Kinston can’t do what? Why?
This is a discussion for the Intergovernmental Relations Class.
The City of Kinston, NC voted last year in a referendum to go the way of non-partisan elections. They no longer want party labels in their local elections. However, due to a clause in the Voters Right Act of 1965 Kinston needs federal approval before making any changes to their local elections. They were denied by the Justice Department of making this change. Why?
The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.
The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.
So, we have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, DC overturning a valid local referendum for the above stated reasons. (Full background article here.) If I go any further in my description of this issue I am certain to be labeled a racist by someone.
Comments are always welcome prior to class.
This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 am and is filed under Intergovernmental Relations 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
One Response to “Kinston can’t do what? Why?”
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October 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I heard about this on NP Radio. It wasn’t much of a report…basically stating what you just did (No disrespect intended). I would think this would be a huge Main Stream Media circus event story but it didn’t pan out. Is the MSM so scared of the race issue it would shy away from an important story like this?
As a member of the “Human Race” I am offended by the Justice Department’s ruling.