Election results from 16 years ago provide a sobering reminder for North Carolinians
"Throw the bums out!" This is a familiar rallying cry for angry voters when economic times get tough. Some analysts think the election this fall could be such an election: an event in which people vote for (or stay home for) change – any change, however reactionary or incoherent.
Though in some ways an understandable reaction – especially given the flubs of some of the current incumbents in North Carolina – the "change for the sake of change" approach to elections can be extremely shortsighted and counter-productive. Like cutting off one's nose to spite the face, blindly voting for all self-identified "outsiders" can be a recipe for bad policy results (not to mention political gridlock and the elevation of some genuinely scary people to public office).
To see a powerful, present day example, consider the Wake County school board – where the combination of widespread voter apathy and a small group of motivated and disgruntled voters conspired to transform a group of unprepared ideologues overnight into the governing majority of the nation's 15th largest school system.
The 1994 election
Perhaps a more apt example on the statewide level, however, is the state legislative election of 1994. For those with short memories, 1994 was the year of the so-called "Contract with America" – a year in which conservative majorities seized control of Congress and a number of state legislatures. In North Carolina, the state House of Representatives went Republican for the first time since Reconstruction and the Senate stayed Democratic by only a 26-24 majority.
The election results were especially striking because they were sudden and unexpected – so unexpected that Republicans really didn't have a plan for how they would govern. Once the 1995 session began, the leaders of the new majority in the House of Representatives quickly discovered that they some enormous problems in simply keeping the wheels of government running.
Not only did they have a serious dearth of experienced members capable of running committees and handling complex legislation in a competent fashion, they were also handicapped by the fact that several of their new members were, to put it politely, somewhat unprepared for leadership.
This was due to the fact that several had been elected with zero relevant experience. Essentially, many of these men and women were elected for one reason only: they were not incumbents. Somehow, they had managed to get their names on the ballot and survive or avoid a primary. (This was made easier by the fact that the state still had a number of multi-member districts at the time.) They could have been serial killers for all the voters knew. Now, however, as a result of a "throw the bums out" landslide, they were state lawmakers. In some cases, it was as if people had been plucked randomly off of the street.
The list of incompetents and hopeless ideologues (or both) included such memorable figures as:
Rep. Ken Miller of Alamance County. Miller was a strange right-winger who favored walking the halls of the General Assembly wearing a baseball cap adorned with badges and buttons. He was eventually booted out of the House after being investigated for making sexual overtures toward a teenaged page, a lobbyist and a legislative employee.
Rep. Henry Aldridge of Pitt County. Aldridge was a dentist and anti-choice zealot who lives in infamy for his offensive statements in which he attempted to explain in debate how a victim of rape could not become pregnant because "the juices don't flow."
Rep. Larry Linney of Buncombe County. Linney was a lawyer who was jailed at one point and eventually disbarred after being convicted of embezzling client funds.
Rep. Cary Allred of Alamance County. Actually, the ‘94 landslide facilitated Allred's return to Raleigh after 12 year absence. He managed to stick around as a consistently ineffective member until recently when driving problems and inappropriate behavior forced him out.
Rep. Donald Davis of Harnett County. Davis was conspiracy theorizing ideologue of the kind that so heavily populates the tea party crowd. One of his main objectives during his first year in office was to pass a resolution that purported to repeal a pre-World War II resolution that had called for the establishment of some kind of new League of Nations as a bulwark against world war.
Sen. John Carrington of Wake County. Carrington was a strange and mysterious conservative who ran a business that exported weapons and security equipment. In the Senate he almost never spoke in debate or sponsored much legislation. Later in his tenure, he apparently became a friend to (and even a business partner with) some members of Senate Democratic leadership. He was eventually convicted of a felony for illegal exportation of law enforcement equipment.
Other forgettable ideologues from the '94 election included such ineffective and/or downright wacky characters as former Representatives Russell Capps, Fern Shubert and Dennis Reynolds and former Senators R.L. Clark, Hugh Webster and Virginia Foxx – the same Virginia Foxx who now embarrasses North Carolina on a regular basis in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Repeat in the offing?
Will 2010 amount to a replay of 1994? Will North Carolinians wake up next January to find a cadre of anti-government zealots and nutty conspiracy theorists in positions of legislative power? Right now, it's hard to say.
On the positive side, of course, is the fact that we know somewhat more about the candidates in 2010 than we did in 1994. The internet makes it a bit harder for true extremists to fly "under the radar" and cruise to victory without their actual beliefs coming to light. Combine this with the way in which mainstream voters have generally rejected the absurdities of the tea party crowd and the likelihood of an ultra-right-wing sweep seems fairly remote.
Still, even with the light provided by modern communications, there is no shortage of rather scary characters out there on the ballot. They include:
Glen Bradley of Alamance County, who attends far right public events toting a rifle on his back and wearing army boots and fatigues and who endorses the views of a far right group called the Constitution Party of North Carolina.
Sam Edwards of Haywood County, a self-described "underemployed (but still tax paying) Christian, husband, father, pastor, educator, editor, and writer" who favors even fewer restrictions on guns and the abolition of the income tax and sex education.
Matthew Peeler of Perquimans County, a retired sailor, whose no doubt sincere but strange website features these sentences: "I believe that our Flag represent our Constitution. The Strength of our Nation is found in the fibers of our Flag, and that the Almighty God, the Constitution and the People of this great Nation make up those fibers. We need all three."
Numerous candidates wear their religious beliefs (conservative Christian, of course) on their sleeves and tout abortion and guns as their top issues. There's also a host of conservative candidates who remain so anonymous that web searches fail to produce any information. One Wake County candidate – a woman named Madison Shook – appears to be an undergraduate student at N.C. State.
Going forward
While few expect the far right to seize control of the General Assembly this fall, nothing is impossible. If it does happen, experience indicates that 2011 could be a wild and wacky year in the state Legislative Building.
