Voters deserve a choice

They trotted out a couple of the ol' boys last week to talk about our rigged political system.

Tim Valentine, a Democrat, and Bill Cobey, a Republican, have forgotten more about Tar Heel politics than most young whippersnappers are ever likely to learn.

Both served in Congress. Both were chairmen of their respective political parties. Both served as high-ranking members of administrations in Raleigh. Both have a lot of gray hair.

And both think something has gone awry with a political system in which few voters will have meaningful choices when they go to the polls in nine days.

That is because the legislature has used redistricting -- which must be done after every census -- to make most seats as competitive as an old Soviet-style election. Self-preservation is one of the strongest basic drives.

"It's like in the DNA of politicians," said Cobey, a Durham County Republican. "If they have an opponent -- it could be Humpty Dumpty -- it will scare them to death."

Most Tar Heel politicians have nothing to fear. To lose, they would, in the immortal words of former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, have to be discovered in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.

This election, half of the members of the General Assembly -- 86 of 170 legislators -- are already elected because their seats are uncontested. In the vast number of contested seats, the incumbent is running against a stiff, a sacrificial lamb or someone on a mission from God or the Sierra Club.

The same is true for the 13 congressional seats.

Bid for reform

The lack of competition is why Valentine, 80, and Cobey, 67, have joined an ideologically diverse group, the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying & Government Reform, which is pushing for an independent redistricting commission to draw new lines.

"North Carolina's voters deserve choice in who they elect," Cobey said. "But come November, most voters won't have a choice. There is something wrong with democracy in our state."

The reform effort that kicked off last week is designed to get some qualified, high-minded, disinterested residents to draw district lines that are fair and equitable. The legislature would vote up or down on the commission's plan.

As it stands, most state and federal lawmakers don't have to explain their positions to voters. With most lawmakers coming from either heavily Democratic or heavily Republican districts, there is little pressure to seek consensus.

Some say the current system is really not so bad. The state's voters are divided roughly between Democrats and Republicans and so are the legislative and congressional delegations. If more seats were competitive, the cost of elections would likely explode.

So how to do you get lawmakers to give up power over their own political future?

Not easily, everyone agrees. And maybe not at all.

"Wasn't it Lord Acton who said 'All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'?" asked Valentine, who lives in Nash County. "This is going to be hard to do."