Will Political Chaos in North Carolina Lead to a Third Reconstruction?
Will Political Chaos in North Carolina Lead to a Third Reconstruction?
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Truth Dig
The North Carolina legislatureboth the Senate and the House of Representativeshas been in the hands of Republicans since the anti-Obama tea party electoral backlash of 2010. When Gov. McCrory took office in 2013, after controversial statewide redistricting, he enjoyed an even stronger Republican legislative majority. Then the U.S. Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-4 partisan decision in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, threw out key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The floodgates were opened for the disenfranchisement of people of color across the South, and North Carolina didnt disappoint.
We have seen, since Shelby, the worst coordinated attack in this country, the Rev. Dr. William Barber told us on the Democracy Now! news hour last April. He is the president of the North Carolina NAACP. He continued: At the very time that African-Americans are voting at 70 percent and were building fusion with progressive whites and Latinos, weve seen an extremist governor and legislature vote to put in place apartheid voting districts. Weve seen them shorten the early-voting period by a full week, because 70 percent of those that use the first week are African-American. Weve seen them eliminate same-day registration, because 43 percent of those that use same-day registration are African-American. And weve seen them pass a strict form of photo ID that negatively impacts 300,000 voters. This is a racial and class attack on our democracy.
Ultimately, a U.S. Court of Appeals agreed that North Carolinas omnibus electoral law was unconstitutional. The new provisions target African-Americans with almost surgical precision, the opinion stated. North Carolinas appeal of this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court lost in a 4-4 tie, as it came after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Despite the political chaos, the Rev. Barber has hope, and envisions a Third Reconstruction. He told us, They are afraid. They are fearful ... they see this tide rising. They see black and white and Latino people standing together in the Deep South. They know that if we have policy movement along with this kind of moral movement, it will not only energize North Carolina, but it could energize the rest of the South.