I will not be absent when any of the votes are taken. I understand that my failure to sign the pledge will result in grounds for expulsion from the caucus.
All but three Republican members of the state House have signed the above oath to march in mindless lockstep on redistricting issues. To his great credit, Rep. Richard Morgan of Moore County is one of them.
Morgan can be as partisan as they come, but he has drawn the line when it comes to giving the Republican caucus a blank check on redistricting plans that haven’t even been formulated. “The only pledge I’ve signed is not to raise taxes,” Morgan said in an interview with The Pilot. “My only pledge is to serve the people of the 31st House District.”
The strategy of the Republican caucus is to unite GOP members in support of a particular set of redistricting maps to round up enough dissident Democrats to assemble a majority of House members behind a plan that is to the Republicans’ liking. The caucus is holding over its members the threat of expulsion from its ranks. House Minority Leader Leo Daughtry is the principal author of the pledge.
The only Republicans who have not signed the document besides Morgan are Rep. Wilma Sherrill of Asheville and Rep. David Miner of Cary. Miner says he was out of town when the pledge was circulated and will probably get around to signing it. But Sherrill, like Morgan, says she won’t promise to support a plan she hasn’t seen. “People of the 51st House District elected me and didn’t expect me to be dictated to by someone else,” Sherrill said.
The House and Senate redistricting plans being pushed by Democrats shouldn’t be rammed down the legislature’s throat any more than should the ones that will eventually be arrived at by Republicans. The Democratic plan would carve up Moore County to an excessive degree, in terms of both House and Senate district maps.
Legislative redistricting committees should get about the business of forging some bipartisan compromises that give both Democrats and Republicans some concessions and respect county lines as much as possible within the court-ordered dictates of one-person, one-vote.
Morgan, for one, seems willing to help do that. By asserting his independence of the caucus, he is setting a statesmanlike example that his fellow members of the Republican caucus would do well to follow as they proceed with the debate over redistricting.
