Head to Head Corruption

Relocating from Chicago to Cary, North Carolina prompted me to compare my old, corrupt Democrat controlled state legislature in Illinois to my new statehouse in North Carolina, where Republicans hold sway. . 

Two things motived my intrigue. One: I’m convinced that the gravest threat America faces is the ability of a minority in a political party to rig the system and thwart the will of the majority, just as a wing of the Republican Party nearly did when the recent threat to default on the nation’s debt, something Americans strongly opposed. In staging their rebellion against their own party, a small wing of the Republican rebels employed devious practice that subvert democracy. The spectacle raised an issue more important than inflation or gun control because of the pivotal role it plays in the gridlock that blocks progress on a range of crucial issues on the local, state and federal levels.  

photo by Ian Hutchinson

The second thing that triggered my curiosity was the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the way congressional districts are drawn in  North Carolina. Lawyers representing Republicans in the state argued that courts have no constitutional authority to challenge the rules North Carolina lawmakers set for federal elections. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected North Carolina’s arguments, but the ruling really didn’t provide much clarity on the longer term issues simmering beneath the surface.  

So, I decided to determine which of the two legislatures that make the laws that have affected my life better reflected the will of the people — my old Illinois statehouse or North Carolina’s? I concluded that Illinois, despite its reputation for corruption, won.  

Before I get into why I reached that conclusion, I should make a few things clear. As a journalist, I don’t register with a political party. I’m an independent voter who casts ballots for individual candidates of both parties. I have just as many issues with Democrats as Republicans. So, I’m not a partisan player in the politics of either state. 

I’m not biased against my old or new home, either. There are things great and troubling elements in the place I left and my new home.

Chicago, for all its faults, is a great city with excellent architecture and restaurants. I have many friends there and return regularly to visit my daughter who calls Chicago home. I didn’t need a car when I lived in Chicago; I could walk most places, and the city has world class museums, culture and music. A relentless crime problem plagues Chicago, although it’s not as bad as St. Louis and Detroit. The city’s expensive, its local government is highly partisan and corrupt, and it’s cold in the winter.  

Cary, by contrast, demonstrates the best and worst of North Carolina. It’s much cheaper to live. One can’t thrive without a car, because walking anywhere is difficult. People are generally intelligent, nice and friendly. I’ve found few restaurants that equal even mediocre places in Chicago, but the local government is non-partisan and not plagued by corruption on a Chicago scale. Winters are warm. And comparing crime in Chicago and Cary is like comparing graduate school to kindergarten. Nevertheless, Cary is located in a state where the social and political atmosphere makes North Carolina a crucial force in the anti-democratic practices that plague the nation. 

First, let’s look at some numbers.

Around forty-eight percent of the population in Illinois registers as Democrats, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew says thirty-three percent of Illinois voters call themselves Republican and nineteen percent no party affiliation, which usually means independents. The Democrats control the fifty-nine seat state Senate by a lopsided margin: forty Democrats to  nineteen Republicans. Likewise, Democrats dominate the Illinois House of Representatives: Seventy-eight Democrats to thirty-nine Republicans. But the Democratic Party’s share of legislative seats in Illinois is not representative of the the state’s registered voters. Democrats hold about sixty-six percent of the seats in both houses even though only forty-eight percent of Illinois voters call themselves Democrats. The opposite is true for Illinois Republicans. They hold thirty-three percent of the seats in both houses, exactly the same as the percentage of Illinois voters who register as Republicans. 

In contrast, about thirty percent of North Carolina residents register as Republicans; thirty-four percent as Democrats and thirty-six percent as unaffiliated — independents or another fringe party, according to Carolina Demography, an arm University of North Carolina Research Center. However, Republicans hold sixty percent of the seats in both the North Carolina Senate and House of Representatives, or about double the percentage of the population here that registers as Republican. So, the party that represents a minority of the state’s population dominates the state’s legislature. 

The disproportionate influence of Democrats in Illinois is not a good thing. Corruption if rife there. Former Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, the longest serving leader of any state or federal office in U.S. history, was ousted from the Speaker’s chair because of federal bribery and corruption charges involving Commonwealth Edison, the state’s dominant utility company. Madigan resigned his House seat in 2021 and it set to be tried on the charges next year. Madigan is just one example of state legislative leaders felled by corruption charges. And I won’t even get into the legendary corruption in the Chicago City Council. 

Yet, despite their faults, Illinois Democrats push through legislation that represents the concerns of state voters. In other words, the majority party embraces issues deemed important by the majority of the population, which is the way it should be in a democracy. Democrats, for example, strongly line up behind a measure that would put a public referendum on the 2024 state ballot regarding the right to an abortion, a procedure already supported by laws enacted in a legislature Democrats dominate. They’ve passed several gun control laws, too, including stronger background checks for gun purchasers and an assault weapons ban. A slew of polls show the public in Illinois favors stronger gun control. Democratic sponsored measures mandating stronger background checks and an assault weapons ban already have been signed into law by Democratic Governor J. B. Pritzker. In fairness, the gun control measure also drew limited support from Republicans. 

In North Carolina, the opposite is true. The North Carolina Republican Party, with a veto-proof majority in the legislature, routinely opposes measures even though they are supported by the public. On abortion policy, the Pew Research Center says its polls suggest forty-nine percent of North Carolina voters say abortion should be legal while forty-five percent say it should be illegal. Other polls say support for abortion rights is stronger, with forty-nine percent favoring all or some access to abortions. Yet the North Carolina legislature, under the ironclad control of a minority party, recently voted to ban most abortions after twelve weeks. The Republican Party used its disproportionate legislative majority to override a veto of the abortion legislation by Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat. 

There’s public support for gun control in North Carolina, too. One poll by the Third Way, a progression organization here, suggests strong public support; seventh-three percent of voters say it’s too easy to get a gun. A full seventy-eight percent of North Carolina voters said they supported red flag laws — measures that give family members or law enforcement authority to ask a judge’s order to temporarily remove guns from someone who poses a violent threat to themselves or others. Civitas, a conservative organization, also said one of its polls tallied fifty eight percent of voters who said current gun laws are not strong enough. 

Yet the legislature passed a bill in March that eliminated background checks for buying handguns and allowed anyone attending a religious service that also served as a school to carry a gun. Governor Cooper also vetoed that bill, but the legislature, with its Republican supermajority, overrode the veto. North Carolina has no law on assault weapons. 

There’s more. Republicans also dominate the  North Carolina Supreme Court with a five to two majority, an advantage that erodes the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court involving North Carolina. Lawyers representing the state went before the federal high court and argued that the constitution gives state legislatures exclusive and near absolute power to regulate federal elections. The nation’s high court rejected that argument, suggesting state practices could be reviewed by courts. But for now, at least, the Republican dominated North Carolina Supreme Court remains the ultimate adjudicator on the issue, and it’s rulings favor the status quo. 

So, we have two levels of corruption at work. Illinois’ corruption is more blatant and usually involves a financial crime. North Carolina’s corruption in  more subtle and involves subverting the will of voters on important issues. Of course, abortion and gun control, the two issues I used as a proxy for the will of the majority, are not only issues that concern voters. Climate change, book banning and a raft of educational issues represent important issues on the mind of the public. The interests of the legislators is not always at odds with the policies of concern to voters, either, and I’m not suggesting that any one bill on an issue as complex as gun violence will solve the problem, although nation’s with fewer guns unquestionably have less gun violence.  

North Carolina and Illinois do have things in common. Politicians in both states engage in this chicanery under far less scrutiny from the daily local press. Both — as well as many other states — use gerrymandering to draw the lines of election districts to rig the vote in their favor and give minority parties the power to thwart the will of the majority, violating is fundamental tenant of a democracy. The technique plays a major role making primaries more important that general elections and fosters the partisan gridlock that blocks action on issues of wide concern to the public. Democrats use it as well as Republicans. In North Carolina, Republicans are simply better at it. 

—James O’Shea

James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Five W’s Substack here.