What Would Be the Remedy for Sen. Hise's Unconstitutional Gerrymander of Watauga?

 

If you're wondering what sort of earthquake it'll be if the Watauga Voting Rights Taskforce wins the lawsuit outlined in the last post below (an admittedly huge if, given the effects of Trump's brow-beating of the Federal judiciary), here is the bottomline (and the last two pages of the suit):

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court:

1. Award preliminary and permanent injunctive relief enjoining Defendants and their agents, officers, and employees from enforcing, implementing, or giving any effect to the reapportionment plans described in Senate Bill 759, Sec. 1 and Senate Bill 912, Sec. 1 in their entirety;

2. Award preliminary and permanent injunctive relief enjoining Defendants and their agents, officers, and employees from enforcing, implementing, or giving any effect to the referendum ban described in Senate Bill 912, Sec. 2 in its entirety;

3. Declare that the reapportionment plans described in Senate Bill 759, Sec. 1 and Senate Bill 912, Sec. 1 are unconstitutional because each violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments;

4. Declare that Senate Bill 912, Sec. 2 is unconstitutional because it violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments;

5. Restore, for purposes of holding elections for the Watauga County Commission , the reapportionment plans approved by Watauga County voters in 2024;

6. Make all further orders as are just, necessary, and proper to preserve Citizen Plaintiffs’ rights to participate equally in elections for the Watauga County Commission and School Board and to be equally represented by members of the County Commission and School Board;

7. Award Plaintiffs their costs, disbursement, and reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in bringing this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988;

8. Tax the costs of this action against Defendants; and

9. Grant such other or further relief the Court deems appropriate.

Watauga County Voting Rights Taskforce (et al.) Challenges Sen. Hise's Unconstitutional Gerrymander of Watauga

 

Brandon Kingdollar, reporting for NC Newsline:

Sen. Ralph Hise

A federal lawsuit brought by voters Wednesday [Oct. 1, 2025] accuses the North Carolina legislature of forcing unconstitutional voting maps on Watauga County to help more Republican candidates win local elections.

The challenge, filed in the Western District of North Carolina by seven Watauga County voters and joined by voting rights advocacy groups, argues that Senate Bill 759, passed in 2023, imposes “unconstitutional, malapportioned electoral districts with large population deviations,” violating the legal principle of one person, one vote.

“The Plan dilutes the votes of Democratic voters by systematically overpopulating the districts in which Democrats have the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice and systematically underpopulating the districts in which Republicans have the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice,” the complaint states.

Watauga Board of Elections Director Matthew Snyder declined to comment on pending litigation. A spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit names the Watauga County Board of Elections and its members as defendants. Advocacy organizations Common Cause North Carolina and the Watauga County Voting Rights Task Force are also plaintiffs in the suit.

Under the previous election system, county commissioners were elected to five residential districts — meaning candidates must live in the district they represent, but the county’s residents vote in all five elections — yielding three Democratic commissioners and two Republicans.

After the new map, made up of electoral districts — where only residents of the district vote on that district’s commissioner — the board is made up of five Republicans. Two districts encompassing most of Boone will not elect commissioners until 2026 under S.B. 759, leaving the majority of the town’s residents with no representation, according to the lawsuit.

Following the election, the three Republicans elected to the commission appointed two Republicans to the remaining vacancies, seats held by Republicans that were vacated to run in the new election.

While the initial law applied the districts only to the Watauga Board of Commissioners, a subsequent bill passed in 2024, Senate Bill 912, extended them to the Watauga Board of Education. The lawsuit also challenges that piece of legislation.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 2019 ruling on North Carolina maps that “partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.” The North Carolina Supreme Court also views such claims as “nonjusticiable under the North Carolina Constitution,” upholding Republican-leaning maps in 2023.

The Watauga complaint centers its legal claims on nonpartisan classes of voters instead, including location and perceived duration of residence. The complaint alleges that Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) sought to dilute the votes of urban students to boost the voting power of rural residents of the county. 

Hise, a Republican whose district includes Watauga, was the lone sponsor of both bills. He said on the state Senate floor in 2023 that he was motivated to counteract “the predominance of [Appalachian State University] and others in the electoral process.” The complaint quotes him pointing to “a longtime standing conflict between the influence of the university and others within the county.”

These remarks, the plaintiffs argue, are an admission of two unconstitutional criteria for the maps: geographic favoritism and discrimination against perceived temporary residents.

Hise did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[The Fate of Last Year's Local Referendum]

When the Watauga Board of Commissioners voted to hold a local referendum proposing new maps without those discrepancies, the General Assembly added to S.B. 912 a provision barring any referendum enacted by Watauga County voters impacting the county commission from taking effect until after the 2032 elections.

Despite the referendum’s passage by a 71% to 29% margin in 2024, it will not take effect for nearly a decade. This violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, the complaint alleges.

“The voters of Watauga County will be stuck with unconstitutional districts for their County Commission and Board of Education, unless this Court intervenes,” the lawsuit states. “Fundamentally, the people of Watauga County have no choice but to petition this Court for urgently needed relief from Defendants’ ongoing violations of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.”

The individual plaintiffs include six Democratic voters and one unaffiliated voter. Three are former members of the Watauga County Board of Commissioners, including Larry Turnbow and Charlie Wallin, who served as chair and vice-chair prior to the 2024 election.

“Watauga County residents voted to adopt fair districts while rejecting the gerrymandered maps imposed on us by the legislature,” said Ray Russell, the other former commissioner joining the lawsuit. “We’re filing this lawsuit to protect our mountain community against the unconstitutional overreach by politicians in Raleigh.”

The New Watauga CoCommish A House of Cards?

 

Last night, two new Republicans were appointed to fill the empty seats on the Watauga CoCommish created by Big Daddy Ralph Hise's gerrymandering local bill: Tim Hodges and Emily Greene. Tim Hodges lives in current Commish Dist. 4, so he's double-bunked with Ronnie Marsh, who was just elected in November. Emily Greene lives in current Commish Dist. 5, so she's double-bunked with Todd Castle who also just won in November. In other words, these two appointments could almost be considered "honorary," since their appointments can only last for two years, and neither Hodges nor Greene will run (we assume) a primary against the very people who appointed them last night.

Newly appointed County Attorney Nathan Miller tried to explain away the stupidity of provisions in the Hise restructuring bill, asserting to the packed house in the Commish Boardroom that the two appointments must come from the old commissioner districts formerly represented by Braxton Eggers and Todd Castle and that they also must belong to the same political party. In other words, "We get to run for election under the new Hise districts, but we get to appoint new commissioners under the old district map." Which is on its face absurd.

Whatever. The point remains that current Commish districts 1 and 2 have no representative on the board and districts 4 and 5 have two each. The voters of districts 1 and 2 have been egregiously harmed, and any one of them, or a group of them, would have standing to sue to bring down this house of cards.

What I'm Thankful For

 

Watching Trump pick the people who'll help him loot the treasury and subvert the Constitution could -- and actually does -- depress the hell out of the sunniest Little Mary Sunshine, but Watauga County said no to Trump in a resounding way. Kamala Harris won Watauga by almost 2,000 votes. In fact, every Democrat on the statewide ballot won easily in Watauga, from the more than 7,000-vote winning margin for Josh Stein to the 338-vote margin for Sarah Taber, that astoundingly qualified woman who ran for Agriculture Commissioner. Congresswoman and Elevator Monitor Virginia Foxx lost her home county (as usual!) by over 2,800 votes.

It was a clean sweep for Democrats in Watauga. Seeing that blue dot in northwestern North Carolina on statewide voting maps is a framable memento to hard work and progressive vision.

The only offices Republicans could win here were Republican judges running unopposed and the three Watauga County Commission seats. The winning Republican commissioner candidates had big, corrupt help from Boss Hogg Hisownself, Ralph Hise, who obligingly gerrymandered the living hell out of our commission so that Republicans could take all three seats. If you're on a low-salt diet, you might want to avert your gaze from the salt those three are about to rub into that wound: For those three products of gerrymandering get to appoint the other two members of the commission (no kidding). That's what a Ralph Hise power-grab looks like.

But note this well: A local referendum to restructure the county commission back to something approaching fairness passed with over 71% of the vote, which was a massive rejection of Hise's gerrymandering. Hise took care of that in advance, putting a clause into his local bill that no changes can be made to his scheme until at least the next national Census.

And incidentally, Ralph Hise lost his senate race in Watauga by 1,700 votes. It was the other counties in his senate district that reelected him. Blame them.

Meet the Public School Teacher Challenging Sen. Ralph Hise: Interview with Frank Patton Hughes

 

I invited Frank Hughes, 38, to my back deck to discuss his candidacy this year for the NC Senate seat held since 2010 by the very powerful chair of both NCSenate Appropriations and Redistricting, Ralph Hise. I heard Frank coming from some ways off. His '04 Subaru with broken shocks, peeling paint, one missing headlight, and a muffler that doesn't deserve the name could be heard for a quarter-mile. When he pulled into my driveway, I commented, "Now that is the automobile of a public school teacher!" And he laughed that full-throated laugh of a man who loves irony.

"Don' worry!" he said. "The frame may break, but that motor is never going to quit." He knows, because he's the master car mechanic who keeps it running. He knows cars. He knows greasy and hard work, a public school teacher who didn't go to college until his late 20s, who had by then spent years working with his hands and his wits, as a roofer, a landscaper, a roust-about, a maker-do of limited means but with boundless optimism.

He learned how to work from his Methodist minister father, who was something of a wizard at motivating his son. Frank told me how his father bought a power mower when Frank was seven, took him outside, said, "Now, let me show you how you prime this." Frank was flattered to be treated like an adult. The lesson went on: "Now, let me show you how you start it. Here's the throttle, like this, and this is how you push it. You take it a round and see how it feels." Frank took it a round, while his father disappeared inside, and Frank was suddenly, as slick as that, forever in charge of mowing the grass.

I asked, "So did you start mowing other lawns for money?" Frank's laughter boomed. "No, no, I'm kind of 'money averse.' If something promises to make me money, I probably won't do it." Take school teaching, for example, especially public school teaching under the regime of Mr. Hise and his fellow Republicans, who have been busily re-appropriating the money from public education and shoving it at private schools.

Frank is what anyone who knows him for five minutes would describe as a happy warrior. He's got a broad smile, even when he's not laughing at the vicissitudes of modern life, an engaging and open personality that it would be awfully hard to dislike, let alone hate. He's singularly appealing as a fellow human being who understands struggle.

Frank was diagnosed at age seven with A.D.D., attention deficit disorder, and was put on two daily doses of Ritalin for years. The drug "dulled me down" with a relentlessness that he now describes as not feeling "sober," but it did focus him in an often unpleasant way. On Ritalin, whatever caught his attention would hold his attention for hours of not quite manic but not quite normal activity. "I constructed a lot of model cars!" While he was being controlled by Ritalin and in the 7th grade, his parents divorced, and Frank began a long period of "ping-ponging" between different households in many different places in North Carolina. The divorce caused a new and intense connection to his two siblings, an older sister and a younger brother, who were sort of thrown into being each other's best friends. The divorce also forced Frank to become much more independent -- that, and a new step-father who practiced a "be prepared for anything" kind of tough love that Frank both resisted and learned from. The step-father was ex-CIA. Frank thought him needlessly mean, but now he appreciates the lessons he learned -- "You've got to look out for yourself, and be prepared for anything!"

After high school, Frank chose to go cold turkey on Ritalin, used marijuana for a time to even out the inevitable cascade of withdrawal, went to work in construction, met his future wife and moved in with her, and married her when he was 21. She was a college graduate and urged him to go, but it was several years of working the furniture market in High Point and putting roofs on high-end construction projects (look at the roof on St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Boone. Frank did that) before he enrolled in Caldwell Community College, got his associate's degree, then attended Appalachian State as a history major and earned his teaching certificate. Both his mother and his maternal grandmother had been teachers. It was in his heritage, and he always had a knack for instruction, showing his younger brother the moves to survive the step-father, for example, and he had taught all his friends the chessboard and its classic strategies. He cites Dr. Tim Silver of the history department at AppState as a major influence on his appreciation of historic perspective and thinking critically. 

WataugaWatch: I mean no disrespect, but what possessed you to take on one of the most powerful Republican senators in a district with a Republican lean of 61.9%? 

 

FRANK PATTON HUGHES:What’s funny is that I don’t think about him in that way. I view Ralph Hise as a danger to our public schools, and therefore this is a cause worthy of a fight. I understand that the district is heavily Republican, but I feel that having strong public schools is a non-partisan issue.

 

WataugaWatch: New and apparently some experienced public school teachers appear to be leaving the profession in significant numbers. Can we blame the attitudes and the poor budgeting on the NC General Assembly?

 

FRANK PATTON HUGHES: Yes, we can blame the General Assembly. They have ignored public school teachers and staff who have been wanting a pay increase for 20 years. The increases we have received have been small and were negated by our loss of Master’s pay, loss of free healthcare, increasing workload, and increasing class sizes.  In short, those issues, and the General Assembly's ignoring research-based knowledge on the negative impact of class size --it  adds up to disrespect, even contempt.

 

Frank Hughes has been a dedicated and apparently effective high school teacher for about a decade, and his philosophy of teaching is based on his own memory: "I didn't like going to class in high school. I was often bored, and I found it a stifling environment." He connects now with students who are just like he was, the "veering off" ones and the already lost ones, the kids who've never had their native abilities challenged and appreciated, like young Frank Hughes with that new mower.

Frank and I talked about being "a P.K.," a preacher's kid. I went to a Southern Baptist college in West Texas with a sufficient number of them, and I knew them as usually the first offenders, if there was any prohibited activity afoot. Frank tells me, "On my 18th birthday, my dad sent me down to go register for the draft. Said, 'If you ever get arrested, don't call me.' So I kept my nose clean. Though the people who knew me in Avery might dispute that."

He also talked about the differences between the Methodist Church and the Southern Baptists, the dominant themometer of the political heat in Western North Carolina: "The message for Methodists was more often about helping one another, being a good person, learning how to stay humble. I went to a Baptist church once. They talked an awful lot about going to hell."

 

WataugaWatch: Your opponent Ralph Hise is acknowledged as one of the most powerful Republicans in the General Assembly. Can you sum up his career, and its effect on Western North Carolina, in one sentence? Or go ahead and use a paragraph!

 

FRANK PATTON HUGHES: Hise is a legislator who doesn’t visit his district and passes unwanted legislation, including unnecessary redistricting. To put it another way, he is not a representative. He does what he wants or what the party asks him to do with little regard for his constituents. I don’t believe the voters know what Ralph Hise is doing, because he’s not present. There are many in the district who have attended certain functions at the General Assembly and tried to speak with Hise, only to be ignored.

The decision Frank made last December to go into the Avery County Board of Elections office, pay the filing fee, and sign up to run against Ralph Hise in 2024 was actually prompted by Hise's own dark arts for gerrymandering legislative districts, numerous county school boards, and very recently the districts for the Watauga County Commission. Frank lives in Avery, which was not in Hise's Senate district, but teaches down the mountain in McDowell County, which is. Frank had heard Hise talk about the terrible evils of the mysterious "critical race theory," and he wanted to understand what that is "so I could avoid it." Frank called Hise's office numerous times, asking for an explanation. He called repeatedly, leaving messages with Hise's legislative assistant. But Hise never called back. Total silence, which seemed like total arrogance.

Then suddenly and very recently, Hise moved Avery County into his own District 47, along with Watauga County. Frank had become in the meantime the chair of the Avery Democratic Party, and he had been preaching to his flock that people needed to step forward as Democrats and run for office. Someone said back to him, "How about you?" Good point, as it turned out. Frank went down on the very first day and put his name on the ballot next to Hise's to represent all the school teachers and the students they teach and the parents who want their schools public and not private. Frank is running hard, knocking doors, going to where the people are, and next week he'll be back in the classroom with hundreds of other seriously under-appreciated public school teachers.

No worries, says Frank. I can do this, because someone has got to.

NOTE

Frank Hughes is but one of several new blue-collar candidates who have emerged in Western North Carolina to defy the odds and carry the banner of fairness and community values -- Darren Staley in Wilkes, running in Senate Dist. 36; Jon Council, running for one of the gerrymandered Watauga County Commission seats; Tanya Robinson, running for a Commission seat in Ashe. They make me thankful to be a Democrat. And hopeful.

Rep. Ray Pickett Shouldn't Brag

 

So NC House Rep. Ray Pickett (R-Watauga) sent out a newsletter dated July 2nd in which he bragged that he helped pass the local bill, S 912, spinning that it's a great plan for enhanced democracy -- "ensure[s] that every resident's voice is heard in the election of local officials." S 912 is the attempt by Senator Ralph Hise to keep the voters of Watauga from rejecting by referendum his new gerrymander of both the County Commish and the Watauga School Board.

Pickett's bragging may be a trifle misplaced, since the destruction of the current non-partisan School Board by a gerrymander that will ensure it will become much more partisan and divided is widely hated by both Republicans and Democrats. The current School Board, which was not consulted nor warned that Hise was about to upend it, is composed of two Republicans, two Democrats, and one Unaffiliated member, and that body unanimously opposed the change.

Pickett doesn't vote in the best interests of the people of Watauga. He votes like Senator Hise tells him.

The Letter the Watauga School Board Sent Opposing Sen. Hise's Bill To Gerrymander School Board Districts

 

At the Senate Rules Committee hearing Tuesday morning on S 912, Ralph Hise's scheme for changing both the Watauga County Commission and the Watauga County Board of Education -- gerrymandered into geographic districts that Hise came up with in the dead of night -- met with strong and unanimous pushback from current Watauga School Board members. The letter below was read into the record, and for the record, the Republican committee members heard but ignored it, voting immediately and without any discussion to approve the Hise bill and send it on to the Senate floor. The bill is not scheduled to go into effect for the School Board until the elections of 2026, but without successful legal action, the schools we know and love will be upended for the whim of a power-hungry state senator.

Dear Senator Rabon and members of the Rules and Operations Committee of the Senate,

The Watauga County Board of Education met this evening (June 17). During the "Board comments" section of our meeting each of the five members of our Board shared their thoughts about Senate Bill 912.

Each member of our Board, for various reasons, expressed opposition to the bill. Even though each of us on the Watauga County Board of Education was elected through a nonpartisan process, we thought it would be helpful to the committee to know that of our 5 members the political affiliations are equally distributed with 2 republicans, 2 democrats, and 1 independent We hope this demonstrates to the committee that our reactions and comments are not politically motivated. They are motivated by the belief that this bill has the potential to weaken one of the consistently top rated school systems in the state.

We feel it is important for you to know that none of us were told this bill was being considered nor were we asked if it was needed (or if it would be helpful in any way). Furthermore, during our discussion of this matter, each of us shared that we had not had anyone in our county speak to any of us indicating they felt there was a need to change anything about the way School Board members have been elected in Watauga.

One of our Board members reached out to the director of our county's Elections and also to the Chair of the Board of Elections and asked the following questions;

Have voters registered any complaints with your office about the election process for the Board of Education? Both the director and the Chair replied, no.

Has Sen. Hise voiced any complaints with your office about the election process for the Board of Education? Both the director and the Chair replied, no. One of our major concerns is that we believe this bill has been submitted with very little input from the citizens of our county. Embedded in this concern is our belief that very few citizens of our county even know this bill has been proposed.

Another concern we have is around the issue of moving to district elections and eliminating at-large elections. Each of us have varying concerns about this. Each member expressed the concern that this would create the potential to limit the number of people who would run for Board of Education that are passionate about public education and motivated to act in the best interest of all our county's schools. Conversely, we feel it would increase the number of people who are coerced into running just because a district needs a school board candidate.

We also are concerned that by electing school board members from districts instead of at large it creates the potential for divisiveness and self-interest instead of cohesiveness and "best for the whole school system" thinking. For the committee's consideration it may be helpful to know that our Board of Education has historically enjoyed having representation from a variety of areas of our county. (This information can be provided to the committee should it like to know the breakdown of representation from the various areas of our county.) We can also provide information (if requested) that shows how moving to district representation could generate potential Board of Education members that would not be acceptable to the majority of the citizens or fairly represent the current distribution of schools in Watauga County.

It is appropriate to add that the Board would like to express gratitude to Senator Hise for including the provision that our Board of Education elections remain non-partisan.

To conclude, in summarizing the many thoughts of the current Watauga County Board of Education members, we have consensus in our belief this bill should not be approved because of the aforementioned concerns and the following additional statements.

The way our citizens elect the members of the Board of Education is not broken and doesn't need fixing.

We are consistently one of the top performing school systems in North Carolina and we are very concerned this bill has the potential to weaken our school system.

Mr Chairman, should you or any of the committee wish to have further information, or dialogue, you may reach out to me or any of our other members. Their names and email can be found on our school system's website at https://www.wataugaschools.org/.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this message and to our concerns as the officials elected by the citizens of Watauga County to represent our excellent school system.

Sincerely and gratefully,

Gary L. Childers

Watauga County Board of Education, Chair

Tonight Watauga County Fights Back Against Sen. Hise

 

Last fall on October 25, Senator Ralph Hise's local bill changing the voting districts for the Watauga County Commission -- and the way its members will be elected, starting this fall -- sailed through the General Assembly with its Republican super-majorities. Hise's bill created five new commissioner districts with three of them gerrymandered to favor Republicans. Every current County Commissioner -- two Republicans and three Democrats -- was put on the record in a public meeting saying they had no conversation with Sen. Hise about this piece of legislation. Believe that, if you can. No public hearing notice, or any sort of open, transparent, or accessible conversation was ever had with the community. Watauga was the only county in the state to be targeted -- punished -- in this way.

The Hise Map, Oct. 2023

The three sitting Democratic county commissioners responded earlier this month by exercising their ability under state law to hold a ballot referendum to return the power to Watauga citizens to set commissioner districts. This was approved in a 3-2 vote, along party lines.

Then, just a day later, Hise introduced a second local bill, saying that a referendum approved by the people in Watauga could have no impact on maps until after 2030, and he went further by gerrymandering our school board members into new districts following the Hise commission map -- again, without public involvement or notice.

The two Hise districts representing the town of Boone and a majority of its suburbs will not be up for election until 2026. These are the only two Democratic-friendly districts in Hise's map. No current representation exists for those districts, as no current county commissioner resides in either. Hise's intention is that the two commissioners in Democratic districts will be appointed by the likely three Republican winners of this fall's election.

Ralph Hise lives in Spruce Pine and has represented Watauga County in the Senate for less than a term. Local bills like Hise's are fundamentally anti-democratic, a form of aggressive government overstep, a power grab, and hyper-partisan.

At its regular meeting tonight, the Watauga County Commission will consider a resolution for the content of a public referendum on county commission districts. Being proposed by the Democrats is a mixed system of three districts based on equal population and geographic distribution and two at-large seats to be elected by the entire county. Three possible maps have been produced by a certified map-drawer who was instructed to draw districts with equal populations with no consideration of political affiliations. These three maps were published in the county commissioner meeting packet for this evening, pp. 59-61, and are reproduced here:

Watauga’s Chance for Home Rule

 By Bricca Sweet, guest-posting

[Editor's Note: For additional background on the redistricting of Watauga's County Commission by Sen. Ralph Hise, see "Does Senator Hise Hate Watauga?" and "Watauga County Commission Sues Over Gerrymander"]

It’s ironic to write this on June 6, the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I’ve stood on the cliffs of Omaha Beach, imagining the grit and terror of the young men coming ashore and scaling those obstacles in the face of withering enemy fire, as they fought for the freedom of a people they didn’t know. Yet on Tuesday evening, I witnessed two of our own Watauga County Commissioners repeatedly reject the notion that Wataugans should decide for ourselves how we elect our county commissioners. Why aren’t they, safely in the comfort of a modern meeting room, fighting for our freedom?

The Hise map for Watauga County
Commissioner Districts

A little background. In the waning days of the 2023 General Assembly (late October), NC State Senator Ralph Hise quickly pushed through a "local bill," legislation specific to Watauga’s county commissioner election process. NC Statute 153A-22 -- proposed without ANY local input -- basically achieved three changes. First, Senator Hise redrew our five County Commission districts so that some of our voting precincts were split into three different districts and the population varied among the districts by well over five percent. Second, Senator Hise changed our voting process from one where we each voted for each commissioner candidate to one where we now can only vote for the candidate from our own district. Third, Senator Hise changed the election rotation basis from terms that depended on the amount of votes each commissioner received to a rotation based on the districts. Conveniently, three of the districts (3, 4, and 5) leaned Republican, and they will be up for commissioner election in 2024, while voters in the Democratic-leaning districts (1 and 2, the largest two districts, with a population of 22,696) can’t even cast ballots for commissioners until 2026. The newly drawn District 1 has no current commissioner residing within it. Commissioner Ray Russell resides in newly drawn District 2, yet his term expires in 2024.

This statute governs how Watauga’s County Commissioner elections will proceed for the 2024 election, unless there is a very expensive lawsuit on the part of the now disenfranchised voters in District 1 or 2. The June 4 County Commission meeting focused on how our elections should proceed in the future. Democratic Commission Chair Larry Turnbow proposed that a referendum be placed on our 2024 ballot, allowing Watauga voters to choose a map of three electoral districts for three commissioners who reside in each of those districts, while two additional commissioners can be elected at-large from a county-wide vote. Turnbow further proposed to seek the services of an independent professional map-maker to provide three proposed maps for the commissioners to consider in selecting one map for the referendum. He imposed these criteria in developing the maps: no use of current voter registration statistics (voter party affiliations); the districts must be equal in population; districts must be contiguous; and no voting precincts can be split. Commissioner Russell added that existing municipalities should be kept intact within proposed districts.

Chair Turnbow stated that the districts in Statute 153A-22, along with the rotation of elections for those districts, were imposed by Raleigh, and did not reflect home rule. All county commissioners have previously stated on record that no one in Raleigh, including Senator Hise, had consulted with them at all in developing these districts or the statute. None of the commissioners had any issue concerning within-district voting, other than the likely consequence of the commission becoming divisive and losing sight of county-wide issues. The ensuing discussion revolved around allowing Watauga citizens to choose how we vote via a referendum, as allowed by state law.

Republican Commissioners Todd Castle and Braxton Eggers repeatedly echoed that they liked the maps as drawn by Senator Hise. They offered no explanation of why they wouldn’t want Watauga voters to decide on district maps along with at-large commissioners. Democratic Commissioner Wallin expressed curiosity as to why, since the terms for Castle and Eggers are not up until 2026, yet the Hise redistricting put their seats up for election in 2024.  Again, there was no reasonable explanation for this. Incredibly, Castle and Eggers explained that they would stay on the commission regardless of the 2024 election. Obviously, if they each win their county commission elections, they would remain commissioners. Astonishingly, they argue that if either or both of them lose, they would then become commissioners for the new Districts 1 and 2. They argued that because they were elected at-large in the 2022 election, this was indeed representation. They couldn’t explain how this would be representation of districts that didn’t even exist in 2022, or how they could be considered commissioners for districts in which they don’t even reside. Neither Castle nor Eggers expressed any concern for the issues that voters from the new District 1 and 2 have over being excluded from the opportunity to vote for their county commissioners.

After all of this laborious and at times heated debate, Chairman Turnbow asked if there was any more discussion of the motion to put the proposed referendum on the 2024 ballot. Commissioner Eggers once again stated that he supported Senator Hise’s maps. The motion passed three to two, with the two Republican Commissioners opposed. It is beyond me to comprehend why there was so much furor over allowing Watauga voters to choose how we would like to elect our county commissioners. I thought that Republicans were all about local control. It’s a quandary.

The point is that we Watauga voters will now be able to exercise home rule in determining how we vote for our own county commissioners. The other bottom-line is that it sadly appears that voters from the new District 1 and 2 (population: 22,696) will likely have no say in their own representation until 2026. It’s vital that we make sure that our fellow voters understand the importance of voting YES on this referendum!

Does Senator Hise Hate Watauga?

New district maps for NC Senate, proposed in S 758.
Dist. 47, which includes Watauga, sends Ralph Hise to Raleigh

 

Ralph Hise's "local bill" completely upending the structure of the Watauga County Commission -- evidently to give Republicans a guaranteed (or nearly) advantage in three of five new commissioner districts -- is now moving in the General Assembly.

What Used To Be: Every voter in Watauga County got to vote in all county commish races. Didn't matter where the voter lived. Did matter where the candidate lived, because each of Watauga's 5 districts demanded residency for the candidate. But any voter in, say, Beaver Dam, could also vote for any commissioner candidate representing far off Stony Fork.

What Will Happen Under Hise's Local Bill: There will be five new geographical districts. The only map I've seen is this one, annoyingly devoid of place labels and lines. Hise has presented no map, only population "blocks" under the Census, which can actually be reconstructed into a map. It's clear enough that Boone (deep blue) has been segregated into a single district. Three new, large, and largely rural districts will ring Boone and pretty much guarantee a perpetual 3-man Republican majority on the commish. 

So, We Get It. Hise has power. Some might claim absolute power. He'll probably get this bill through, and it'll be another notch on Trump-era belts (but to us-ens a grotesque abuse of any understanding of democracy, of how a republic is supposed to govern itself). But we get it. We do get it. We're all naked apes, potentially, and why pass up the opportunity to pound your enemy into dirt and eat his cake?

Citizens Turn Out To Oppose Gerrymandering

 

Part of the crowd at the hearing in Hickory
on Tuesday

A big crowd turned out in Hickory early this week to voice their opposition to gerrymandering. Sen. Ralph Hise, chair of the Redistricting Committee in the Senate, gave speakers only two minutes to express themselves, and there were many people wanting to express themselves, so the hearing went on for two hours. According to the Hickory Daily Record, only one speaker expressed approval for partisan gerrymandering while everyone else said they hate what's about to happen. 

Of course, Ralph Hise and the rest of them don't care what you think, though they went through the motions of listening because the law demands it. The Hickory hearing on Monday was one of only three public hearings the two redistricting committees scheduled. So what difference do the citizens make? Hise admitted that the maps are already being drawn. The last public hearing happened last night in Raleigh, with the biggest crowd of people yet who are fed up with partisan gerrymandering. That hearing went on for three hours.

In April, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled partisan gerrymandering permissible under the state constitution, reversing the previous Democratic court. Chief Justice Paul Newby and Justice Phil Berger Jr. and the rest of the five partisan justices ... just trying to be helpful.

“These hearings are nothing more than shams,” Watauga County resident Ben Henderson said. “Holding these hearings with such little notice so that voters have no time to prepare, in only three locations in the state so that citizens must travel great distances to have their voices heard and at a time of day when most working people are unable to attend, is an affront to every citizen of this state.”

The Bastards in Raleigh

 

They're turning North Carolina into a shithole state.

Ray Pickett, House Dist. 93

Meanwhile, I'm trying to control the acid reaction to them now coursing through my own body politic. The big boys in Raleigh, last seen grubbing for even more unseemly power in the new state budget, put a heavy tax on our last nerve. They only want control of the voting process, control of the judiciary, control of the classroom, and control of their own nasty secrets. (The best run-down on all the bad stuff in the budget was written by Jeffrey Billman for The Assembly -- which is well worth subscribing to. NC Newsline also has excellent cumulative coverage.) I could have cried, "Told ya so!"

I knew when they caved to the governor on expanding Medicaid coverage but tied its expansion to the passage of a new budget -- didn't you know they would deliver a portmanteau of abominables in that budget? Of course you knew it, or else you're a spring flower unaware of coming frost or don't have a clue about the character of these "conservatives" because you didn't believe such cruelty and contempt for democracy could actually exist in modern American human beings. Especially the ones who say they follow Jesus.

Gov. Cooper surely knew and apparently resigned himself to the inevitable horrors the Republicans would visit on representative government. He wanted Medicaid expansion. He's getting it, with tons of stuff he didn't want -- none of us wanted! -- and letting it become law without his signature. Because, you know, Tricia Cotham (plus five other Democrats who haven't switched parties -- four Black and one white -- who also voted for this waste-dump of ideology run amuck).

Ralph Hise, Senate Dist. 47

In my House District 93, Rep. Ray Pickett voted for it. He's just a drone anyway. Under his brand name, he votes for whatever the brand wants. He must be defeated for reelection. Democrat Ben Massey will make the run in 2024. Winning will depend on whether the citizens of District 93 really do prefer pay-to-play, petty vindictiveness, and the scolding laws of men who don't trust women.

In my Senate District 47, Sen. Ralph Hise is the actual author of much mischief (including double-bunking himself with Sen. Deanna Ballard in 2022, to get rid of her). He's already mucho powerful and doesn't mind bending rules to benefit himself further. As Chair of both Appropriations/Base Budget and Redistricting and Elections, Hise has his foot on our necks. Without any doubt, he will run for reelection. So far there's no Democrat willing to carry the flag against him. Both this Senate district and House District 93 were gerrymandered to make them unwinnable by Democrats. How about Democrats and Unaffiliateds together?

NB: Of course all House and Senate districts are up for another round of partisan redistricting (promised for next month, as close as possible to the December filing period for 2024, so that Democrats have less time to recruit and field candidates). Supreme Court Chief Paul Newby decided partisan gerrymandering is the true American way. As I said, they own the highest court and they've taken new steps in the budget to create and control their own Superior Court judges. Holy crap!

Deanna Ballard, Ousted From Her NC Senate Seat, Now Running for Lt. Gov.

 

It was no secret that the Republican leadership in the NC Senate essentially put a knife in former Dist. 45 Senator Deanna Ballard's backside in 2022, double-bunking her in Dist. 47 with powerful Sen. Ralph Hise, chair of the Appropriations Committee and of the (ahem) Redistricting Committee. Hise did the deed to Ballard, drawing them both into his district, and he subsequently knocked her off in the 2022 primary (though with a winning margin of only 362 votes).

According to Ballotpedia, there are already five other Republicans running in the Lt. Gov. primary in 2024. None of them have big statewide name recognition, as is also certainly the case with Deanna Ballard.

Ballard has put out a press release announcing her candidacy for Lt. Gov. It's a curious document in that she seems to be running pretty exclusively on re-litigating the COVID pandemic, particularly the Governor's decision to close schools, because the Republican playbook during the Trump era is all about sorehead, backward looking, not-getting-over-it resentment for any public policy meant to save lives.

Ballard also manages to embrace Mark Robinson as a guiding light in her attempt to replace him in office. Yuck.

Sen. Ralph Hise Drops His New Voter Suppression Law

 

Sen. Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine is now our Senator for Watauga County, and he's an accomplished vote suppressor. His proposed new voting law dropped last night, and we'll all be studying it in the days ahead.

Here's the link if you want to take a look: https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2023/Bills/Senate/PDF/S747v0.pdf

Ralph Hise Is an Asshole (Among Other Things)

 

Yesterday, Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Spruce Pine) (center in blue suit) turned
his back to every speaker who argued in front of his committee that H755
(Don't Say Gay Bill) would do harm to LGBTQ youth

Suddenly, the Republican majority in the General Assembly is rushing through H755, its own version of "Don't Say Gay" bill even though there's zero chance of its getting past Governor Cooper's veto. There can be only one reason for the uselessness of the gesture -- to rile up their base. May it also rile the hell up of the Democratic base.

The bill would ban any mention of sexual orientation or gender identity from the curriculum for kindergarten through third grade. It would also require the school to notify parents if any student, regardless of grade, begins to question their sexual identity in school—such as if a student asks to use a different name or pronoun to describe themselves.

Parents would also need to be notified if a student comes to a teacher or school staff with concerns about mental or emotional health, including any discussion of sexual orientation. (WRAL)

Those speaking against the bill, whom Sen. Hise disrespected so blatantly, "fear the bill could force students into coming out to their families before they are ready. Many studies show LGBTQIA+ youth make up a staggeringly disproportionate number of homeless youth. While some students may find their parents supportive, protesters fear some students forced to 'come out' may find themselves in dangerous situations."

The targeting of the defenseless continues apace in the NCGOP, for no other reason that perceived political gain.

What's the Matter with Deanna Ballard?

 

Word filtering out of Raleigh -- and by "filtering" I mean strained and adulterated before it reaches these nether regions of the state -- authoritative word is that Sen. Ralph Hise drew Sen. Deanna Ballard into the new 47th NC Senate District, double-bunking her with him, because she's not won the esteem of Phil Berger and his boys (of which Ralph Hise is one). Deanna Ballard -- not always a team player with Berger and the boys? Surprised. But okay, yeah, maybe. (I'm fresh out of guesses why she may have fallen from grace; hoping someone will enlighten me.) I confess that I've never thought of Ballard, the recruit and employee of Franklin Graham, as having an appreciable ounce of independence. But because I'm a liberal Democrat, I'm prepared to accept the strangest things.

Opinions up here in the nether regions think it likely she's going to announce for the new 14th Congressional District -- take that! Phil Berger -- and that if she does announce, she'll instantly be the frontrunner among the Republicans and that she will sweep both the Republican primary and the general election against Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who the smart money sez will be the Democratic nominee.

I don't know about any of that, but I pay attention to opinions coming from old hands in North Carolina politics. As a congressional candidate, Deanna Ballard is going to be new to most of that district (except for Watauga and Avery), and most of the Republican primary voters in the old 11th CD have been enthralled by the mad masculinity of petulant Madison Cawthorn, and they may not immediately take to Ballard's much softer presentation of politics.

In a congressional race, Ballard's main rival might be Bruce O'Connell, who's busily trying to don the Cawthorn mantle after being a potential rival in the Republican primary. O'Connell literally twisted himself into the frame to get photographed with Cawthorn, who does not look fizzy to be symbolically blessing the candidacy of the man who had recently set out to beat him out of his gravy train.

If Sen. Chuck Edwards from Henderson County decides to run -- who's been prominently mentioned as considering the race -- that will necessarily complicate things further. We don't know what's going to happen, but plenty of other people think they do.

Republican Dominoes, in Real Time

 

Former Republican state party chair and news reporter for the Carolina Journal, Dallas Woodhouse -- whose sources inside NC conservative circles must be legion -- broke the news that Congressman Madison Cawthorn was thinking of running in the adjacent 13th District rather than in his own 14th. Cawthorn said it would make North Carolina more conservative. He also said that Donald Trump fully supports the idea. He's talking it over with his wife this weekend and will get back to us on Monday. (My own confidence in this rumor is pretty much nil, but it's a welcome diversion on a Thursday.)

If that actually happened, O! O! O! the dominoes would begin falling. The 13th CD -- by all accounts -- was carved out explicitly to enable NC House Speaker Tim Moore to move his mahogany butt from Raleigh to DeeCee and to have a safe seat thereafter for as long as the grass is green or as long as it takes the rainmaker Moore to become sufficiently richer. He's not happy about Cawthorn's prospecting on his stake. And I bet he's on the phone right now.

Side note: Didn't know this. North Carolina needs to be more conservative, and Donald Trump agrees that Tim Moore needs to be eliminated. Interesting. I wouldn't think Trump would have a clue who Tim Moore is.

'Nother side note: If you're into state politics, what would be greater entertainment than Tim Moore's having Madison Cawthorn as a primary opponent? Two grifters -- of greatly differing ages and understanding -- enter. One grifter leaves.

Here's the new map: 

The other dominoes: If Cawthorn left the 14th open, three more Republican wannabes (Ralph Hise, Deanna Ballard, and Chuck Edwards) would also reportedly be making a decision about getting into the Republican primary (which already has three announced candidates -- see below). I first saw those new names on Dallas Woodhouse's Twitter. 

Edwards, like Ballard and Hise, is currently an NC state senator. His senate district 48 includes the heart of the new 14th -- Buncombe and Henderson counties. Edwards was appointed late in 2016 to replace the retiring Tom Apodaca, then won on his own in November 2016, ran for reelection in 2018 and got 56% of the vote, won again last year with almost 59%. He seems like a contender. Maybe stronger than Ralph Hise. Indubitably stronger than Deanna Ballard.

We have to leave for a later episode why Hise, head of the NC Senate redistricting committee, drew himself and Deanna Ballard into the same NC Senate district. Double-bunking of incumbents is usually received as a slap in the face ("someone wants to get rid of me"), is never welcome. Perhaps Hise and/or Ballard already had plans for a change in career, so maybe it's no biggie.

 

The 3 Republicans Already in the Race

Wendy Nevarez, ex-military and a moderate.

Bruce O'Connell, who came out with a boilerplate conservative "Contract" with the voters, making him look old and uninspiring. He runs the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Rod Honeycutt, also as dull as yesterday morning's dishwater, but he has been the most direct in attacking Cawthorn: "I will not watch from the sidelines as inexperienced, self-promoting characters seek to further careers while the hard-working men and women of WNC suffer the consequences" (quoted on WataugaWatch).

Deanna Ballard, Double-Bunked with Ralph Hise in the New 47th Senate District

 

Here's the new map for the 50 NC Senate seats. Watauga is entirely within the new 47th District. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave the whole map an F for "partisan fairness." Dist. 47 will have a Democratic vote share of 36.77% against the Republican share of 63.23%.

Interestingly, Sen. Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine, the Republican head of the redistricting committee, drew himself and Sen. Deanna Ballard into the same district. I suspect that Ballard is now toast, if she decides to challenge Hise in the 2022 primaries.

Down in Forest City

A new book about what the authors call "one of America's most dangerous cults" focuses on the Word of Faith Fellowship in Rutherford County, just down the mountain from us. The two authors were interviewed on Morning Edition today.

Democrat David Wheeler, who is running again this year against incumbent Republican Ralph Hise in NC Senate District 47, made some news in 2018 when he tried to take cameras inside the church. Wheeler accuses Hise of essentially shielding the church from meaningful scrutiny (which numerous law enforcement agencies in Rutherford County are also accused of).

The authors of "Broken Faith" talk about the leader of the Word of Faith, Jane Whaley, as a frightening scourge of God:

You have to realize they believe that Jane Whaley was a prophet, that God spoke to her and everything she said was the gospel. And one of the techniques that she used was that she had everybody inform on each other. And the reason they did that was because that was the godly way of doing things. It was, in a way, she would have them tell her their deepest, darkest secrets. And then she kept a file of those secrets. And if they threatened to leave or did something wrong, she had all the evidence she needed there to keep them in line.

A peculiar form of abuse at the church has been talked about for years, as insiders escaped and described what went on there:

...it was something that really got worse over time. And you have to understand what her philosophy is. The doctrine is really pretty simple — devils are real. And if you're a drug addict, it's because you have this drug devil. If, you know, you're an alcoholic — the same. If you're having an affair, it's the same thing. There are lustful devils. And so what she would do is it was called Devils in Deliverance, where they would have people surround you and scream at you to get the devils out. Get out, devil. And it would go on and on and on. Perfect example is with a baby. If babies cried, it wasn't because they were hungry or they had a dirty diaper. It was because there was a devil inside them that was making them cry. So you would have groups of people surrounding an infant and screaming until that baby would just get tired and finally, you know, go to sleep....

None of the press investigative pieces or law enforcement investigations or lawsuits have seemed to make a dent:

You have the sheriff. You have the district attorney. You have all these people who have looked the other way, who know what's going on, and they're just not doing their job. This church now is thriving.

Gov. Cooper Appoints Damon Circosta to the SBOE

Yesterday Governor Roy Cooper appointed Damon Circosta, executive director of the charitable A.J. Fletcher Foundation, to replace Bob Cordle on the North Carolina Board of Elections (SBOE). Circosta was officially an unaffiliated voter when Cooper previously appointed him in March 2018 to the 9-member SBOE, a board that was later dissolved because of legal action. Circosta changed his political affiliation to Democrat to be appointed yesterday.

Cue the Republican outrage. Sen. Ralph Hise, who knows plenty about partisan power grabs, whined that Cooper chose “power politics” over legitimacy and fairness by not appointing someone all parties respect. “Governor Cooper isn’t even pretending that he cares about good government. By appointing Damon Circosta to the Board today as the tie-breaking Democrat, he’s admitting that his previous appointment of Circosta as an ‘unaffiliated’ member was a sham.”

Circosta is a lawyer. Previously, he led the North Carolina Center for Voter Education, an organization dedicated to improving the electoral process. He serves as a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. 

With the SBOE back at full membership, they will have to meet and elect a chair. Then on August 23rd, they will be voting on member Stella Anderson's motion to amend the certification process for electronic voting machines in the state.