System that serves politicians will never be good for public
Monday, October 30th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
By Paul O’Connor JOURNAL COLUMNIST
RALEIGH - Voters who go to the polls this year wanting to make a statement about their state government are going to be disappointed.
Be they Republicans upset about the lottery scandals, or Democrats hoping to reward legislators for the productive 2006 session, or independents wanting to vote for the best candidate, there’ll be little choice of candidates.
Of the 170 legislative seats, 86 are already filled. And it gets worse; most of the remaining 84 districts don’t really involve a contest. The districts are so skewed for partisan advantage that one or the other candidate is almost guaranteed election.
According to people who study individual legislative races, there are no more than a dozen state House and five Senate seats that are really in play. So, forget about cleaning house when it comes to elections in North Carolina. Maybe there can be a little tidying up. Not much more.
And much the same can be said about Congress. It is almost impossible to create a major shift in the U.S. House. Consider this: Nationwide polls indicate that Democrats have an almost 20-point advantage on the question: For which party will you vote this year in congressional elections? With that kind of an advantage, one might expect a tidal wave of change. But most prognosticators are saying that the House, if it goes Democratic, will do so by only a handful of seats. (more…)
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