RALEIGH – It was 209 years ago this month that “gerrymandering” was coined, and our nation has paid the price ever since. In 1812, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry soiled his reputation by approving a ploy to redraw the state’s voting districts to unfairly favor his party in that year’s election.
...Bob Phillips
Bob Phillips's articles and posts
This month, North Carolina lawmakers had a golden opportunity to adopt fair, nonpartisan standards for drawing new legislative voting districts. Instead, they opted for politics as usual, keeping partisanship at the core of a deeply flawed redistricting process. The General Assembly has been ordered by a federal court to redraw dozens of racially gerrymandered legislative districts.
...
As his time in the White House neared an end, President Ronald Reagan gave a final televised interview as commander in chief to ABC News journalist and North Carolina native David Brinkley in December of 1988. Among the ...
Read more
Comments Off on The Republican case for redistricting reform
It’s election season in North Carolina. Across our state some 500 cities and towns are holding local elections in the coming weeks with 1000 public offices up for grabs. Additionally, there are 20 school districts electing school boards, ...
Read more
Comments Off on Election season highlights
The anti-democracy reform crowd is at it again - spreading misinformation about campaign finance reform. Their current target is House Bill 120, a fairly innocuous proposal in the state legislature to provide municipalities the legal authority to experiment with public financing of local elections. It's something the town of Chapel Hill will be doing this fall. ...
Read more
Comments Off on Public financing of local elections: The next logical step
By Bob Phillips, Common Cause North Carolina Here we are in late December in the midst of the holiday season and the eve of a big election year – the time of the year in which the mad ...
Read more
Comments Off on A Gift for Democracy in North Carolina
By Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina Earlier this month at a national conference, North Carolina was celebrated for its progress in lobbying and ethics reform – quite a contrast to just four years ago, ...
Read more
Comments Off on The Unfinished Business of Lobbying and Ethics Reform