The Charlotte Observer paid Greensboro a compliment in an editorial last week. It said Greensboro’s nonpartisan City Council elections are better than Charlotte’s partisan schemes.
We’re happy to agree.
“Don’t look now, but almost all of Charlotte’s political leaders are going to be selected in the next several weeks by a handful of people — not in November and not by a majority of registered voters,” the editorial begins.
Charlotte, the state’s largest city, elects an 11-member council plus a mayor who can’t vote but can veto council actions. Seven members are elected in districts and four at-large.
From a partisan perspective, the districts aren’t well-balanced. Democrats predominate in five of them and Republicans in two. The city as a whole has a Democratic majority, so that party usually ends up controlling the council by margins of 8-3 or 9-2.
The real competition is in the primaries. Democrats fight it out in their districts and Republicans in theirs. Yet, voter turnout is low for primaries.
“Charlotte residents love to complain about tax giveaways to Major League Soccer franchises and the NASCAR Hall of Fame and taxes and crime. Yet more than 90 percent of them don’t vote in the primary when those decision-makers are determined,” the Observer noted.
Compare that to Greensboro, which has nonpartisan elections. Thirty-seven candidates are running, forcing primaries in every race. These preliminaries on Oct. 8 will just narrow the field to the final two for mayor and in each district race and the top six for three at-large seats. The general election Nov. 7, when more people come out to vote, most likely will be highly competitive.
Because Greensboro elections are nonpartisan, party labels don’t matter. The final contenders in District 1 both could be Democrats. In District 5, they could both be Republicans. Candidates who don’t belong to either party can run on a level playing field. They aren’t denied equal access to the ballot as they would be in partisan elections. It’s more open, inclusive and conducive to full participation and good government.
In recent years, the legislature has been working to eliminate nonpartisan elections. It forced party labels on the Guilford County Board of Education. It’s making all judicial elections partisan and has done the same to many school boards and municipalities. This is a profound mistake, mixing partisan politics into places where it has no business.
The Observer thinks it’s time for Charlotte to go in the opposite direction. “Most N.C. cities — including Raleigh and Greensboro — hold nonpartisan municipal elections, which tend to move candidates away from the partisan extremes,” it wrote. “Charlotte should examine nonpartisan elections and determine if they would produce more competitive elections and better choices for voters. After all, potholes aren’t Democratic or Republican.”
It’s good that in some things, Charlotte can learn from Greensboro’s better example.
http://www.greensboro.com/opinion/n_and_r_editorials/our-opinion-nonpartisan-races-work-best-for-city/article_bb23ff04-58ea-5327-bff2-6fa6298302e4.html
