THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 8, 1994 TAG: 9411080322
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
Today is the second time around for elections in the new 1st Congressional District, and in divided Pasquotank County many African Americans say proudly that the voting system that favors minority candidates has helped foster racial harmony.
Pasquotank County is split between the 1st Congressional District and the 3rd Congressional District.
In some parts of Elizabeth City, a voter who walks across the street will move from the predominantly black 1st District to the white-majority 3rd District.
On the surface, at least, new political stresses have been negligible since redistricting by the 1992 N.C. General Assembly gave the 1st District the minority voting areas of 28 coastal counties stretching from the Virginia border to South Carolina. About 53 percent of the voters in the new district are black and about 47 percent are white.
Most observers expect 1st District Rep. Eva M. Clayton, D-Warren, the first African American and the first female to go to Congress from North Carolina in this century, to be re-elected today.
Clayton, after two difficult 1st District primaries against a white Democratic candidate, won the 1992 general election against Republican Ted Tyler, a Rich Square pharmaceutical executive who was for nine years the mayor of that small Northampton County community.
Tyler, who is white, is again running - and harder - this year against Clayton.
But Clayton has proved herself a capable congresswoman who has had the support of that portion of the white Democratic power structure that controlled the old 1st District for decades under the late Rep. Walter B. Jones Sr., who died in 1991.
The elder Jones' son, Walter Jr., is running as a Republican this year in the 3rd Congressional District where he hopes to win the backing of thousands of conservatives who voted for his late father until they were transferred to the 3rd District in the reapportionment.
Although tightly controlled until recently by old guard white Democrats, Northeastern North Carolina has been blessed with comfortable race relations throughout this century. Black political leaders have shared power by turning out Democratic votes.
But while Clayton's election two years ago brought to the African-American majority a glorious vision of progress, the success of black democracy in the 1st District may bring an uneasy future.
Sometime soon the United States Supreme Court will decide whether the mandated rearrangement of voters in the 1st District and in a similar 12th District between Durham and Charlotte amounts to gerrymandering, as charged by a group of N.C. white voters.
Robinson Everett, a Duke law school professor, and several other plaintiffs in the 12th District are appealing the N.C. General Assembly redistricting. In the 12th District, Mel Watt, a black Charlotte lawyer, also won with the votes of the majority African Americans.
Everett contends that the ``gerrymandering'' of minority voters in the new 12th District that now runs along I-85 from Durham to Charlotte has violated the constitutional rights of white voters.
Similar U.S. House redistrictings have recently been successfully contested by white voters in the lower courts of other Southern states.
Everett lost two initial moves in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, but he believes that his Supreme Court appeal will resolve the legality of congressional districts deliberately redrawn with minority majorities.
Everett's suit specifically challenges the new 12th District, but any Supreme Court action could force remapping of the 1st and other congressional districts in N.C. All 12 congressional districts in the state must carry an equal population balance and a change in one district can force voter transfers in other districts.
Should the Supreme Court support Everett's argument, the ruling would in all probability send the redistricting issue back to the N.C. General Assembly for 12 new congressional voting areas.
Some legal scholars feel that the 12th District is most vulnerable to Everett's charges of gerrymandering.
But possible changes in the 12th District could force a similar revision of the 1st District, an area where sensitive African-American leaders feel they have brilliantly - and peacefully - demonstrated the wisdom of voting rights laws.
ELIZABETH CITY - Today is the second time around for elections in the new 1st Congressional District, and in divided Pasquotank County many African Americans say proudly that the voting system that favors minority candidates has helped foster racial harmony.
Pasquotank County is split between the 1st Congressional District and the 3rd Congressional District.
[But Clayton has proved herself a capable congresswoman who has had the support of that portion of the white Democratic power struc]ture that controlled the old 1st District for decades under the late Rep. Walter B. Jones Sr., who died in 1991.
The elder Jones' son, Walter Jr., is running as a Republican this year in the 3rd Congressional District where he hopes to win the backing of thousands of conservatives who voted for his late father until they were transferred to the 3rd District in the reapportionment.
Although tightly controlled until recently by old guard white Democrats, Northeastern North Carolina has been blessed with comfortable race relations throughout this century. Black political leaders have shared power by turning out Democratic votes.
But while Clayton's election two years ago brought to the African-American majority a glorious vision of progress, the success of black democracy in the 1st District may bring an uneasy future.
Sometime soon the United States Supreme Court will decide whether the mandated rearrangement of voters in the 1st District and in a similar 12th District between Durham and Charlotte amounts to gerrymandering, as charged by a group of N.C. white voters.
Robinson Everett, a Duke law school professor, and several other plaintiffs in the 12th District are appealing the N.C. General Assembly redistricting. In the 12th District, Mel Watt, a black Charlotte lawyer, also won with the votes of the majority African Americans.
Everett contends that the ``gerrymandering'' of minority voters in the new 12th District that now runs along I-85 from Durham to Charlotte has violated the constitutional rights of white voters.
Similar U.S. House redistrictings have recently been successfully contested by white voters in the lower courts of other Southern states.
Everett lost two initial moves in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, but he believes that his Supreme Court appeal will resolve the legality of congressional districts deliberately redrawn with minority majorities.
Everett's suit specifically challenges the new 12th District, but any Supreme Court action could force remapping of the 1st and other congressional districts in N.C. All 12 congressional districts in the state must carry an equal population balance and a change in one district can force voter transfers in other districts.
Should the Supreme Court support Everett's argument, the ruling would in all probability send the redistricting issue back to the N.C. General Assembly for 12 new congressional voting areas.
Some legal scholars feel that the 12th District is most vulnerable to Everett's charges of gerrymandering.
But possible changes in the 12th District could force a similar revision of the 1st District, an area where sensitive African-American leaders feel they have brilliantly - and peacefully - demonstrated the wisdom of voting rights laws. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by DREW C. WILSON/
Lynda Midgett, left, of the Dare County Board of Elections, checks
voting booths in Manteo on Monday as they are loaded for delivery to
voting precincts for today's election.
KEYWORDS: NORTH CAROLINA ELECTION by CNB