What the hell, North Carolina?

The NC GOP has taken every opportunity to introduce bills this session that are about as right-wing as you can get. They have introduced several bills that made national headlines, and made NC look bad. They have introduced bills that they HAVE to realize are unconstitutional, and will go straight to the courts and cost the taxpayers of NC millions of dollars in court fees. They have made our state a laughing stock of the nation. They have introduced bills to ban nipples, to reduce the voting rights of our citizens, and to impose a 2-year waiting period for divorce. They have arrested peaceful protesters protesting these exact issues.

This will not do. We need to do something about this. Whether you are republican, democrat, or libertarian, something needs to change.

So, what can we do about it?

Run for office. Run as a democrat. Run as a republican. Just run.

As of 5-13-13, according to the NC Board of Elections, there were 6,432,830 registered voters in North Carolina. Breakdown is as follows: 2,764,896 Democrats, 1,982,714 Republicans, 20,126 Libertarians, and 1,664,494 Unaffiliated. Only taking into account the two major parties, the Democrats have ~800,000 more registered voters than the Republicans. With as right-wing as the GOP has been lately, one could speculate that a good portion of the Unaffiliated would vote for the Dems. So why are we in the situation we are currently in? A few reasons.

People didn’t vote.

• Not in the numbers they should.

Of the 7.5 million people old enough to vote, 6.5 million actually registered to do so. Of the 6.5 million voters in NC, only 4.5 million showed up. That was for the Presidential election. The number is disturbingly lower for the 2010 mid-term elections, with only 2.7 Million voting. --Numbers come from NC BoE--

People didn’t run.

• There were at least 24 seats in the state house where Republicans ran unopposed, and at least 10 state senate seats. (It is entirely possible that I missed a few)

Senate seats where Republicans ran unopposed in the general election of 2012:

District 6 – (Jones, Onslow) – Harry Brown (R)

District 10 – (Duplin, Johnston, Samson) – Brent Jackson (R)

District 29 – (Moore, Randolph) – Jerry Tillman (R)

District 33 – (Davidson, Montgomery) – Stan Bingham (R)

District 34 – (Davie, Iredell, Rowan) – Andrew Brock (R)

District 35 – (Union) – Tommy Tucker (R)

District 36 – (Cabarrus, Union) – Fletcher Hartsell Jr. (R)

District 41 – (Mecklenburg) – Jeff Tarte (R)

District 43 – (Gaston) – Kathy Harrington (R)

District 48 – (Henderson) – Tom Apodaca (R)

House seats where Republicans ran unopposed in the general election of 2012:

District 14 – (Onslow) - George Cleveland (R)

District 15 – (Onslow) - Phillip Shepard (R)

District 16 – (Onslow, Pender) - Chris Millis (R)

District 28 – (Johnston) - James Langdon, Jr. (R)

District 52 – (Moore) - James L Boles, Jr (R)

District 59 – (Guilford) - Jon Hardister (R)

District 69 – (Union) - Dean Arp (R)

District 70 – (Randolph) - Patricia Hurley (R)

District 75 – (Forsyth) - Donny Lambeth (R)

District 76 – (Cabarrus, Rowan) - Carl Ford (R)

District 81 – (Davidson) - Rayne Brown (R)

District 82 – (Cabarrus) - Larry Pittman (R)

District 89 – (Catawba) - Mitchell Setzer (R)

District 90 – (Surry, Wilkes) - Sarah Stevens (R)

District 94 – (Alleghany, Wilkes) - Jeffrey Elmore (R)

District 95 – (Iredell) - C. Robert Brawley (R)

District 97 – (Lincoln) - Jason R. Saine (R)

District 103 – (Mecklenburg) - Bill Brawley (R)

District 104 – (Mecklenburg) - Ruth Samuelson (R)

District 105 – (Mecklenburg) - Jacqueline Schaffer (R)

District 108 – (Gaston) - John A Torbett (R)

District 111 – (Cleveland) - Tim Moore (R)

District 117 – (Henderson) - Chuck McGrady (R)

District 120 – (Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Macon) - Roger West (R)

There are 50 state senate seats and 120 state representative seats available. Yes, you will probably be facing incumbents, and no, you are not guaranteed a win, but you can be part of a show of force. Let the NCGA know that we, the people of North Carolina will not stand for this.

You don't have to run for the General Assembly, though. You can always run for Mayor, City Council, or County Commissioner. As long as you run. Filing for municipal elections begins July 5th, and ends July 19th

People aren’t involved enough.

• I recently went to the Democratic Party Convention for my county. There were, perhaps, 15 people there. That’s it. Granted, I do live in a county that leans Republican, but that seems like little excuse for only 15 people.

We need more people to get involved. Find a chapter of Young Democrats or Young Republicans (If you are under 35 or 40, respectively). Find your local Democratic Party. Find your local GOP party (as of this posting, that link is dead). Go to facebook and look for your county group of the party of your choice, and ask them what you can do. Let them know that you plan on running.

We have an opportunity coming up. We have a chance to tell the right-wing crazies that their legislation is not welcome here. We need to get them out of office. We need to get involved now. A good, albeit slightly dead, place to start is /r/RunForIt.

2014 is right around the corner.