Scott Huffman, NC House candidate for District 76 – They [Republicans] gerrymandered districts. They stacked the courts. They built a legislature that answers to itself instead of the people it claims to represent. That is not democracy working as intended. That is authoritarian rule hiding behind the institutions of state government. Today’s Senate vote on House Bill 958 is only the latest proof.

For seventeen years, North Carolina Republicans have held power not because voters freely chose them district by district, but because they drew political maps designed to guarantee their own control.

They gerrymandered districts. They stacked the courts. They built a legislature that answers to itself instead of the people it claims to represent.

That is not democracy working as intended. That is authoritarian rule hiding behind the institutions of state government.

Today’s Senate vote on House Bill 958 is only the latest proof.

Republicans have already stripped the Governor of constitutional authority over the State Board of Elections and handed that power to their own partisan State Auditor. Now they are cutting early voting in primaries and special elections from 17 days to 10. They are giving that same partisan auditor greater power to reach into county election systems. They are making it harder for outsider candidates to qualify for a party ballot. They are weakening campaign finance rules so more secret money can flow to political allies with less public accountability.

None of this is about efficiency.

It is about power. It is about control.

When one party spends nearly two decades drawing its own districts, stacking its own courts, taking control of election oversight, weakening campaign finance transparency, and shrinking the time citizens have to vote them out, that party is not governing.

It is rigging the system to protect itself from the voters.

And they are doing it while North Carolinians are struggling.

Families are being crushed by rising costs. Health care is becoming harder to afford. Wages remain too low. Working people are falling further behind while corporations and the wealthy continue to gain more power and more wealth.

Instead of dealing with those problems, Republicans in Raleigh spent this week making it harder for the people suffering under this economy to have a voice in their own government.

North Carolina does not need another voting restriction, another partisan power grab, or another loophole for secret campaign money.

North Carolina needs the Peoples Government back.

I join the citizens of House District 76 and people across our state in calling on the North Carolina House to reject House Bill 958. If it reaches Governor Stein’s desk, he should veto it without hesitation.

Seventeen years of one party rule has not strengthened democracy in North Carolina. Republicans have hollowed it out.

It is time for the people of this state to take their government back.

Scott Huffman – NC House 76 Candidate – https://rowancountydemocrats.com/nc-house-of-representatives-district-76-scott-huffman/