When it comes to making New Year’s resolutions, everyone says they want peace and harmony in our political world.
Such a condition has never occurred in American politics. There have been times of heightened comity, meaning respect and friendly interaction and exchange of views ― but not that many.
Our American system of self-governance works, and it works because of one thing ― majority rule. If you are not on the majority side, you have to do things a little differently to gain such a majority to advance your agenda.
Or you learn to compromise, make deals and get as much as possible for your side and come back the next year to try to get more done. Sadly, young Americans under the age of 30 have seen very little evidence of thoughtful compromise this century.
Fortunately, majority rule is still strictly defined as 50% plus one. Close elections mandate that elected representatives and senators have to be reasonable in their decision-making or else they will lose the next election by a single vote, the same margin they won the previous election.
Imagine a U.S. Congress and Senate where every elected representative had been elected by a single vote the previous year. Instead of crazed, wild-eyed partisans from very safe, gerrymandered districts waving the bloody shirt from their side all the time ― without any fear of being defeated in a primary or general election ― citizens of America would see more sober, serious members making deliberate points during reasoned debate and coming up with workable compromises on every issue they face.
North Carolina can take the lead in making such a dream world a reality in 2025.
The first “wish” is for the N.C. General Assembly to adopt constitutional principles and reestablish 50% plus one majority as the winning threshold for all primaries across the state.
The current threshold is 30%, which pretty much ensures a plurality plus one can win a nomination. Pluralities are not majorities in the constitutional sense. European parliaments are chock full of pluralities, which is why they have to form coalitions after elections to form majorities.
America shouldn’t operate like an EU parliament.
Thirty percent plus one is not even a plurality of the entire population. It is a plurality of the relatively few partisans who show up to vote in a primary, most of whom do not have the word “compromise” on their bingo card when they go to vote.
Set 50% plus one as the standard for all primary elections and watch the tone and tenor of public debate levitate, as well as the quality of interested candidates.
The second thing North Carolina can do in 2025 to rectify shortcomings in our democratic republic would be to request a constitutional amendment be passed in Washington, D.C., to do one simple thing: Allow every state to determine the length of time their federal delegation can serve in Congress.
A constitutional scholar friend, Bill Watkins of The Independent Institute, is an expert on the thinking of Anti-Federalists who worked on the Articles of Confederation, our first national constitution from 1777 to 1789. He suggests such a constitutional amendment ― which the Anti-Federalists called “rotation” ― as the most effective way to limit the proclivity of elected representatives, whether they intend to or not upon election, to become lifetime politicians and stay in office way too long.
Kings stay in office way too long. Tyrants stay in office way too long. Both think they are indispensable to the future of their nation, which will fall apart upon their demise.
No one is deemed indispensable in American self-government. We have survived the loss of many a great elected leader. Where the problems mostly occur is because of lifetime politicians who got elected in one era, say Vietnam, and stayed around until it is time to enter a nursing home.
They lose touch with average American life and the rules and laws which they pass on “other” citizens to deal with in the real world of business and civic life ― not them.
Perhaps North Carolina will be the only state to impose a three-term limit on their congressional delegation and two terms for their U.S. senators.
So what? We were one of the last two states to ratify the Constitution until it had the Bill of Rights hung onto it, thank God. We also were the last state in the Union to award veto power to our governor in 1996 simply because Tar Heels have historically distrusted the concentration of power into the hands of one person or a select few.
Limiting concentrated power in any elected official’s hands is a trait to be proud of in North Carolina.
Here’s to doing more of it in 2025.
