Partisanship

North Carolina lawmakers start a new legislative session this week at a time when partisanship and bitterness nationwide have reached a peak.

North Carolina will soon have new legislative maps. The previous maps were tossed out after a three-judge panel unanimously declared them unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders.

A conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts have no role to play in deciding partisan gerrymandering cases.

In the past few months, the courts have found fault with North Carolina’s state and congressional maps. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that state legislative districts are unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering, and last month a three-judge panel in federal court determined that there is partisan gerrymandering in the state’s congressional districts. 

It's being called a political crisis: Partisanship is the worst it's been in decades. Now, a few North Carolina legislators think they might have a solution: Building a political coalition based on their shared youth. Charlotte Democratic Representative Chaz Beasley is 31 years old, and one of the chairs of the new North Carolina Future Caucus.

Since at least the 1990s, partisan politics haven’t had a place in most school board races in North Carolina. Historically, just a small minority of state’s 112 school boards have been elected on a partisan basis. But that may be changing. In the last five years, the state legislature has more than doubled the number of school boards elected on party lines.

During his campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly voiced distrust of the national unemployment numbers, calling them “totally fiction" and a “hoax.” He's not alone in his skepticism. A new survey by British polling company YouGov shows many Americans are distrustful of statistics released by the U.S. government and the degree of trust varies along party lines.

North Carolina Republicans want to continue tweaking voters' experience at the ballot by allowing candidates for the Supreme Court and local school boards to publicly run with the support of their political party. 

A state legislative committee on Tuesday gave the first nod to two proposals that would make partisan the races for the state’s two highest courts—the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals—and the state’s 115 school districts.

While Democratic resisted a bill making judicial races partisan, it was the plan for local school board races that split Republicans.