Heavily Black North Carolina Congressional District Will Wait Six More Months for Representation
Alma Adams, a long-time Democratic state representative and arts educator, is all-but-certainly going to be a Congresswoman. But due to a cost-saving move by her state’s governor, her first partial term may well be over before she gets sworn-in.
Back in January, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) announced that he would hold the special elections to replace Federal Housing Finance Agency director Mel Watt as U.S. Representative for the majority-minority 12th Congressional District on the same days as the already established primary, primary runoff, and general election dates. McCrory said this move would save the state “in excess of $1 million” — the estimated cost of holding stand-alone special elections — and would be “the most efficient process” to comply with “the various filing deadlines, ballot preparation time, state and federal calendar requirements for ballot access, [and] voter registration deadlines.” When critics, including the North Carolina NAACP, noted that this would leave the district unrepresented until November at the earliest, the governor responded that “not much goes on in Washington between July and the election anyway.”
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