How Fair a House? News Clipping

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::r.:@fRaleighfavorssingle.memp'qiaistricts..,...;'..,id;,.;.:'..l3.

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*;iit.,*u*ti.i"i$.iin"ila qlgifiats confuse voters, 
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obscure differences between candidates and dilute the 
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power of minorities. And apparently they're here tc stay''' 
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Mutti-membei X.C::Uouse districts confuse voters, I ;:

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tounties as I :; ByKENiniEpr-rrx 

:'r' - i'-'1;.'' " multi-member districring Preserves
oor.nrrsr.nwr*r' ' .;;i; ;ii;;a gou"inrniit ind makes the largest I '

i' 'iri.t'month. eight Mecklenbuis c.ou11! I9':-' l11J::i;:"^1litf:o o":l:.t :i":t1.1:,': ililllil..tjl, I :
a.nir *."i'iJ'hiiEiir., io-ijie-sea-rs in thl N.c. legis.lative.office. ,,ti!'' i1,", :Hut;t 5!"s"'l '1''n:'y'

House, but Bertha iVlaxlvell stayed home. Stratrai '::-r:'Oiuia.ing MecklenburB into eight districts

been a loser in tt" Xor.rU.iii..iion, finistring ''.?.i:'would fundamentally change the rvay our

ff;iii: m,ii";'iju-r ti.onornos, the eigirttr-piiiE dele-qation has worked," said Rep' Parks Helms

tinlsher,byabout2,000votes. '-'.-l'," 
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oi tiartotte'':We've never had a member who
,: -'In a large and populous area of the county, i{otiig "t 

toT.u single'issue concern to the exclu'

however, l,t-s. tvtaxrveil-*ii i*inner in Novem' 'sion of everything else'

ber. In l8 of the ZO CI',uifott. pr.cin.tt ifong una :t:i .1'll I-only,represented.a small .seBment' one-

northwest of Tryon Street, she got *otu uoiit :iightn of Mickldnburg'-wtrereverit is'my sense

iii.i"a"i"rtrlJrsotrriiio,i*t"'iaiout.'-. 
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.l::p9::-ibilly,Y"":f1,*"^11'";;i;

;J",:ilt;;-[iJ;:X;."riH:;;iiliu; 3iliii'' it >riii:ano*rer urban..regisrator,iRep. Ar Adams or
^U'N;c,:;;iJ6. iii'irii-rtate House roday. Raleigh, has a dirferent vieiv. ''rwith a"countv
:-.-H;;;Gilr-o". .ii..i riNorthtarolina's ': like tVake, it's more than thd voter'can be asked '

'r.gisiiiiu.'oiitiLti"i rt;1j*. iegislative seats to follow: l8 people running for nine (House and

"i.e'"ppotlioned 
on t-tt.-i,iiii ir po"pglglr^on at senate)seals"' ' ''::'i:

presenr, one House t."t-f* 
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p.opG. - 11 t-Si-S; Adams'suggisted'rtipealing the '
Because rhe stare .oniiiiuii* pitniuirc oivioing stat€'s 1.4S-year-otd constitutional prohibition

counties into more ttr* oni-ffo*e district, largE r agains!.dividing counties into more than one dis' '

counties have several ilii.r"i.,iiiires, atl- ereiiia ' tr-ict. Dividing urban counties like Mecklenburg

;;;;iFid",- *trite mdst--ima[ counties are into several districts, each electing one state rep'

ii""i6a with aaioinin;-.*nri;;-io itrir. t*o or resentaLive, woutd reduce most House elections

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Thad sysrem of multi.member districts, oppo- party- candidates.

nents say, confuses uoiur., oUr.ures dilfereil.t '-'1' ':t jg-st thought. P99-pt" worlld be better in'
berween candidates and dilutes the voting d;;i, .formed,".Adamisaid'-':I'wanted.T9i5lYttf '1.a,.
ol rninorities. .- : {r ' r - : 

- jtlinformative crmpaigns."' .. .'

Voi,ers in Stanly County can vote lor one ,.,,,,H.it bill "feli on hrrd times," he says' "The

member of the House; in Catawba County, t*o: t ii.ople from metroPolitan counties didn't rvant

in CaUirrus and Union counties' three; in Gaston it"',.-'--'-'- '4 -"-- ." --".---
and Lincoln counties, four; and in ruecklenoG, I Rep. chris Barkei ol New Bern is proposing a

eighr. The chartotte,orci-t"C'to disiinerisn iro;i similai constitutional amendment this year' His

among l6 major.party itnaiO"t.s for ihe H;;;. proposal rv-ou-ld permit county divisions in redis''
In Atbemarte, the choiiC-ii-rirpi.i, with ilvo- [rlciing not norv but a(ter the 1990 census' He'
names on the ballot. explains the legislature's.reluctanc.eto accept sin'

Despire the numericar twisisbr murti'member 3::f;:r"Tlntiil;*:,l:f"I'J;'";,"#"can't 
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districting, the U.S. Supreme Court has upleld '-'krcXine themselves out by voting for single.
the system in an Indiana case. And the N.C. Gen- -"-l"i Oi"ttricrs would be an atmosi certain re-

i:X',^f::fl'Y; 'll,T*,1il,*J:1':i::''il''J;,"'fiiJT ::iiIAi!1i,.:T:l"Hlii,.H:*i"J:'i[,i'l.,Tili
ibandon it - and in fact couldn't' withou( ull'^ ir,i'ii.iiion or similar citizens - most o (

amending the state constitution..
Proponents try lnii- *t atever its faults. "" -' -: See N'c' II9USE' Page 'lB

t1:t"H;liffo'ff'l;;':"'1'";1H'Aiiirn", o'"'iiu-i;;;;-9 tino'ioJiink the group or peopre ':i
any of 29 other states that elect represent"iir.i to whom we are diiectly responsible for being '' '
by singre-member ai'i'i.i, ii;;ril[4;i;iii' q\: .ill!911]^tJ-'-T.:l'-::^t^:lt^i:.'*':]9]i]tjioj;il", f.il

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i\.C. House Districts A Waze
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': Continued From Page IB

them white. upper middle-class
businessmen and lawyers - often
lrom similar neighborhoods. "A!
one ilme in Wake," said Adams,
"five of the six of us (House mem'
bers) lived within one mile of each
gther."

Today ln Mecklenburg, foui of
the eight House members live

, within one mile of one another in
southeast Charlotte: two others
live farther out in that quadrant,
the city's most af fluent. . .

I Northwest Charlotte now has
no resident in the state House: it
would have one. probabllr two, if

ithe county were divided in dis-
rtricts, assuming candidates were
required to live in the district they
sought to represent. (IvIs. Max-
well, in fact, lives across town on
Colony Road. But representatives
of ' single-mem-
ber.districts
don't alrvays
have to live in
them. Members
of Congress, for
example, need
not live in the
congressional
district that
elects them.)

Ivlulti-mem-
ber distric!s also
.raise some ques- '
tions of fairness:
o' While Jo Graham Foster, to

narne one of Mecklenburg's house
members, represents more than
400,000 people, Rep. Tom Hunter
lrom . Richmond County r€pr€:
sents fewer than 50,000. i.. .rj .

,. . o While Hunter speiks in Rd-
Ieigh for a compact and tidy sin-
gle-member. single-county dis-.

. trict. Rep. Barker of New Bern is
more typical of N.C. legislators.
He and two other representatives
share a lour-county district that
stretches 100 miles in eastern
North Carolina.

fn each case, there's a House
member for roughly every 49,000
citizens. Yet only l0 of 120 mem-
bers o( the House - the l0 like
Richmond County's Rep. Hunter,

'who are their districts' sole repre-
. sentatii'e - actualli' tvere elected
by the ideal -19,000-member con-
.sliiuency. \lr\

In fact, the northwest Mecklen-
burg constituency that voted
overwhelmingly for [v{s. l,{axrvell

- but failed to
elect her - is
larger than the
population of
Hunter's dis-
trict. The ques-
tion advocates
of single-mem-
ber districts
would ask is
whether'the
votes of Mrs.
Maxwell's suo-
porters counc Maxwell
for less because of where they live
or because of the way the legis-
lative district is drawn.
..'Another question is how well
.they'll be represented by House
members elected by the rest of
Mecklenburg County. "In a large
district, if you want to, you don't
have to be too attentive to one
segment of your constituency,"
said Barker. "lf you had a com-
pact dlstrlct, you'd have to be at-
tentive to everybody."

Twenty-one other states use
.multi-member districts to appor-
tion their legislatures, though only
10, including North Carolina, use
.them for both House and Senate.

In a 1965 case, the U.S. Su-
preme Court suggested that states
use single-member districts to ap-
Iortion one chamber of their leg-
islatures. either House or Senate.
But the court hasn't required sin-
gle-member districts unless it
found a state's intent in drawing
multi-member districts was to dis-
criminate against minorities.
,i.r. .

Intent to discriminate is diffi-
cult to prove, and it probably isn't
the issue in North Carolina, where
the first ban on splitting counties
to form Iegislative districts was
written into the constitution in
1835, long before btacks were al-
lowed to vote. .. : .

..."It's there because the county
was the basic unit of representa-
tion," said John Sanders, director
of the Institute of Government in
Chapet Hilt and an e.\pert on N.C.
constitutional history. "lt's one of
those things so much an accepted
part of the political scheme of
things that it was never seriously

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challenged."
But while that provision may

nol have been written to keep
black voting minorities from elec-
ting representatives. the system of
multi-member districts is one o(
the reasons that, while one N.c.
citizen in five is black. only three
members of the 120-seat House
are black.

For comparison. in South Caro-
lina, which adopted single-mem-
ber house districts for the 1974
elections, black membership in
the House has increased fivefold,

''from three in I973 ro 1,5 today.
The state's largest county, Rich-
land. which includes Columbia.
.was divided into I I districts, three
of which now are represented by

. blacks.. , ; . .. ,' , ;.t it.z-;
"You had a smaller area to

cover," said S.C. Rep. Theo Mitch-
ell of Greenville, "a smaller num-
ber of people to meet, people who
identified with you in a residential
area and also, in many cases, in
ethnicity, racc end yrhatever.
That's why Republicans - they'
bene(ited also under this system,
as rvell as women."

Supporters of single-member
districts see problems,. too.
,l'Smaller districts permitted
greater variety in the kinds of
people elected," said one business
observer of the S.C. General As-
sembly. "But it has diluted the co-

. hesiveness of the House. Members
respond to narrower constitu-
encies, (and) their concerns are
likely to be much narrower." .. ,,
' Those who favor single-mem-
ber districts say, however, that
the model of the U.S. House of
Representatives is sound: Each
member is accountable to a single
constituency that elects a.single
House member.

'"Most of the people running in
a multi.seat district run on morh.

. erhood and apple pie . . . . 'It's a
popularity contest," said Barker.
"Most peopte don't know who

. their representatives are."
., But knowing the candidates is a
voter's job, said Helms. "The peo-
ple of Mecklenburg Counry have a
responsibitity to know who they
vote.for. and to know the mem-
bers of their delegation. We ough[
not take that burden off them."

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