House rejects bill to redistrict Greensboro-Trinity boards
Published June 30, 2015
by Margaret Moffett, Greensboro News-Record, June 29, 2015.
The N.C. House refused Monday night to make sweeping changes to Greensboro’s City Council without a voter referendum.
Members voted 73-35 to reject House Bill 263, a move that sends it to a House-Senate committee for more work.
But Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the victory could turn out to be a hollow one for the city: Only one of five House members appointed to the joint committee later Monday night — Rep. John Blust of Greensboro — opposes the bill.
“To have all five of our local representatives so strongly support us is gratifying,” Vaughan said. “But if in the end we only have one conferee, it could be a hollow victory.”
Blust, along with fellow Guilford Republican Rep. Jon Hardister, gave impassioned speeches on the House floor Monday night, urging their colleagues to defeat the bill.
Blust, quoting a passage from the Bible, said the benefits of HB 263 “don’t come near the costs.”
Those costs, he said, including outrage in the community and charges that the General Assembly meddles in the affairs of local governments.
“We get accused of a lot of things in the majority, you know that,” Blust told his colleagues. “This time it’s going to be true.”
The House bill, along with its counterpart — Senate Bill 36 — would shrink the Greensboro City Council from nine members to seven, lengthen their terms from two years to four and strip the mayor of most voting powers.
The City Council has opposed proposed changes to the council’s structure since state Sen. Trudy Wade (R-Guilford), herself a former Greensboro councilwoman, introduced the Senate bill in February.
It passed in March.
The House version calls for the same measures but hasn’t enjoyed the quick passage of its counterpart in the Senate.
In fact, representatives had been stuck since June 18, lacking enough agreement on at least three occasions to bring it to a vote.
The joint committee will be represented by five members from the House, including Blust, its only opponent. Pat Hurley, the Randolph County representative who sponsored the bill; John Faircloth of Guilford County, the local legislative delegation’s lone supporter; Pat McElraft who supports Hurley’s bill; and Mike Hager, who was absent Monday night but is a supporter of Hurley.
The Senate will appoint its own committee, and the combined legislators will work out differences in the two versions.
The compromise that emerges would have to pass both chambers to become law.
The House still can make changes to Senate Bill 36, which is in the House Elections Committee.
Like Blust, Hardister said he found little support for the bill among Greensboro residents, particularly without a referendum by voters.
“I’m really not convinced this is the right thing to do,” he said.
“I don’t feel good about this bill.”
