First Posted: 5/9/2012

A CNN journalist recently conducted a study examining how responsive our state legislators are to their constituents. The reporter sent an email to the official account of every North Carolina legislator. He clearly stated the purpose of his research and asked the legislator to acknowledge if they read the correspondence. They could even respond with a blank email. Simple right?

Out of 120 legislators, only 37 responded. That’s a 30 percent response rate and the researcher even gave credit if an assistant responded. A total of 13 out of 52 Democrats, 25 percent, and 24 out of 68 Republicans, 35 percent, responded. So while Republicans did only slightly better, Democrats were overwhelmingly more likely to have an assistant respond as 46 percent of Democrat responses came from assistants compared with 16 percent by assistants to Republicans.

The Senate experienced similar results. Only 22 out of 50 senators responded to the test correspondence with six out of 19 Democratic senators, 31 percent, and 16 out of 31 Republicans, 51 percent, responding. How did the Robeson delegation fair? Republican Rep. G.L. Pridgen and Democratic Sena. Michael Walters were the only two Robeson legislators to respond.

But politicians do not respond to each other either. Have you seen those passionate C-Span speeches? Many are conducted late at night to empty seats in Congress as partisan politics rule.

How partisan are voters? Well, in the last presidential election 42 percent of Democrats in Robeson voted a straight-party ticket compared to 9 percent of Republicans. To be fair, the dangers of straight ticket voting work both ways.

In Texas, a Republican district clerk with a criminal past was swept into office in the 2010 Republican landslide by straight- ticket voting. He resigned before the District Attorney could remove him from office.

Political parties are the most partisan, but at least partisanship is their job. They are primarily responsive to their members or voter issues they can influence. Democrats continue to successfully spin the Voter Rights Act as an example even though most Democrats initially opposed it.

Minorities began leaving the Republican Party after Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voter Rights Act in 1965. Lost in the history is that a Republican Congress sent Johnson the bill when he could not convince his own Democratic Congress to pass it.

Political parties are engaged in an ideological nuclear war and overlook such details. It is called spin and has driven a generational wedge in how voters respond to political affiliation. Republicans do it too, so it’s no wonder unaffiliated voters are the fastest growing rank. But spin is effective.

Only recently has there been a rise in black leadership within the GOP ranks to change this generational paradigm that began in 1965, according to the National Black Republican Association. A refreshing sign that paradigms may be changing.

It is unlikely we will become less partisan though. Psychologists agree our brain constructs things in the most useful way possible. For example, it exaggerates height to keep us from falling off ledges, which is useful. Accuracy is not a priority.

Politics is similar. Issues are distorted for utility not accuracy. Once in office, little gets done. But the CNN survey is not a new revelation.

In 64 B.C., Marcus Cicero was running for Roman consul. He was the underdog. His brother wrote him a letter telling him to promise everything to everyone. He said voters would be angrier with a candidate who refused to make promises than one who broke them later. He was right. Cicero won.

A viable Republic requires responsive leadership. The solution is found in balances of power where no party retains a monopoly, there is less partisanship and an educated electorate that separates usefulness from accuracy.

Phillip Stephens is chairman of the Robeson County Republican Party.