Opinion: Buncombe governance best decided at the local level
Prior to 2011, the Buncombe County Commission was comprised of five members each of whom were elected county-wide. In 2011, the N.C. Legislature passed a local bill that increased the number of commissioners from five to seven and required that six of the commissioners (all of them except the chair) be elected by districts rather than county-wide. The bill made the County Commission district boundaries the same as the three N.C. State House districts, with two commissioners elected from each district in staggered elections.
The move to districts and expanding the number of commissioners has been a generally positive change. It has helped assure geographic representation on the board.
A more problematic aspect of the 2011 bill is that the county commission districts were linked to the state-wide redistricting process. By law, State House districts must be redrawn by the Legislature every 10 years following the census to account for population changes. Redistricting is a very politicized process. The districts that were created since 2011 have been repeatedly found to violate the N.C. Constitution due to extreme gerrymandering. While redistricting would theoretically only take place once every 10 years, each time the majority in the Legislature draws new districts seeking to maximize their political advantages, years of litigation ensue with the courts often overturning the maps and ordering new maps to be drawn.
Each time the Legislature draws new state House maps, it changes the county commission districts. Often, little consideration has been given to how this impacts county governance. When the Legislature redrew the state House maps in 2021, it “double-bunked” four of the six commissioners meaning that one-third of the commissioners elected by the voters of our community would no longer be able to serve in the future. The Buncombe County Commissioners filed an amicus brief with the N.C. Supreme Court to argue against that version of the state redistricting maps.
Repeatedly changing districts has also created uncertainty for commissioners. In 2021, the Legislature approved a new version of the state House districts, again changing the boundaries of the County Commission districts. The state legislation stated that the new districts were “effective immediately” upon adoption of the bill.
County Commissioner Parker Sloan was elected to District 3 in 2020. In 2021, his family moved from one home to another after the Legislature had changed the boundaries of District 3. The new residence is located within the District 3 boundaries as changed by the Legislature but not within the District 3 boundaries as they existed in 2020. Commissioner Sloan believed that his family could move from one home to another so long as it was located within District 3 as modified by the Legislature.
Commissioner Sloan has been open about the change of residence, including filing a notification to the county board of elections prior to voting in the 2022 elections. However, the question has arisen about whether the residence change is permissible.
The commissioners have sought input from several attorneys on this matter. Our research indicated the N.C. Attorney General’s office is the jurisdiction in North Carolina vested with the authority to review such governance questions. If the attorney general deems there is an issue, he can request that a court review the matter and render a decision. The County Commissioners requested that Commissioner Sloan notify the N.C. Attorney General’s Office about the change of residence issue, which he has done.
All of the attorneys consulted by the commission concurred that votes taken by Commissioner Sloan are valid even as the residence question is reviewed.
Although there will not be another census conducted until 2030, we have recently learned that the Legislature plans to redraw the state House districts again this year, which will upend the county commission districts once again. Fortunately, there is a process by which the county can separate our local elections from the redistricting in Raleigh. The commissioners can propose a new governance structure with any changes subject to the approval of the county voters in a referendum.
The earliest the referendum could be held would be in 2024. If approved, the county elections would be independent from the state redistricting process starting in 2026. The commissioners believe this could maintain the positive aspects of the local bill passed in 2011 (i.e., the creation of districts and a seven member board) while freeing us from the state-wide redistricting process.
Brownie Newman is Chair of the Buncombe County Commission.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Buncombe governance best decided at the local level
