What Carolina Forward gets right (and wrong) on constitution reform

I’m glad to see others thinking seriously about a new constitution — but some of their fixes could actually make things worse.

It’s not every day I find myself agreeing with a progressive group on constitutional reform. But I’ve got to hand it to Carolina Forward — their new column outlining ideas for a new North Carolina constitution is (mostly) thoughtful and in many places, pretty close to where I am.

We’re clearly looking at the same problems.

Their call to slim down the executive branch mirrors what I laid out in my Observer column and follow-up here on Longleaf. That’s not a surprise — it’s one of the most obvious structural flaws in our current system. And I was glad to see their support for staggered four-year terms in the state Senate. It’s a reform that rarely gets the attention it deserves.

But in a few key areas, we part ways — not just in policy but in philosophy. Two stand out to me: how we draw legislative districts, and how we interpret the partisanship behind North Carolina’s current dysfunction.