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Examining the Political History of North Carolina
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Examining the Political History of North Carolina
Savannah Nalls
GOVT 220
Liberty University
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NORTH CAROLINA STATE POLITICS
North Carolina has been plagued with intense political rivalries and racial sentiments for
centuries and while many people believe the racial tendencies of North Carolina politics have
dissipated since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, immense partisanship and political
polarization have resulted in bitter rivalries among the liberals and conservatives within the
state in areas including social rights reform and even voting discrimination of minorities within
modern history.
The racial sentiments of North Carolina politics are still very alive in the modern day. In the
mid-20th century after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965 under democratic President Lyndon Johnson which extended Federal protection and
enforcement of civil rights for all American citizens, Republicans began to attract white voters in
North Carolina and other Southern states. Because the Democratic party supported civil rights at
the national level, most African-American voters initially aligned with the Democrats (Wilson et
al., 2017).
In early September 2012, North Carolina was at the center of the American political world as
the Democratic Party assembled for its quadrennial convention in Charlotte. Politics played a big
part in President Barack Obama’s choice of the city: North Carolina’s electoral voters were
determined by the second smallest margin of any state in 2008 and would be again in 2012
(Cohen et al., 2015). More than at any time since the Wright Brothers, North Carolina is a
national leader. It is the 9th largest state in the population, passing Michigan in 2014, and has two
of the nation’s fastest-growing and most dynamic major metropolitan areas, Charlotte and
Raleigh (Cohen et al., 2015).
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North Carolina has grown with the aid of both its progressive and tradition-minded citizen,
despite the polarized politics that have developed between the two. In fact, both groups have
contributed to the state’s economic dynamism and cultural energy (Cohen et al., 2015). Liberal
progressivism has provided motivation toward building good schools and universities, as well as
highways and amenities like the nation’s first state-funded symphony and state high schools for
science, mathematics, and the arts; while religious conservatism has provided a communitarian
spirit and charitable impulses, and a moral undertone that anchors those who might go astray
(Cohen et al., 2015). Ultimately, from these two strands of North Carolina tradition, a polarized,
increasingly party-line politics evolved, waged partly on economic issues but even more on
cultural attitudes.
While the state’s racial conflicts were never as intense as in Alabama or Mississippi, North
Carolina’s legacy of segregation persists. In fact, racial tensions divided Durham in 2006, when
its prosecutor baselessly accused three white Duke lacrosse players of raping an African
American dancer (Cohen et al., 2015). , race has also been an issue in the state’s moves to tighten
its voting procedures. In 2013 the Supreme Court ruling of Shelby County v. Holder which
ultimately overturned Article 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which stated that states with a
record of voting suppression no longer needed to get permission from the federal government
before changing their voting laws, created a "perfect storm" where the state Republicans could
enact laws to discriminate against minorities once again. Simply put, the Voting Rights Act of
1965 was legislation which stated that all literacy tests which precluded voting was
unconstitutional as they significantly targeted and discriminated against minority groups;
essentially barring them from the right to vote (Wilson et al., 2017, p. 150).
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After only thirty days of the Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, the newly
minted GOP legislature in North Carolina passed sweeping changes to the state’s election laws
that included a curb on early voting and requirement of a photo ID to vote starting in 2016
under the House Bill 589 (Reynolds, 2016). As a result, civil rights groups and the Department
of Justice filed suit, and before a federal trial was scheduled to begin in 2015, the legislature
passed a measure to allow voters to sign affidavits in lieu of photo IDs (Reynolds, 2016).
Those opposed to the legislation, advocated that it was specifically enacted after the
historical election of the first African American president, Barack Obama. This mostly was due
to the fact that within the last ten presidential elections North Carolina had voted Republican;
however, in 2008 for the first time in 32 years, North Carolina voted democratically. Obama
marginal win of only .32% was mostly the result of both a high turnout of African-American
voters and overwhelming support from younger voters (Reynolds, 2016). Because of this, as
soon as the Republicans made a majority within the North Carolina General Assembly and as
soon as the Supreme Court retracted the provision of enforcing federal approval within states of
a history of voting oppression, Republicans created a bill which would severely limited the
amount of minority eligible voters within the state. Moreover, in 2016 the 4th Circuit Court of
Appeals struck down the law and declared that that state had targeted African Americans “with
almost surgical precision” and attempted to "remedy problems [voting fraud] that does not
exist.".
The reasoning behind this ruling is the fact that the law specifically targeted voting structures
that were significantly utilized by minority groups. One such measure of the law was the
termination of same-day registration and major restrictions of early voting which constituted
70% of the African American vote. Additionally, with the removal of the same-day registration,
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those who turned 18 would be barred from being able to participate in elections as well. This was
pushed through the motivation of reducing young voters who primarily voted Democrat.
Ultimately, these premeditated attempts to silence minority and Democratic voters is a
method that is completely against the democratic principles of American democracy. However, it
is not unique to North Carolina politics. In fact, Tova Wang and Janice Nittoli in their book, The
Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote, the authors
explain the history of voter suppression has unfortunately been a reality in American
politics. “The time-tested strategy of party operatives for both the Democratic and Republic
parties has been to make a vague or dramatically overstated claim about voter fraud and then
demand the system to be cleaned up through
‘reform’. Very often, the ‘reform’ method chosen
by those in power is a change in voting practice
that is unlikely to reduce fraud but will make it
harder for some segments of society to vote-
populations, not coincidentally, expected to vote
for political opponents.” (Nitolli & Wang, 2017, p.
xiv).
The authors explained that until the second half of
the twentieth century, the Democrats were the
main culprits of voter suppression of others. Over
the past fifty years, however, Republicans have
most frequently and deftly employed election law
and procedures to hold their party to win elections
Even though North Carolina’s voting populous tends to vote Republican in the modern
day, North Carolina is almost evenly split between the two major political)
North Carolina Presidential elections results since
1960. Shaw, A. (2017). “The American Monthly
Review of Reviews”, Vol. XXII, pp. 273-274.
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(Nitolli et al., 2017, p. xiv). As the country remains ideologically divided, and outcomes of local
and presidential elections have the potential to be close, contemporary Republicans have made it
a central part of their election strategy to enact laws and call for practices that will reduce turnout
among those who tend to vote Democratic, at least at the margins- where elections can often be
won or lost" (Nitolli et al., 2017, p. xiv). Ultimately, the principles illustrated within their book
seems to make up a clear picture of the political history and current climate within the state of
North Carolina.
Polarizing political landscapes have not only just affected voting legislation, it has also
created a tense struggle among parties to create preemptive measures which undermine the
democratic 'will of the people' and the importance of small localized governments. The most
famous and probably most recent example of this phenomena is of North Carolina's passage of
the Bathroom Bill (HB2 Bill) in response to the city of Charlotte's city ordinances which tried to
promote social reform of transvestites. Those against the HB2 Bill argued the preemptive
measure ultimately was an attempt to silence those within the City of Charlotte who advocated
with their local representatives to provide for an inclusive environment for transvestites and that
the measure was purposefully undermining the will of the people.
In strict economic terms, the state’s population grew considerably between 1970 and
2010, from 5.1 million to 9.5 million (Cohen, 2015). Meanwhile, the old mainstays of the textile
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industry and the tobacco industry of North Carolina’s economy faded into importance. The
textile industry largely moved offshore, and the federal government’s 2004 buyout of tobacco
quotas greatly diminished that sector. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 1992 to
2012, the textile and apparel industry in North Carolina lost 84.7% of its employees, more than
200,000 jobs (Cohen, 2015). North Carolina now ranks highly in biotech employment. Once
more, the state has the nation's least unioned labor force; only 1.9% of North Carolina workers
are unioned compared to 11.1% for the nation (Cohen, 2015). It has attracted highly skilled
people from the Northeast as well as immigrants seeking jobs in construction and in meat and
chicken factories. Its Hispanic population rose from 77,000 in 1990 to 800,000 in 2010 (Cohen,
2015).
Yet for all its urban development, life in North Carolina has not lost its rural tone.
According to the 2012 USDA census of agriculture, the state is the nation’s top producer of
poultry and eggs in terms of annual sales, 4.8 billion, and ranks No. 2 ($2.9 billion) for hog
production, after Iowa, with big feedlots in the southeastern portion of the state. Duplin and
Sampson counties are the No. 1 and No. 2 hog and pig producing counties in the country,
respectively, and they likewise rank second and third for poultry production. The state is
still the fourth leading producer of tobacco, but the value of that crop was only $700 million.
North Carolina has 13 seats in the U.S House of Representatives and two seats in the U.S
senate. Originally a traditionally Democratic state, North Carolina has voted Republican 9 of the
last 10 elections, as North Carolina did not vote for John McCain in the 2008 election against
Barack Obama. Both state’s U.S Senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, are Republican.
NORTH CAROLINA SENATORS
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North Carolina, like all the other states, is
compromised of two senators, Richard Burr and Thom
Tillis. Angered about rising taxes, in 1992 Richard
Burr first ran against Democratic representative
Stephen L. Neal and lost. He ran again in 1994 after
Neal chose not to seek re-election and was elected into
Congress during a landslide year for the Republicans. His platform advocated for
accountability for the federal government, lower health care costs, economic
development, and stronger school systems.
Before joining the U.S Senate while he was in the House of Representative, Burr had a
mostly conservative voting record. On the Energy and Commerce Committee, his early cause
was streamlining the Food and Drug Administration’s drug and medical device approval process,
which he argued would spend lifesaving products to the market. For over two years, he worked
with his agency, doctors, patients and consumer market groups, and the pharmaceutical industry
to come up with a consensus. With broad bipartisan support, his FDA Modernization Act became
law in 1997.
While in Congress, Burr established a reputation as a moderate Republican. Burr, along
with most other Republicans, was a signatory of a widely circulated pledge to not increase taxes,
and he supported a balanced-budget amendment. While traditionally a Republican, he broke with
his party in 2010 when he voted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a Clinton Administration
policy which prohibited gay men and women from openly serving in the U.S military. Burr was a
strong opponent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, and while in
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Congress he introduced bills related to cybersecurity and veteran’s affairs, two areas in which he
had a longtime interest.
Prior to his life in politics, Burr was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on November 30th, 1955
and his family later moved to North Carolina where he would eventually graduate from Reynolds
High School and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. He is the son of Marth Gillum and
the Reverend David Horace White Burr who both tragically died while Richard Burr was a
young child. After his parents’ death, his father’s brother raised him as his own. Burr worked for
Carswell Distributing INC., a wholesale commercial products company, for more than 16 years
where he worked his way up from salesman to the position of national sales manager.
7th DISTRICT CONGRESSIONAL POLITICS
Just like within the whole state of North Carolina and its history of racial oppression within
politics, the 7th Congressional District underwent the same issues. In fact, during the later
elections of the Reconstruction era, beginning in the 1870s, white Democrats used violence by
paramilitary group, as well as fraud, to suppress black Republican voters and turn Republicans
out of office. After regaining control of the state legislatures, Democrats were alarmed by a late
19th century alliance between Republicans and populists that cost them the elections. Particularly
in Wilmington, North Carolina, the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, otherwise known as the
race riot, saw white Democrats launching a coup d’état which overthrew the city government
(Cohen, 2015).
This ultimately was the only coup of its kind in United States history. It resulted in a duly
elected biracial government headed by a white mayor who widely attached the black community;
destroying lives and property and caused many blacks to leave the city permanently. In fact,
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before the onslaught against African Americans, the city of Wilmington was the
fastest growing majority-black city in the entire state where blacks often served on juries and ate
in restaurants alongside whites; however more than 2,000 blacks fled making Wilmington a
majority-white city, which it remains to this day (Cohen, 2015). The episode marked the
beginning of Wilmington's decline and as such its population did not recover until 1920.
The coastal counties of southern North Carolina grew significantly in the 2000s, but that
growth tapered off during the recession. In the six months starting with October 2014, the
unemployment rate was below 5 percent. Tourism is now thriving, thanks to the beaches north
and south of Wilmington. In fact, the city of Wilmington is
The congressional district is ancestrally Democratic, and it was the final white-majority
district in the state that hadn’t elected a Republican since Reconstruction. Redistricting in 2012
made the 7th the second most Republican district in the state, and that anomaly was resolved in
2014.
Economically, another aspect worth noting about this congressional district is the rather large
issue of income inequality. In fact, 15.2% of all the people within this district make $100,000 a
year or more while 19.3% of those who live within the congressional district are those within the
poverty rate. This large income disparity, especially after the recession, may have been one of the
driving forces for the district to vote Republican for the first time in several years.
Additionally, the demographic of the area also has contributed to the district being
predominantly liberal. For example, within the district includes the City of Wilmington/New
Hanover County which is home to two large college campuses which would ultimately attract
many younger voters, who tend to vote Democrat. In fact, in New Hanover County, out of the
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nearly 200,000 people who live in the area, most of the individuals are between the ages of 22
and 29.
7TH DISTRICT CONGRESSIONAL U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
The current representative for the congressional district is
David Rouzer who became the first Republican to represent
southeastern North Carolina since the 19th century.
Rouzer as born in Landstuhl Germany and was raised in
Durham. He attended North Carolina State University’s
College of Agriculture, where he received his bachelor’s
degree in agricultural business management, agricultural economics, and chemistry. He spent
much of his career in Washington as an aide to Republican senators, Jesse Helms and Elizabeth
Dole; as a Bush Administration appointee in the Agriculture Department; and as a lobbyist for
tobacco companies.
During four years in the state Senate, Rouzer co-chaired the Agriculture and Environment
Committee. He became known for his vocal support of a North Carolina law banning the state’s
use of scientific predictions of how much sea level will rise in developing coastal policy. The
law, passed in 2012, drew criticism from environmental groups, which said it amounted to denial
of scientific evidence for climate change.
His background in agriculture coupled with his campaign's focus on righting the wrongs of
the Obama Administration, had a large appeal despite the district being historically democratic.
In fact, during his candidacy to be voted into the House of Representatives he frequently blamed
President Obama for putting the United States "on a path to financial ruin," and repeated that he
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wanted to "take our country back" (Cohen, 2015). He ultimately portrays the Republican value of
“government is the best when it governs least” (Witham, 2018).
Within Agriculture, Rouzer typically disproves of intense regulations and
has publicly supported the Trump's administration's decision to withdraw a controversial
Obama administration's prerogative known as the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard
Administration (GIPSA). As the subcommittee chairman of the Livestock and Foreign
Agriculture, Rover specifically stated, “excessive regulations with questionable legal backing
ultimately lead to a wave of lawsuits and to years of litigation. The withdraw of the GIPSA rule
brings years of regulatory uncertainty in our livestock, poultry and packing industries to an end. I
applaud the Trump administration, along with Sec. Perdue, for their hard work on behalf of rural
America to roll back these cumbersome regulations" (Conway & Rouzer, 2017).
He also takes other traditionally conservative stances on views of abortion as well. David
Rouzer released the following statement after the House passed the No Taxpayer Funding for
Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (H.R. 7) "On the 42nd anniversary of Roe
v. Wade, we are all reminded how important it is to fight for those who cannot speak for
themselves. This bill makes permanent the prohibition of taxpayer dollars for insurance plans
that cover abortion services. I am proud to stand with the millions of those across the country
who work daily to protect our most vulnerable" (Rouzer, 2015). Additionally, within a letter
addressed to president Donald Trump which was supported by the Family Research Council, he
expressed his shared commitment in enacting the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
which would end painful late abortions nationwide (Rouzer, 2015).
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INTEREST GROUP SCORES
Political parties and politicians are not the only figures attempting to influence government
policy in America. Interest groups have grown rapidly since the 1960 and the number of interest
groups that have lobbyists working full time in Washington has reached new highs in just the last
decade (Wilson et al., 2017, p. 134). Voters are normally encouraged to follow interest groups
and analyze the scores they give candidates for elections before making their voting decision
because newspapers and websites often have a bias (Witham, 2018, Becoming an Informed
Voter). According to the interest group scores, both U.S Senator Richard Burr and U.S.
Representative David Rouzer can be considered conservative as their decisions in congress tend
to be ones which display a more limited government that places emphasis on the equality of
opportunity rather than outcome (Witham, 2018).
According to public interest groups the state’s senator, Richard Burr, seems to be a
conservative that mildly leans left. The ADA gives him an approval rating of a 10%, which while
low is higher than most traditional conservatives; however, the ACLU, another liberal interest
group gives him an approval rating of a 0% (Cohen, 2015). Conservative groups, on the other
hand, such as ACU and FRC give him an approval rating of 88% and 100% respectively (Cohen,
2015). His most recent work included voting in favor of a bill that would make it very difficult to
have a late term abortion; however, that bill was not passed but would explain the high FRC
ratings. Senator Burr’s left leaning agenda might have more to do with having a right-wing
libertarian bias. For example, with his decision to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation
which barred openly gay individuals from military service was seemingly uncharacteristic of him
as he had previously voted in approval of the Marriage Protection Amendment in 2006 which
goal was to amend to Constitution to ban same-sex marriage across all fifty states (Cohen, 2015).
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He would later go on to explain that his reasonings for the ban were not based on gay civil rights
which some initially thought, but rather that he was “convinced that the timing of [the] change
[was] wrong,” he also criticized the bill in “making such a shift in policy at a time when we have
troops deployed in active combat areas” (Geman, 2010).
David Rouzer, one of the State’s US Representatives, seems to be more conservative than
that of Richard Burr. Both the liberal interest groups, the ADA and the ACLU, gives him a rating
of 0% (Cohen, 2015). The ACU and FRC on the other hand, two conservative groups, give him a
perfect score of a 100% (Cohen, 2015).
David Rouzer’s work on defunding planned parenthood displays his commitment to pro-life
interest groups and ultimately is a key indicator of his views as a conservative Republican.
Additionally, his recent comments regarding fiscal government and defunding sanctuary cities is
also evidence of his commitment to the Republican party as conservatives tend to promote less
governmental spending (Witham, 2018).
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References
Chinni, D. (2016). “Rapidly Changing North Carolina Becoming a Key Swing State”. NBC
News.
Cohen, R. E., Barone, M., Jacobson, L., Peck, L., Barnes, J. A., Holland, K., & Cook, C. (2015).
The Almanac of American Politics 2016 : Members of Congress and Governors: Their
Profiles and Election Results, Their States and Districts. [Bethesda, MD]: Columbia
Books, Inc.
Conway, M. & Rouzer, D. (2017). “Conway, Rouzer Praise Trump Administration’s
Controversial GIPSA Rules, Vote Smart.
Geman, B. (2010). “Burr Explains Vote-Switch on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. The Hill.
Nittoli, J., & Wang, T. (2016). “The Politics of Voter Suppression Defending and
Expanding Americans’ Right to Vote”, Cornell University Press.
Reynolds, A. (2016). “North Carolina is no Longer Classified as a Democracy”. The News &
Observer. Reference at
<http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/oped/article122593759.html>.
Rouzer, D. (2015). “Rep. Rouzer Supports Pro-Life Legislation”, Vote Smart.
Shaw, A. (2017). “The American Monthly Review of Reviews”, Vol. XXII, pp. 273-274.
Wilson, J., Dilulio, J., Bose, M., & Levendusky, M. (2017) American Government: Brief
Edition. Cengage Learning.
Witham, S. (2018). “Presentation: Becoming an Informed Voter”, Liberty University.
Witham, S. (2018). “Presentation: Liberalism and Conservatism”, Liberty University.
