Alston Overplays Hand On Redistricting

Board of Commissioners redistricting committee was held apparently to give the news media a photo op where Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston and company could talk about how outrageously unfair it was to have a Republican majority in the North Carolina state House and state Senate.

On Thursday, both the state House and Senate passed a bill drawing eight county commissioner districts for and have drawn the districts, which if approved by the US Department of Justice, will be in place until 2018, unless the legislature decides to change them.

Since the bill had passed setting the districts, there was really no reason to hold the committee meeting, except for the publicity it brought to Alston and Commissioners Bruce Davis, Kay Cashion, Kirk Perkins and Linda Shaw, who was the only Republican on the committee that was supposed to be in charge of redistricting for .

The meeting was a public hearing and allowed people to speak, even though the issue they were going to speak about had been settled. Jeff Hyde noted that in the 2010 general election five commissioner candidates ran unopposed because the districts were so partisan.

State Rep. Alma Adams, as usual, arrived at the podium breathless, explaining that she had just returned from Raleigh. The way she postures you would think that she runs back to Greensboro from Raleigh.

Both Alston and Adams expressed outrage that the Republicans would draw partisan districts. It is admittedly a tough situation for Democrats, who had been in control of the state government in North Carolina for over 100 years. Suddenly the Democrats are the minority party and they have no experience with that.

Alston and Adams have always been able to go down to Raleigh and get whatever they wanted. Money for a museum or an art gallery was there for the asking.

The Democrats who ran the state up until this year had to have the support of black voters to win, which meant that black elected officials like Adams and Alston, who exercise a good bit of influence in their communities, had power out of proportion to their elected positions.

Now the reverse is true. The Republican majority in the North Carolina state House and Senate was elected with a tiny percentage of black votes.

Guilford County commissioner voting districts to be redrawn ...

Senators in Raleigh approved a measure on Thursday allowing state lawmakers to draw the district lines until 2017. In June, local and state leaders had agreed to cut the number of commissioners from 11 to nine.

One commissioner would serve at-large. Under that agreement, the General Assembly would map out eight districts for use in 2012. Senator Phil Berger told reporters the move came after he got complaints about the redistricting process.

The bill is now in front of the House for consideration.

Report of the superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey showing the progress of the work during the fiscal year ending with ...

839 MC — Is at Greensboro, Guilford County, N. C, at the northeast comer of the Federal court-house and post-office. (See note 24, p. 582. ...

County Courthouse Book

... Eighteenth Judicial District: Guilford County; Nineteenth Judicial District A: ... The Superior Courts, which sit at each county seat, are the courts of ...

The Southeastern reporter

Appeal from superior court, Guilford county; Philips, Judge. John A. Barringer, for appellant. JT Morehead, for appellee. Shepherd, J. This was a motion to ...

The history of Guilford County, North Carolina

Guilford County is the heart. of Piedmont North Carolina. Once it was the hunting-ground over which the Catawba Indian chased the buffalo and built his ...

Dictionary of North Carolina biography

By February 1783 Philips was deputy surveyor of Guilford County, ... county court. On the state level Philips had a long and worthy political career. ...