We the people need Dante Pittman

We should choose Dante Pittman in November if we want a legislature that takes the interests of all North Carolinians into account.

A might-is-right mentality guides the current supermajority. Through fraud, racist gerrymandering, judicial nepotism and increased secrecy, they have turned our General Assembly into a virtual fortress where they have the security to act against the preferences and well-being of most of us. Public education, reproductive choice, air and water protections, free speech and the franchise itself have all been curtailed. This autocratic trend will continue as long as they effectively own most of the state’s districts and have the numbers to override vetoes rather than revise flawed bills.

In brief, here is how power has been consolidated in Raleigh: A simple majority became a one-seat supermajority by subterfuge when Rep. Tricia Cotham was elected as a pro-choice, pro-Leandro Democrat in Charlotte, only to change parties and join the push against reproductive freedom and public education. Next, the newly hyperpartisan N.C. Supreme Court promptly granted Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s wishes and reversed several key rulings it had just issued months prior.

Among other things, these reversals have all but excused the General Assembly from its constitutional obligation to fully fund public education, and they have bulwarked the majority from electoral consequences by allowing them to revive district maps that gerrymander Black voters, who are predominantly Democrats, “with surgical precision” (as a three-judge panel characterized it in 2019). These new rulings were issued with the participation of Berger’s son, Justice Phil Berger Jr., who would not recuse himself though his father was a party in the cases.

And, because its members recognize that an informed public is more likely to be an engaged public, the supermajority codified the privilege of declaring “none of your business” whatever records and communications they want to keep in the dark, while at the same time creating a new “Gov Ops” task force empowered to probe and seize records from other areas of government.

With this assertion of privacy, the supermajority has forced through harmful laws without debate or public comment, sometimes in the dead of night.

There are many good reasons to elect Mr. Pittman, but one of the most important is that he will restore a duty to negotiate for the sake of the common good. We want representatives, not feudal lords. A vote for Dante Pittman is a vote for a more responsive, more open, more accountable N.C. House.

James Cardin

Wilson

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