Op Ed: Unchallenged seats challenge freedom
By Brian Irving, LPNC Press Secretary
DURHAM (March 7, 2006) - Nearly half the candidates running for
the NC General Assembly will run unopposed in November. The same thing
happened in 2000 and 2004. It would have happened in 2000, except the
Libertarian Party was on the ballot then.
With Libertarians booted off the ballot for 2006, 84 Democrats and
Republicans, mostly incumbents, will get a free ride to Raleigh. Well, not
so free, since taxpayers still must pay for their "election."
In the 120-member State House, 27 Democrats and 24 Republicans face no
opposition from another party in November. There'll be five Democratic and
eight Republican primaries, but the winners won't face opposition either.
That's 64 of 120 seats uncontested.
Things are only slighter better in the 50-member State Senate. They'll
be 22 uncontested races in November. Seven Democrats and nine republicans
are running unopposed. Another four Democrats and two Republicans face a
primary opponent, but after that, they're in.
Some newspapers have recognized what a disgrace this is in a country
that's supposed to be a democracy. Libertarians agree.
"North Carolina's Democratic and Republican parties talk like
competitors but act like partners in dividing the political spoils between
them" noted the
Greensboro News-Record in its March 3 editorial. "If they
were businesses, they could be charged with collusion."
The Asheville Citizen-Times called the lack of contested races a bad
civics lesson that "democracy is too much of a bother." "Regardless of how
well they're performing, when elected representatives get a free pass back
to the General Assembly, no one wins. Not the state, not the voters and
not democracy," they said in their March 2 editorial.
These non-contests are by design because, "Democrats and Republicans in
the legislature draw their own districts to minimize points of conflict,"
the News-Record said.
Libertarians would have provided some opposition in these one-horse
races, the newspaper notes, but they won't be able to in 2006 because the
party was kicked off the ballot. North Carolina's election laws "make it
extremely difficult for anyone else to join Democrats and Republicans on
the ballot."
"A candidate who doesn't have to compete against anyone to keep his or
her seat is likely to take the voters for granted, or to be more
influenced by special interests than by the people at home," the newspaper
notes.
Right again.
The Democrat-Republican duopoly that dominates state government has
colluded for years to keep Libertarians, Greens, other parties and
independents off the ballot. North Carolina has arguably the most
restrictive ballot access laws in the nation.
This election, Democrat and Republican politicians will predictably and
piously pontificate about campaign financing and electoral reforms in an
effort to curry favor with voters. What they won't talk about is the most
basic reform - opening the ballot to more choice.
Until August 2005, the Libertarians were the fastest growing political
party in the state, with 13,000 registered members. The LPNC is 25
years-old, we've been on the ballot continuously since 1996, fielded
gubernatorial candidates in seven of the last eight elections and run more
than 300 candidates for office across the state since 2000.
Despite this record the State Board of Elections decertified the LPNC
because we failed to jump the unreasonably high hurdle of collecting more
than 70,000 signatures to remain on the ballot.
The only way to get real campaign reform is to remove the chokehold the
Democrat-Republican duopoly has place on ballot access and align North
Carolina's laws to the national average.
That's why Libertarians are lobbying to restore the original version of
H88, the Electoral Fairness Act, and get it passed by legislature. As
drafted, the bill reduces the number of petition signature a "third party"
needs to get on the ballot from two percent to one-half of one percent of
the voters in the last state-wide election. It also reduces the number of
votes a party needs to stay on the ballot from 10 percent to two percent
in a state-wide race.
Libertarians want to restore free, fair and open elections to North
Carolina, give voters a real choice at the polls and assure all elected
officials are held accountable to the people.
|
