There’s an interesting bill floating around in the General Assembly. Remember last session when the legislature made City Council races in the Town of Sanford partisan? Well, now they want to do the same thing, just to every county and municipality in the entire state. SB 650, dubbed an “elections transparency” bill, would make all school board races, city council races, and judicial races partisan affairs. That would be a change for many counties, whose ballots do not reveal the party affiliation of the candidates running in those contests.
What is the motivation here? My guess is there are a lot of local elected officials, especially in rural counties, who are Democrats but the voters don’t know it. Forcing their party affiliation to be revealed on the ballot would probably provide a boost for Republican candidates. For those who question the importance of local races, that’s where a lot of your state and federal candidates come from. Should this bill become law, Democrats would probably suffer losses.
Some would question injecting partisanship into races that some feel should be strictly nonpartisan affairs. Others would say, what’s the harm in providing more information to voters? (The bill is entitled “The Elections Transparency Act.” Alternatively, one could label it the “Voter’s Right to Know Act.”) Supporters say these races are already partisan, and not providing the party affiliation on the ballot is just an inconvenience to voters. After all, for most folks, the first thing they try to find out about non-partisan candidates is what party they belong to and what beliefs they hold. For now, this can only be obtained in a voter guide.
For those interested, the bill is 20 pages long, so there might be some interesting tidbits that haven’t yet been picked up by the media. This is not a local bill, so it would require the governor’s signature, or the lack thereof, in order to become law.
Should this bill get legs, Democrats will likely blast it as yet another example of the General Assembly inappropriately getting itself involved in the affairs of local governments. So, there could well be some political blowback. Interestingly, 2 of the 4 GOP House members defeated in the last election cycle were charged with helping the legislature intervene in the affairs of their respective counties. A bill doing the same thing, just for every county in the state, might make some legislators squeamish about perhaps biting off more than they could chew. Of course, what matters is what the voters think about all this. Informing the public, or injecting partisanship?
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
I don’t know why they even bother to vote on these veiled partisan bills. They have veto-proof margins in both houses and own the governor’s mansion. It would be so much simpler is they just banned the Democratic party in NC and create the Republican Republic of North Carolina. We allowed this happen. We get the government we deserve.
spot on!
I hope they/we will choose to focus on passing the North Carolina Voter Education Act (SB 533) which would re-brand, promote, and improve the State Board of Elections website making it such that citizens could simply enter their address and receive all their relevant election information, including links to all their relevant candidates. SB 533 would make it much easier to be informed. SB 533 is also currently in the Rules Committee.
I haven’t read the bill, but your description of the Voter Education Act sounds as if the act is a great idea and long overdue. I suspect the “re-brand”ing aspect of the bill might provide grounds for opposition, though. I wonder why the Board of Elections can’t make their website more user-friendly without having to rely on the legislature to pass a bill. It seems like the sort of thing an IT guy on salary would handle as part of his job.
SB 533 is a one-page easy read, and I completely agree with you that it’s the sort of common sense thing that shouldn’t require legislative action, but apparently the idea of creating links to all the candidates is something the SBOE won’t do without permission from Raleigh.
As for the re-branding, I believe the idea is to introduce a memorable URL, perhaps something like NCVotes.gov, to make it easier for people to remember. Then, post signage in public spaces pointing people toward the resource.
I really hope this happens because it’s super obvious stuff, and would be such an easy nonpartisan/confidence building thing to do.
Hard to believe there’s a bill designed to end partisan elections when better access to information is so easy to provide.
SB533> SB 650
edit- “Hard to believe there’s a bill designed to end *nonpartisan* elections when better access to information is so easy to provide.”
After 5 years of watching the NCGOP operate, it’s pretty easy to figure out if a bill is partisan. If a bill is proposed by a Republican, it’s partisan. Period.
Every bill the GOP proposes has a partisan, keep-us-in-office-and-in-the-majority angle to it. From the tax reform act, to their religious freedom bill, to the Wake County commission gerrymandering act, GOP bills have nothing to do with making NC a better place to live, work, and play. Rather, they have everything to do with pandering to their supporters and staying in power.
As Butch Cassidy once said “who are these guys”? Their naked grab for power by changing laws, meddling in local government is breathtaking. I understand getting and keeping power, but is not funny and is starting to feel like a banana republic.
I can only hope the voters and the courts!! speak up. This is serious business.
Not going anywhere john… 03/30/2015 Senate Ref To Com On Rules and Operations of the Senate
http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2015&BillID=sb650
Thanks! Stuff I’ve been reading seemed to imply otherwise.
The ballot ought to list just the name of the candidates. Listing the party affiliation encourages lazy voters to vote by party rather than by candidate. Voting by party is a very poor substitute for voting for the best candidate for the job. A political party’s primary concern is staying in or getting in power, not doing a good job in office. Two candidates from the same party might have drastically different views on what needs to be done in office. A moderate Democrat might have more in common with a moderate Republican than with the fringe element of the Democratic Party and vice versa. If a voter wants to vote by party affiliation it is easy to do so, but we shouldn’t encourage it by putting the party affiliation on the ballot. Party affiliation is a type of biographical information like age, place of birth, professional occupation, hair length, etc. It ought not to be on the ballot even if most people choose to use it to decide for whom to vote.