Haven’t we had enough of partisanship? Keep it out of local NC governments | Opinion

In light of the hyper-partisan nature of our current politics, the idea of greater state-level control over cities by partisan elected officials is being bandied about in this newspaper and other media outlets. Some pundits are espousing that legislative leadership should take what steps it feels necessary to mold cities into their vision.

The conclusion that more partisanship is needed to resolve issues at the local level is as misguided as it is naive. The reality is that the exact opposite is needed. Most of us who have served in local offices recognize that keeping partisanship out of local decision-making is a key means of serving the people’s interest, rather than that of the two major political parties.

This trend toward political polarization and hyper-partisanship lies at the root of this question. When local elections have become partisan, and other states and localities that have moved to partisan local elections bear this out, communities face more division and are left with a lower quality of elected leaders. Their local elections are treated the same as their state and federal elections — highly partisan and de-facto gerrymandered. State and federal partisan elections have hardly served as a model to be replicated in recent years.

Historically, local government elections in North Carolina, including for city and town councils, have been “non-partisan,” meaning the candidate’s party registration was not displayed on the voter’s ballot. Further, most of these elections were held in the odd years, or off-cycle years from the major partisan elections for president and state-wide offices, such as governor.

Yes, there was lower overall voter turnout than during the even-year partisan elections, but the voters coming out for these elections actually knew about the local candidates they were voting for, because local government elections were the only elections on the ballot, and therefore, the only reason to come out to vote. These voters were “informed” voters, not like when these local elections are put at the end of a long, partisan ballot, where the voters are coming out for the top of the ticket, and the political parties control endorsements of the candidates.

Unfortunately, hyper-partisans are already getting what they want — having the two major political parties control local elections. A troubling trend now is for the General Assembly to take up “local bills” that move these local historically non-partisan elections to the partisan election cycles, and often to even make them officially “partisan” by placing the candidates’ political party registration on the ballot beside the candidates’ name.

Partisan local elections are just another form of gerrymandering. Everyone says they oppose gerrymandering, even those legislators who have abused the redistricting process in the past. City elections will be controlled by the local Democratic Party, while county elections will often be dominated by the local Republican Party; and the school board elections, which have become incredibly contentious because of hyper-partisanship, would depend on urban vs rural voter demographics. Is this really what we citizens of North Carolina want for our local governing bodies, which are supposed to represent all the citizens of a community?

Haven’t we had enough of partisanship at every level, much less the current hyper-partisanship we have now. It has already failed North Carolina citizens at the state and federal levels. All local government elections should continue to be non-partisan, and hyper-partisan oversight from the North Carolina General Assemblyt or any other elected body, should be kept out of local governing.

David Knight is a former Raleigh councilman.

This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Haven’t we had enough of partisanship? Keep it out of local NC governments | Opinion."