"Mitigate the Rural/Urban Divide" By Removing Representative Government From the Cities, Sez Member of the NCGA

One cow, one cop

The constitutional principle of "one person, one vote" was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Sims (1964) which ruled that state legislatures, unlike the U.S. Congress, "needed to have representation in both houses that was based on districts containing roughly equal populations, with redistricting as needed after censuses." Some states directly affected by that ruling had an upper house (Senate) based on per-county allotments, not on population, a set-up obviously giving unequal and therefore unfair political power to rural counties. States like that don't get liquor-by-the-drink without a big fight. 

Also in 1964, in Wesberry v. Sanders, the same Earl Warren Court declared that equality of voting — and they expressly used the term "one person, one vote" —means that "the weight and worth of the citizens' votes as nearly as is practicable must be the same," and ruled that states must also draw federal congressional districts containing roughly equal represented populations. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

Conservative rural politicians have always hated that decision, and they have gotten more aggressive lately -- gerrymandering, yes, but also a culture war often egged on by preachers. Right now in countless country churches, cities are both jokes and monsters of deviance, objects to fear -- and pray for, of course! -- the dangerous liberties of the city.

But math is not on their side. Because in NC, many more persons/votes -- too damn many of them! -- live in cities that always seem to elect Democrats who fit the stereotype of "liberal" -- for just one example, allowing men to dress as women and parade around provocatively. What do you do about the constitutional math, if you also happen to hold all the power? What to propose? How about this: Test the constitutional precedent of "one person, one vote" specifically for the NC Senate, and propose we do it like the US Senate -- membership based on real estate, not population. If each state, no matter their population, can have two  senators apiece (count-em!), then why can't a state's counties also be the basis for apportionment? 

A Long Way Getting To This

A Hickory Republican, Rep. Jay Adams, appears to be serious about introducing a constitutional amendment in the General Assembly to change the way the 50 state senators are selected. He wants to "pair" together contiguous counties (whole counties, no matter their physical size or population), each 2-county district to get 1 senator -- 100 paired counties equals 50 senators. The arbitrary nature of it takes the breath away.

Adams in his very forthcoming interview with A.P. Dillon becomes seriously hilarious (and not in a good way) as he tries to explain his political science for pairing counties: “My thinking would be that we would start from the east and the west and pair counties, and then as we got to the center [of the state], we would have a little bit more of a challenge .... what county is going to be associated with Mecklenburg? And what county is going to be associated with Wake? I don’t think these adjacent counties are going to willingly attach themselves, but we’ll see.”

We'll see? Why, yes. But note the implication: Meck and Wake are seriously icky.

While Adams finds the idea of challenging a Supreme Court ruling “daunting,” he pointed to a scholarly report examining the issue published by the University of the Pacific Law Review titled “Little Federal Model: One County, One Vote.”

“It was written a year ago and it talks about the rural/urban divide and the tensions that exist between the rural areas and the urban areas, which I think is probably most pronounced right now by what’s going on in Oregon,” Adams said. “You got 63% of the state land area that’s trying to secede and attach itself to Idaho, and, interestingly, that 63% of the land area only represents 9% of their population. So, there’s growing tensions in this area.”

I'm impressed. Jay Adams read something, "a scholarly report," that challenged the legitimacy of Sims, Wesberry v. Sanders et al., probably with impressive legal footnotes. The establishment of the US Senate embedded in our Republic a wholly different but no less legitimate theory of apportionment. That's the argument.

It's wrong.

 

Can a Democrat Win NC House District 96?

North Carolina House District 96 is weirdly carved out of northwestern Catawba County. Includes most of Hickory, St. Stephens, Conover, Long View, and Mountain View, plus the densely populated but more rural neighborhoods along Lee Cline Rd. and Spring Rd. in northernmost Catawba. According to numbers guy Michael Bitzer, Trump carried the district in 2016 with 63.79%. (Trump carried most other western North Carolina counties by 70% or more, except for a couple of exceptions -- Watauga and Jackson, I'm looking at you -- so a Trump majority of 64% looks almost like moderation.)

Democrat Kim Bost ran for the NCH96 seat in 2018. She got 39.26% of the vote. The Republican incumbent Jay Adams took 60.74%. Meaning that Kim Bost did better on the ballot than Hillary Clinton did against Trump in '16. Kim Bost is running again. She celebrated her 2020 Kickoff on January 14, attracting good attention and support. Where there's only a ten-point gap (did I just say only?) in a Western North Carolina district, there's hope. There's at least room for improvement. (Bitzer rates the district "Safe Republican.")

This district has a poverty level of 14.1%, slightly lower than the state's 16.1%. It's been a fading industrial sector with a blue-collar workforce under economic pressure. Median household income, $50,758. Only 26% of the population holds a four-year college degree, though the Apple data center in Catawba and the Google data center in neighboring Caldwell, along with high-tech manufacturers like Corning Optical and CommScope, may be drawing new residents with higher educational attainment. At first blush, this district offers a Bernie Sanders kind of demographic, though Bernie only pulled 44% of the vote in all of Catawba County against Hillary in the March 2016 Democratic primary. He might do considerably better on a General Election ballot (and we might actually get the chance to see that).

Kim Bost is an attractive candidate, but so far I can't tell that she's upping her game from 2018. She hasn't updated her website -- it still says "vote for me on November 6." The policy positions are solid and well written but safe. Considering the numbers above, why not go full "progressive populist" in House District 96, and find those citizens who haven't been voting and who need a little rabble-rousing incentive to register? Going for broke because the numbers are against you isn't every candidate's cup of tea. Bost can hope for a strongly progressive Democrat at the top of the ticket -- or for the old working-class affection to ignite for Joe Biden, if that's still a thing come November. I'm persuaded by the analysis of Rachel Bitecofer that Democratic winning margins since 2016 have depended on energizing a sector that hasn't been regularly voting -- not on winning mythical "moderate" Republicans. Democrats will not win Republican vote in sufficient numbers in a district like NCH96. Democrats have to find and register new, previously disengaged voters and build a fire under the slackers with what Bitecofer calls "negative partisanship."

The crowd for @BernieSanders in Cedar Rapids last night

Bost is active on both Twitter and Facebook, though less active on Twitter where she could drive a message ("North Carolina is broken, and I can tell you who broke it! His name is Jay Adams"). I appreciate videos but not ones with poor sound quality. I think Bost has a following of dedicated volunteers who'll do door-knocking and phonebanking, but she needs exceptional data management that can identify and target persuadable marginal voters and turfs with concentrations of the unregistered.

The Man Who Broke North Carolina -- Incumbent Jay Adams

Republican incumbent Jay Adams is a 73-year-old Boomer and real estate broker (specializing in commercial real estate) who's held this House seat since the elections of 2014. In Civitas rankings, he's 13th most conservative in the House, going along with the tax-the-middle-class-but-not-the-rich agenda of the Republican majority in Raleigh -- shift the tax burden while squeezing education and denying health insurance to the most vulnerable. He chairs no committees. He's a soldier who marches to Speaker Tim Moore's drum, and he looks plenty prosperous for the effort.

Kim Bost, Taking Another Shot in Catawba County

In 2018 we paid attention to Democrat Kim Bost when she ran for the NC House, District 96, contained entirely within Catawba County and taking in most of Hickory and Conover and some of Newton. The 2018 Blue Wave didn't make it to NCH96. Bost drew only 39.26% of the vote against Republican incumbent Jay Adams.

She announced on Facebook yesterday that she's going again for the seat in 2020. It's an uphill slog, no doubt, but certain indicators ought to mean something for Bost to build a stronger coalition in 2020.

For one thing, Charlotte Williams, a very strong Democrat, won her primary for Hickory Ward 2 alderman back on October 8. She's up against a Republican in the November elections. Granted, the alderman races in Hickory are officially non-partisan, but Williams in one of those classic progressives who's very visible in the community: She's the associate dean of Engaged and Global Learning and the program coordinator for the Human and Community Service major at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She serves on the Habitat for Humanity board and the Cognitive Connection Substance Abuse Program board. She previously held leadership roles as the vice-chair of the Hickory City Public School Board, president of the Women’s Resource Center, vice-chair on the Council of Adolescents, and secretary of the United Arts Council.

Why am I talking about Charlotte Williams, a candidate for Hickory City Council, and not Kim Bost, an incipient candidate for the NC House? Because Charlotte Williams obviously has a base of support in Hickory that Kim Bost can/should build on (especially if Williams ends up winning the Ward 2 alderman seat in November).

Furthermore, the two candidates squaring off in November for the Ward 1 alderman seat are both Democratic-leaning Unaffiliated candidates, which means I can't bring myself to think of the City of Hickory as a total Republican stronghold. There are signs of progressivism afoot. Plus the City of Newton has two Democrats serving on its city council and two very left-leaning Unaffiliated members. All of which should add up to an opportunity for coalition-building by a Democrat running in this heavily urban/suburban NC House district. (City of Conover, also in Dist. 96, is a much harder Republican nut to crack, with all of its sitting council members registered Republicans.)

First thing I'd do if I were Kim Bost and had the money -- conduct a telephone robo-poll (combined with texting) of all voters in Dist. 96 and ask one question: "Do you support President Donald J. Trump?" The answer to that question will tell her a great deal about where the persuadable voters are, and where the boulders are that she should avoid dashing herself against. After impeachment, do the poll again. If there's no movement in the Hickory electorate, go to Plan B.

Kim Bost Making (Blue) Waves in NC House District 96

It's downright edifying to watch North Carolina Democratic candidates for General Assembly seats in  "unlikely districts" proving conventional expectations all wet. When did we last see such energy on the Democratic side, such volunteerism among the rank-and-file, such blazing commitment among the resistance?

Kim Bost, running in House District 96, is just one example of in-it-to-win-it grit in a district where no Democrat even filed for the office in 2016. District 96 is a compact piece of real estate taking in some of the densest neighborhoods in Catawba County -- Hickory and Conover, principally. Think post-industrial landscape where factory jobs have been disappearing, median family incomes have not kept pace with the rest of North Carolina -- let alone the rest of the nation -- and property values have been in a slump. Trump Country, right?

Enter Kim Bost, a native of New Jersey who came to Hickory in 1999 to work as a designer for Ellis Hosiery. She's been a close observer of the struggling textile industry and has focused her campaign on North Carolina's ranking as 47th among all the states for worker wages and worker protections. That's a dismal statistic that can be laid on the Republican-dominated General Assembly.

Bost is running an energetic campaign and drawing volunteers in to help with weekly door-knocking, phone banking, and other direct voter contact. She's already passed the landmark of 1,000 doors knocked and is showing no sign of slowing down. It's like she's revved up a resistance that's just been waiting for a leader, for a standard-bearer, for a candidate willing to work hard for it. Bost is active on Twitter and on Facebook. Nothing inspires followers like a hard-working candidate with a solid platform of support for public education, worker rights, and expanded healthcare.

Meanwhile, the incumbent Republican Jay Adams looks like furniture. He votes for what his bosses tell him to vote for, which is every piece of regressive legislation that Berger/Moore came up with. Adams managed to get himself on HB2 as a sponsor, one of the most destructive bills for business in the state's history.

If anyone can break the bad Catawba habit of voting for do-nothing Republicans like Jay Adams, Kim Bost is that candidate.