tenuous balance of politics in an evenly divided state means that one party in power must seize what it can while it can. “Some of it is exactly what you expect to see in a purple state,” he said. “You see power grabs where power is up for grabs.”

McLennan noted that gerrymandering protects lawmakers from divergent views and allows them to respond to their donors more than popular sentiment.

“Most North Carolinians do not donate money to political campaigns or take the time to speak to their representatives, so they have less influence,” he said.

The Republican-led General Assembly is not only unresponsive to much of what the public wants. Its Republican members are not reflective of the state’s population. Black and Hispanic people represent about one-third of the state’s population, but members of the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate are all white. That lack of diversity reflects the Republican electorate. Ninety-two percent of Republican voters are white, compared to 65% of the electorate overall, according to an analysis by Carolina Demography.

Backing democracy

North Carolinians who care about a balanced and responsive democracy will have to stand up for it in November. Should Republicans regain a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly and win control of the state Supreme Court, they likely will take further steps to lock their party into power.

Tracy Furman heads the North Carolina chapter of Business for Democracy, a fledgling group active in eight states that believes stable politics and trusted elections are essential for small businesses to grow and flourish.

Furman, a Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for Greensboro City Council this year, but she accepted the loss gracefully. She wrote an op-ed for the Greensboro News & Record headlined: “I ran and I lost. Fair and square.”

Now she’s campaigning not for office, but for democracy. She’s telling people that elections are well managed and the results are accurate. But what she’s hearing back are both doubts about democracy and fears for it.

“There are those who think the whole system is corrupt, which is frightening because it is the basis of democracy,” she said. “The other side is people who believe in our system and are frightened by calls to change it. Everybody has angst, but from different angles.”

For Furman, the best and only answer is to spread the truth.

“We need to educate people on why this is a good system, how the checks work and get people to really trust it again,” she said. “We’ve got to change some hearts and minds on this or we’re not going to make it.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com

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