Republicans complete their revenge for Democratic Wake County
Published April 2, 2015
by Doug Clark, Off the Record, Greensboro News-Record, April 1, 2015.
Democrats celebrated in November when they swept Wake County elections.
It was one of the few decisive victories achieved by Democrats in North Carolina.
All four Democratic candidates won with at least 54.5 percent of the vote to sweep four Republicans out of office and gain a 7-0 majority on the board.
Today Republicans completed their revenge.
The legislature gave final approval to a bill making significant changes to the Wake board.
The party-line vote in the House was 66-47.
A proposed amendment calling for a referendum was defeated 61-45.
Rep. Grier Martin (D-Wake) noted that when Rep. Bert Jones (R-Rockingham) argued for his Rockingham County school board bill yesterday, he said there were two points in its favor:
1) It had the unanimous support of the Rockingham legislative delegation, and
2) It included a referendum.
Neither was true of the Wake bill. Martin asked Republican legislators to apply the same reasoning and oppose the Wake bill.
No way. This was about partisan payback, not about giving voters a say (they voted wrong in November, after all) and not about consistency.
Wake County will be gerrymandered into districts that will help Republicans regain seats they lost in at-large voting.
April 2, 2015 at 11:43 am
Richard L Bunce says:
So undoing the Democratic gerrymander of Wake County and replacing it with a Republican gerrymander of Wake County is wrong? Many columnists on NC Spin last November complained about the NC Congressional delegation being largely Republican as there are many Democratic voters in NC... but now seem perfectly happy with an all Democrat Wake County board... what's up with that?
April 2, 2015 at 11:43 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Are there no Republican voters in Wake County?
