As Becki and Mitch mentioned yesterday, Democrat Gov. Beverly Perdue has recommended to the new Republican legislative leadership that they break from the way things have been done in the past and create an independent redistricting commission to draw new maps for 2011-2020. Here’s how The News & Observer‘s Rob Christensen reported it:
In perhaps her most provocative move, Perdue urged the new Republican majority to adopt an independent redistricting commission. Perdue had not called for an independent commission while the Democrats were drawing the legislative and congressional district lines – one of the coveted tools in politics. It was a popular idea among many Republican lawmakers while they were out of power.
Now the roles are reversed.
Appearing before the caucus – and batteries of TV cameras – Perdue said an independent redistricting commission would “protect the rights of all our people” and end the “unfair partisan politics that has plagued North Carolina redistricting in the past.”
An amazing admission by the Governor, assuming that when she was a Democrat House member in 1990 and a Democrat Senator in 2000, that she voted in favor of the redistricting created by her party leaders. Now she’s accusing them of “unfair partisan politics” while showing she has repented from those sins in her past.
Riiight.
