N&R reports Greensboro Reps. Jon Hardister and John Blust are calling for a referendum to be added added to Sen. Trudy Wade’s Greensboro City Council redistricting bill:
“The feedback has been overwhelmingly negative. To be fair to the citizens, I can’t vote for this” without a referendum, Hardister said Thursday.
If Wade is correct that there is local support for the bill, a referendum would bear that out, Blust said.
“Given the controversy, it would be a mistake to mandate Greensboro’s form of government without having the public weigh in,” he said.
Interesting because —as the Rhino reports— Blust and Hardister stuck with the party when voting on other local bills such as the Wake County Board of Commissioners restructuring and the Trinity City Council restructuring. In the case of Wake County, there were strong calls for a referendum amendment to Sen. Chad Barefoot’s bill, but it was voted down. As the Rhino sees it, that bodes well for Wade’s bill in the House.
Yeah I know Hardister and Blust are elected to represent Greensboro —not Trinity or Raleigh — but certain political pressures are brought to bear, as Blust admitted when he said that going to odds with Senate leaders over Wade’s bill would “mean basically the session is over for me in realistic terms.”
Stay tuned–will be interesting to see how this plays out.
