This NC election bill would reveal big donors and end gerrymandering. We need it.
American democracy faced unprecedented challenges in the last year. A nationwide attack on our elections, threatening to subvert the will of voters, escalated into a bloody assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. North Carolinians were among the tens of million American voters shaken to their core by images of the Capitol insurrection. What happened that day was not just an attack on our nation’s capital, it was an attack on the heart of our democracy. It was an attack on all of us.
Our democracy held this year — but only by a thread. And without serious change to our political system, it could all happen again. That’s why, now more than ever, we need to step up and fix our democracy.
To advance bold change in our democracy, we need bold solutions. The Fix Our Democracy Act is the most robust state democracy reform bill in North Carolina’s history. It will get big money out of politics, protect our freedom to vote, and allow us to hold our elected officials accountable.
Millions of dollars flowed into our elections from far-off donors who couldn’t tell a Bojangles from a Popeyes. For too long, these wealthy special interests have looked at our elections as just another luxury item for sale. What’s worse, many of them have been allowed to meddle in our electoral process from the shadows, spending big bucks without having to disclose their identities. North Carolinians are right to be upset – we’re tired of having to fight against big-money donors just to have our voices heard in our own state.
North Carolina’s democratic process works best when North Carolinians are the ones calling the shots, but that hasn’t been the case lately. Lawmakers have worked to make it harder to vote, raising deliberate barriers for regular folks to vote. Meanwhile, big-money groups continue to parachute into our state every time an election comes around, using campaign finance loopholes to tip the scales of democracy in any direction they please. The result is that it’s increasingly been wealthy special interests, not voters, choosing who we send to represent us in Raleigh and Washington D.C.
Needed reforms
The Fix Our Democracy Act would put an end to this cycle, making it safe and accessible for North Carolinians to register to vote while protecting registered voters from getting purged right before an election. The bill would also create small-donor financing programs for all our statewide courts, insulating them from special interest influence. These same special interests would be required under the bill to disclose their identities and campaign spending in all political contests. After all, if you’re going to be spending serious money in our elections, you better be ready to face North Carolina voters.
And cleaning up our political system doesn’t stop there. Every 10 years, new legislative districts need to be drawn in North Carolina, and every 10 years North Carolinians are forced to go through the same political circus. In the coming months, our lawmakers will continue this sorry ritual, fighting tooth and nail to draw up district maps to their advantage, using taxpayer dollars to cover massive legal fees the moment their maps are challenged in court. It’s expensive and it’s unnecessary.
The Fix Our Democracy Act would put an end to this partisan free-for-all, putting redistricting power in the hands of a citizen commission staffed by regular North Carolinians. That’s important, because, without fair maps, there’s no way voters can expect to get a fair shake on Election Day. In the end, a fair shake is all North Carolinians are asking for.
It’s about time we make the promise of democracy real for all North Carolinians and restore trust in our elections. North Carolinians won’t always see eye-to-eye on politics, but we can all agree that it should be us choosing our government, not anonymous donors or powerful corporate interests. We need more North Carolinians involved in our electoral process, not fewer, and we need our electoral maps to be drawn fairly. It’s time to fix our democracy, North Carolina.
Melissa Price Kromm is director of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections.
