Editorial: Cawthorn's antics degrade Congress, disrespect his western N.C. constituents

What kind of representation in the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives and the state General Assembly do North Carolinians get as a result of the Republican majority in the legislature’s extraordinary success at extreme gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts?

Madison Cawthorn, who has represented the state’s 11th Congressional District for a mere seven months, is what.

How he’s represented his community and the state in those 210 days? Just read the headlines:

All that, and it’s just the most recent month’s worth!

Imagine -- a member of Congress tries to bring a gun on a plane! He launches a public shouting match with a fellow Republican representative – on the House floor -- and gets slapped with an ethics complaint!

It is a record of disrespect to the institution as well as ill-mannered behavior toward his colleagues; reckless disregard for the truth; and a stunning lack of decency and decorum.

His seat in Congress is the inevitable result of election districts so drastically gerrymandered that the lack of competition leads to candidates who are unexamined, embarrassingly unqualified and lack commitment to the responsibilities of elective representation.

Elections have become so lopsided that, since 2012, Republicans have won slightly better than 50 percent of the votes cast in U.S. House of Representatives elections yet have, until last year, occupied 77% of the 13 seats. In 2020, they won 62% of the seats. It is a stark contrast to the state’s congressional representation a decade earlier.

Let’s be clear. Cawthorn, as much as anyone, is responsible for his own selfish and abhorrent behavior. The voters who put him into office should expect and deserve better than a grown-up version of juvenile delinquent. They, too, shoulder some responsibility.

But it is a fractured system – the hyper-gerrymandering – that enables and emboldens Cawthorn’s out-of-control antics.

There’s no evidence that Cawthorn will somehow adjust this behavior. That is to the detriment of those he represents in the western part of the state and all North Carolinians.

Those who helped him become a representative of the people need to disavow his antics.

Republicans, as well as Democrats and unaffiliated voters, need to start now to put a limit to his service and offer up potential replacements who -- regardless of political affiliation or ideology -- will treat their constituents and the institutions they’ll have the opportunity to serve with honesty, respect and dedication.