/r/Libertarian, let me tell you what happened in North Carolina.

The Republicans took both the House and the Senate in the North Carolina General Assembly.

As they are Republicans (and believe me, Republicans around here are just like Republicans almost anywhere else), this probably isn't very exciting to Libertarians. It wasn't very exciting to me. However, there is one fact about it all that I think deserves some attention: It's the first time they've had the legislature in NC in over a hundred years. They haven't had control since the Northern occupation falsely referred to as "Reconstruction."

In the previous election, the School Board of Wake County, which contains the capital, went Republican, again for the first time in decades. When that happened, they finally removed a decades-old, racist, expensive, destructive, borderline fascist policy of forcibly busing children around the county for hours based on their societal status instead of allowing them to attend their own community schools. I wrote about that phenomenon here. The new board has been immensely popular as a result of this decision.

Now the state legislature has gone to the Republicans, and the long-term effects of this will be significant. The Congressional districts are going to be redrawn - fairly. That's a huge change, because NC is horribly gerrymandered to favor incumbents. PDF One of the incumbent Democrats, David Price of the 4th district, who defeated Ron Paul-endorsed Constitutionalist Republican BJ Lawson last night 57-43, has even said openly that he doesn't know how his district was drawn and that it doesn't make much sense to him. Of course, I don't believe he doesn't know. When he was defeated in 1994 by a Republican after serving 8 years, the district was immediately redrawn by the Democratic state legislature. Needless to say, he won again in 1996 and every election since then. The districts will be redrawn by the Republicans now, and he will lose in 2012.

More importantly, BJ Lawson will win in 2012. He already gained 7 points this election over what any Republican has been able to muster against Price since the redistricting. The stage is set to influence public opinion and sway the next elections significantly. Whichever Republicans win the primaries are highly likely to win the elections. It's up to us to decide who that will be.