Republicans Have Opportunity To Take Over N.C. Government

And I imagine most folks couldn't be happier. One of the biggest reasons to be happy is because I won't be writing any more columns about Erskine Bowles after he loses today.

The road to this year's election has been an interesting one to say the least, and there have been plenty of bumps along the way.

One of the first came when the Republicans sued the Democrats for gerrymandering state legislative districts. Because of the ongoing litigation, the primary elections were not held until mid-September, which meant Republicans and Democrats spent more time running against themselves than each other.

It didn't have to be that way of course. The Democrat-controlled N.C. General Assembly created the majority of legislative districts so they were noncompetitive to protect incumbents. After the Republicans won their suit on the first try, Democrats subsequently appealed the case on nine different occasion and lost every one of them.

But that didn't keep them from sending the bill for their legal fees, which amounted to several hundred thousand dollars, straight to the taxpayers at a time when the state was experiencing one of its worst budget shortfalls ever.

This year's U.S. Senate race is vitally important, as it could well determine which party will control the Senate. We need to elect a senator who actually has a plan for the future of North Carolina and our nation, and that person is Elizabeth Dole. Erskine Bowles has yet to produce any concrete plans to resolve anything but has instead only said that he opposes Dole's ideas.

Two equally important, but much less publicized, races on the ballot today are for the General Assembly and our state appellate courts.

Since 1999, when the Democrats regained control of both houses of the General Assembly, they have raised taxes on every state resident and through out-of-control spending habits have created a $2 billion state budget deficit.

Prior to 1999, when Republicans controlled only the N.C. House, the state had a more than $1 billion budget surplus while still providing needed services to citizens. The Republicans have pledged to do the same thing if elected this year, all while delivering quality education, protecting senior citizens and providing for the most vulnerable members of our society.

Finally, the races you probably have heard nothing about are for a seat on the N.C. Supreme Court and five seats on the N.C. Court of Appeals. Our state needs judges who are fair and will issue common-sense rulings. I'd hate to think that common sense is somehow a partisan affair, but after three liberal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in California banned the Pledge of Allegiance from schools simply because it contains the words "under God," I really have to wonder.

It would be a national embarrassment if North Carolinians elect liberal judges this year who make rulings like that. And the Democrats running for those seats this year are as liberal as they come; one even serves as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, a group that applauded the outrageous California ruling.

But no matter what your political leanings, the most important thing you can do today is to go and vote if you haven't already done so.

Only 36 percent of eligible 18- to-24-year-olds voted in the 2000 election, and the turnout will likely be even lower this year. If you noticed as I did that candidates of both parties spent little time focusing on issues that matter to the college-aged crowd, it's because they know we don't vote anyway. But by voting today you can change that and send a message to both parties that college-aged voters really do matter.

E-mail Michael McKnight at mmcknigh@email.unc.edu.