No More Marc Basnights

I won’t begrudge Marc Basnight his laudatory send-off and peaceful retirement. But let’s not go through all this again, okay?

RALEIGH (By John Hood, Carolina Journal Online) – Now that outgoing President Pro Tem Marc Basnight has announced his retirement from the North Carolina Senate, lawmakers ought to make a firm commitment never to allow another politician like Basnight to rise to power.

I don’t say that because I have a grudge against him, or because I disagreed with some of his political views. I like the man personally and wish him well in his retirement. What I mean is that never again should a single state lawmaker be allowed to exercise the kind of power Basnight enjoyed in Raleigh for nearly 20 years. And never again should a lawmaker be allowed to game the electoral system, as Basnight has now done, to prevent voters from selecting their own political representation.

Before the Dare County Democrat was elected leader of the senate in 1993, there had been no modern tradition of a single senator running the chamber for long stretches of time. Admittedly, Democrat Jimmy Green ran the senate for eight years, from 1977 to 1984 (after previously serving a couple of years as speaker of the house). But at least Green did so as a lieutenant governor twice elected by a statewide vote.

When Republican Jim Gardner won the lieutenant governor’s job in 1988, Democrats stripped it of its legislative authority and made the president pro tem the de facto leader of the senate. Over nine straight terms, Basnight accumulated unprecedented and unwelcome power over state government.