Strike Three (Greensboro Daily News)

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OREENSBORO DAILY NEWS
Robert u. Benson, president and pubtisher

Walter Rugaber, Executive Edilor William D. Snider, Ediror
lnrvin Smallwood, Deputy Executive Editor John R. Alexander, Associate Editor

Ned cline, Managing Editor (News) Arrred r. Hamirton Jr., Managing Editor (Record)

. PAGE 2 SUNDAY, JANUARY ZI, Lg82

Strike three
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The U.S. Justice Department'sur_
, ,"i"ed no one last week in ru[n! against
. ' the N.C. General Assemblyis 

""ai.t.i.t-.ing plan for the state House on qrounds
that it violates the Voting Righ"ts Act.
Since the Justi.e Oepart-m"r?'fAa 

"f-; ready rejected the legiilature's plans for
the state Senate and for cong;essional
districts, the House pt"n n"a 

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"political sitting duck. Now lawmakers' must. mee! yet again, probably next. .month, to draw up some new plans that, will pass court and Justice Dtipartment
muster. Here's hoping their batiing av_
erage improves.

Guilford County'ha. figu"ed promi-
nently in all three of the Justice Depart_
qgnt's rulings. The department's chief

. objection is that blacks, who comprise athird of Greensboro,s population, are
not fairly represented unaer the leqisla-
ture's plans. Only one black has'been
elected to the legislature from Guilford
Cgylty. For that matter, only a handful

, o-f black representatives have been
elected from North Carolina as a whole.

The Justice Department makes no
secret of its preferenee for single_mem_
ber districts as one solution to tlis prob_
lem of balance. In Guilford, for example,
instead of electing seven House mem_
bers from the county at large, voters in. each of seven districts would elect a sin_

l, be assured of electing at least one black
representative, and perhaps more.

There are other advantages to single-
member districts. Legislitors, black
and white, would be more accountable
to their districts, and voters would have

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a better chance of knowing who their

has decided in favor ofthe latter ontionl ,

ludgrng from the NAACP l,egai Oe-.

The disadvantage is that while blacks
would be able to elect one or more black
lawmakers, they would U" p"uu"riuA-
from having any inlluence whatsoever
over the election of candidates from
Iargely white districts. The .r-" *o,riJ
be. true- in lgyerse, of course. The dlitt
cal trade-off is between having broader,
but more diluted, inlluence ov6r a U"jer
number 

.of_ legislators, or having sib- .

stantial influence over a much slmailer '
number. The statels black leadership 

,

fense and Education Fund's 
"f,"fi"ngu 

to
the redistricting plans in Raleigh f"1""_
alcourt. -,, . . 

:

. 
But it ma.V take a court challenge for

single-member districts to beco-me- areality in North Carolina. The legista-
tive leadership has shown little inc-lina_
tion to move in that direction. Chances
are.eompromise 

-plans will be adopted
next month in v.hich some counties w-iil
be split up to achieve a better poputa_
tion balance in each district. thl irsue
of fairer representation fqr blacks will
be much harder to resolve. , 

- ..-.
. Given the complexity' of the issues
involved, single-member districts still
look like the best way to achieve the
twin objectives of racial fairness and
one-man, one-vote representation. But
whatever the General Assembly decides
to do, the Guilford delegation to the leg_
islature must keep closJtabs on the pr8_
ceedings. Guilford County, it seems, is
not only in the eye of the redistricting
storm, it rs the eye of the redistrictin!
storm.

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