Barry Smith, Capital Correspondent for Freedom Newspapers has a piece out today about the effects of North Carolina's growing population on this state's representation in Congress. We could be in line for another seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after the next census.
Barry brings up the point that the fighting over redrawing the district lines could get ugly. Like it did back in 2002, 2003 and 2004. You could have another situation where a member of the redistricting committee decides that not only would he like his own seat in Congress, he'll draw the lines so dramatically that he really won't need to campaign too hard every two years. All of this speculation is hypothetical, of course, and should bare no resemblance to any current members of Congress from Raleigh named Brad Miller. (That's Miller in the pic conferring with Sen. Dodd of AIG bonus fame.)
When politicians use their power to plan a promotion and select their voters, we need to be worried about the state of our democracy. Voters should select their representatives; not the other way around.
Smith is right. Population can cause a lot of trouble.
BTW, you can can Barry's live act at the Civitas Poll Lunch this Thursday. Click here to register for the lunch.
if the republicans can get some balls and take these redistricting cases to court after this case in pender county that went all the way to supreme court , the N.C. Constitution says this.
ARTICLE II
LEGISLATIVE
Section 1. Legislative power.
The legislative power of the State shall be vested in the General Assembly, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.
Sec. 2. Number of Senators.
The Senate shall be composed of 50 Senators, biennially chosen by ballot.
Sec. 3. Senate districts; apportionment of Senators.
The Senators shall be elected from districts. The General Assembly, at the first regular session convening after the return of every decennial census of population taken by order of Congress, shall revise the senate districts and the apportionment of Senators among those districts, subject to the following requirements:
(1) Each Senator shall represent, as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants, the number of inhabitants that each Senator represents being determined for this purpose by dividing the population of the district that he represents by the number of Senators apportioned to that district;
(2) Each senate district shall at all times consist of contiguous territory;
(3) No county shall be divided in the formation of a senate district;
(4) When established, the senate districts and the apportionment of Senators shall remain unaltered until the return of another decennial census of population taken by order of Congress.
Then look at article 2 sectio 3 – 3. We need to get rid of these dipping in to counties like Brad Miller did in Guilford County and Phil Berger has also dipped in to Guilford County. It is unconstitutional and needs to be fixed.
If the Republicans ever want to have a chance at this process they need to START NOW and demand a independent redistricting commission to change the whole process.
Will post on this issue once I can do a little research on the whole process but in the nc constitution it says you can’t cross county lines and that needs to happen.