Grand Jury Continues To Look At N.C. Rep. Frank Ballance (Democrat's Dien Bien Phu in NC)

WRAL -- Raleigh, NC ^ | December 03, 2003 | WRAL

[Jomini]

North Carolina Rep. Frank Ballance co-founded the John Hyman Foundation years ago when he served as a state senator. He helped direct millions in state money to the nonprofit organization. A federal grand jury continues to ask where did that money go and why?

[Jomini]

Frank Ballance has always claimed he wanted "to help the people of North Carolina" and now he is about to get his chance. The resulting fallout from this investigation -- and the new federal probe scheduled to start early next year into Ballance's siphoning of federal grant monies to Democratic party operatives in the First District -- will collapse the entire NC Democratic ticket in 2004.

These Grand Juries meet for a long time and when the smoke clears Ballance will be joining Meg Scott in prison and Erskine Bowles and Mike Easley will see much of their core voting bloc staying at home. The conservative Down East democrats will flock to Congressman Burr and the GOP governor candidate -- it will be the grassroots activists that must get them to the polls.

Such a pardigm shift is the strategic axis of advance that will be required to win both of these state-wide races 51-48 when President Bush romps home against Howard Dean 56-43. The Democratic brain trust knows this better than the GOP now and is trying to generate separation from Ballance -- however they are too late.

Frank Ballance is a criminal thug that has made a living for two decades stealing from the people of Eastern North Carolina while proclaiming he is working "for our people."

The last time anyone checked "his people" aren't doing so well. A number of them will be joining him in prison...

J

[AuH2ORepublican]

*Vulnerable NC RAT Ping*

[Jomini]

Mr Fusion on occasion tells the tale of how the Russians killed his pal General Dudayev. It seems the FSB managed to home in on his cell phone transmission and a long-range MIG deposited a couple of missiles on the General's twenty. The political Exocets are locked in on Frank Ballance now -- the whole world about to see how crooked politicians are dealt with during the Third World War.

Congressman Ballance ran a political slush fund financed by tax-payer money while the people of eastern North Carolina starved. He is a disgrace to everything decent in America.

Frank Ballance beaucoup dinky dao...

J

[gunnedah]

Another lawyer milking the government at the tax payers expense.
I saw on the news yesterday that there are numerous attorney's in the DC area that do nothing but sue the government for one cause or the other and then collect millions of our taxpayer dollars up front.
Lawyers are destroying America daily and those we elect aid them at it.
No wonder the Clintons are the darlings of the Democrat Party and the ABA!

[jmaroneps37]

...and he won with 64%. If we ever won that seat, it really wouldn't make any difference what happened elsewhere. Things would be so bad that it would mean the rat party was out of business anyway: BUT that aint gonna happen! They might cart frank off to the can but the next rat will step up and win the same way he did when eva did. The real benefit here is as someone else said, it will be at least a set back for erksome and the rat gov candidate so on bal(l)ance :-) it will be a plus, especially if W rolls in NC as I'm sure he will.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Can we win this seat under abnormal circumstances?"

---

Yes, the seat is winnable against an incumbent such as Ballance. Bush got 41.1% of the vote there in 2000, even though he probably got less than 10% of the black vote (the district's population is 50.5% black, although the general-election electorate is probably around 47% black). If we can get an honest, law-abiding black Republican to run against Ballance, the contrast in integrity could allow our candidate to receive 70% of the white vote and 30% of the black vote and thus receive over 51% of the total vote. These numbers are by no means out of the question, since Bush probaby got 70% of the white vote in the district in 2000 and since a black Republican candidate who made ethics, crime and social conservatism the centerpieces of his campaign could very well get that extra 22% of blacks to vote for him. Against an untarnished black Democrat, though, it would be a much more difficult seat for us to win, but still not impossible.

[jmaroneps37]

You're right. This could be torricelli all over again. If ballance is damaged goods but still on the ballot the right GOPer may be able to beat him. Since there is absolutely no way that North Carolina is anywhere near as corrupt as New Jersey, maybe frank CAN be sealed onto the ballot.

[Gritty]

BTTT

[Clintonfatigued]

Republicans won't win the district under its current lines. But that doesn't mean that Frank Ballance will be back in 2005. The real threat to his career is in the 'Rat primary, and there are a lot of ambitious politicians taking a close look at this.

[ken5050]

Just wondering...could this about-to-erupt scandal in any way possibly explain why Edward's didn't run for re-election...

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Republicans won't win the district under its current lines."

---

See my post #8. If Ballance is the RAT nominee, I think we could have a good chance of winning our first black-majority district in 30 years.

GOP Congressmen held black majority districts in Memphis in the early 1970s (and maybe in Atlanta in the late 1960s), right, DJ?

[Impy]

It's within the realm of possibility I guess.

A strongly rat Chicago district turned out Congressman Dan "I can't think of an isulting thing to put here at the moment" Rostenkowski in 1994 because he was under indictment.

[Dan from Michigan]

That's true, but I believe that was a 75%+ white district.

[Clintonfatigued]

The only case where a white Republican held an African-American majority district was former Congressman Webster "Webb" Franklin of Mississippi. He was elected narrowly in 1982 and 1984, and defeated by Mike Espy (later Clinton's Secy. of Agriculture) in 1986.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"The only case where a white Republican held an African-American majority district was former Congressman Webster "Webb" Franklin of Mississippi. He was elected narrowly in 1982 and 1984, and defeated by Mike Espy (later Clinton's Secy. of Agriculture) in 1986."

---

You were correct to specify "white," since we all know that black Republicans held black-majority districts in the South as late as 1901 or so and in Chicago as late as 1935.

If I'm not mistaken, Mississippi was redistricted mid-decade in the 1980s because the Justice Department interpreted the Voting Rights Act to forcve the state to have one black-majority district. That's when they drew the black-majority district that Espy held from 1987 to 1993 and that Bennie Thompson has held since his special election in 1993. I have long assumed that the district was less than 50% black before the Justice Department made them redistrict (why would they make them redistrict in 1986 if there already was a black-majority district in the state?), but then again maybe I've been wrong all along.

And as I wrote before, until I believe 1974 the GOP held the Memphis seat currently held by Harold Ford, Jr., and the reason why we lost the seat was that it had become "increasingly African-American"; I would guess it was over 50% black in 1972 if it elected Harold Ford, Sr. in 1974. And didn't Andrew Young win his Atlanta House seat from a Republican in the late '60s or early '70s? Then again, maybe the seat was less than 50% black back then, since Young appealed to both black and white liberals.

DJ, can you settle this argument?

[Clintonfatigued]

Here's the history. The Atlanta House seat elected a conservative Republican named Fletcher Thompson in 1966. The district was about 45% African-American. Back then, it included a number of middle and working class white neighborhoods to in western Fulton County. Thompson comfortably won reelection in 1968 and 1970. In 1972, the western white Atlanta neighborhoods were removed from the district and repaced with white communities on the northern side of Atlanta, which were more affluent but more liberal. Partly as a result, Thompson ran for the U.S. Senate. He made a good showing, but lost to a rural state legislator named Sam Nunn. In the House, Thompson was succeeded by Andrew Young, who had lost to him in 1970. The Tennessee situation was also influenced by redistricting. In 1966, it elected a conservative Republican named Dan Kuykendall, and he won three more terms comfortably. But in 1972, the 'Rat legislature united most of the inner-city African-American neighborhoods and removed several white neighborhoods, leaving the district about 45% black and whites leaving for the suburbs. In 1974, Kuykendall lost to Harold Ford by 747 votes. In 1976, a court-ordered redistricting removed more white precincts and included all the African-American neighborhoods, leaving the distrcit around 60% black.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Clintonfatigued, thanks for the correction on Memphis and Atlanta. I thought that the total population in the Memphis and Atlanta districts was 50% black (although less than 40% of voters were black), but you obviously have had access to more precise facts than I did.

As for Mississippi, do you have the black percentage of the population in the 2nd district before it was redrawn mid-decade? I don't have any Almanacs of American Politics prior to the 1994 edition, so I don't know what the population was like in the district before it was redrawn in 1986. As I wrote earlier, I assume that the district was not black majority, since if it already was black majority the DOJ wouldn't have ordered that it be made black majority. If the MS-02 district wasn't black majority in 1984, that means that no Republican has held a black-majority district since Congressman DePriest was defeated in his Chicago district in 1934.

[Clintonfatigued]

I don't have those books now, it's been so long. But I do remember that the district drawn in 1981 had African Americans a majority of the population, but not quite a majority of the voters. The mid-1980's redrawing was designed to correct that, and contributed to Mike Espy's election in 1986.