RALEIGH — The Iowa caucuses transformed the Democratic presidential campaign from a snooze-fest to, well, at least a groggy early-morning trek through the kitchen in search of breakfast. While New Hampshire Democrats, in particular, are rummaging through various candidates’ pantries and trying not to gag on all the post-Iowa sugary confections, it’s worth remembering that North Carolina is facing a political wake-up call of its own.
The 2004 elections promise to offer North Carolinians clear choices, critical issues, and chances for change. The problem is that no one knows when the election season will actually start. The filing period for offices such as governor, Congress, and state legislature is scheduled for mid-February, but the possibility still exists that ongoing litigation over legislative redistricting will force a delay in the primaries until the summer. For the dozens of candidates who have already been running hard, traveling far, and spending much to build momentum for a May primary in such competitive races as the 5th Congressional District and the Republican gubernatorial nomination, the primary date is hardly an academic matter. It may significantly influence the outcome.
As I called around the capital city last week to get a handle on what was going on with the primary-delay issue and redistricting, however, my vision grow more cloudy rather than more clear. Just about every political actor or junkie has a theory about what’s going on and a prediction about what will happen next. These theories and predictions turn out to be mutually exclusive.
Surely if all the May primaries are delayed, say some observers and many Republicans, the North Carolina Democratic Party will be delighted. Having seen a late primary in 2002 doom Erskine Bowles’ chances of building an effective campaign against Elizabeth Dole for U.S. Senate, this argument goes, Democrats now want to inflict the same damage on the GOP nominee against Gov. Mike Easley as well as on other Republicans seeking statewide and legislative office. Indeed, lots of Republicans are suggesting that the decision by Senate leader Marc Basnight and House Speaker Jim Black (plus Co-Speaker Richard Morgan) to wait until November to hold a special redistricting session, and then to submit the resulting House and Senate maps to a federal court rather than directly to the U.S. Justice Department for voting-rights approval, clearly represented a conscious strategy to play chicken with the May primary date — and lose.
Only, other knowledgeable observers told me that Democrats might indeed be seeking a May primary. Perhaps that’s one explanation for the rumor making the Raleigh rounds last week to the effect that Attorney Gen. Roy Cooper wouldn’t contest a recent filing by GOP redistricting plaintiffs asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to intervene by suspending the newly drawn legislative maps and allowing the 2004 election schedule to proceed on time. The plaintiffs are arguing that by dragging their feet, the Democratic leaders of the legislature were imperiling North Carolinians’ ability to participate in the presidential primary elections (the Democratic contigency of holding April caucuses being problematic in part because it might not survive a Voting Rights Act review of its own).
Why would Cooper, presumably reflecting the desires of fellow Democratic politicians, decide not to challenge this motion? Well, folks listed a number of possibilities for me — including scenarios involving John Edwards, fundraising, schemes to undermine the strongest GOP candidates, and other eventualities — but one worth exploring here is the widely reported study by NC FREE, a Raleigh-based political-research group, suggesting that the new maps had marginally improved the chances of a Republican victory in House elections. I’m going to write a more detailed reaction to the NC FREE study later this week, but at this point let me say that the perception of a GOP-tilt here is outstripping the reality of the new House districts — but perception is what matters with regard to Democratic intentions.
Another possibility, though, is that Democratic insiders are beginning to realize that their prospects of success in a new round of redistricting litigation — whether in front of a new three-judge trial court in Raleigh or back in Knox Jenkins’ court in Smithfield — aren’t much better than they were in 2002. As I have already written, it isn’t hard to demonstrate why the new legislative districts, whatever their political leanings, don’t satisfy the strict criteria laid out in the initial Stephenson v. Bartlett decision. In the House map, for example, the line-drawers ignored obvious alternatives that maximized county-cluster groupings in the far Western corner of the state, apparently because implementing the rules strictly would imperil Democratic incumbent Rep. Ray Rapp.
Neutral application of the Stephenson rules would almost certainly result in a larger number of competitive districts — one thing I heartily agree with in the NC FREE analysis is that the maps drawn in November reduced the number of swing seats — and the result could actually be far more risky for Democrats in the fall legislative elections than simply re-using the 2002 interim districts.
I guess what I’m saying is this: don’t assume that the only interesting political story this week is developing far to the north in New Hampshire. There’s plenty of drama here at home, and it’s only just beginning.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.