Basnight to lose clout, but his impact will endure

Think what you will about Marc Basnight, but the Outer Banks would be a much different place without him.

The Dare County Democrat hung on to his 14th term in Senate District 1 Tuesday, but he suffered a big loss in the statewide elections.

With the Republican takeover of the General Assembly, Basnight will be stripped of his stature as arguably the most powerful politician in North Carolina. No doubt he will still have influence, but it will be seriously diminished once he is unseated as president pro tem, a post he has held continuously for an unprecedented 18 years.

Look around today and his legacy, for a better or worse, is clear. I think it is fair to say that Basnight helped put the remote barrier islands on the map and, just as importantly, on the Raleigh political radar.

State-run Roanoke Island Festival Park has brought many summers of cultural entertainment to the Outer Banks. Some people called it a boondoggle, but critics and supporters will agree that there probably would not be a new span between Roanoke Island and Manns Harbor without Basnight’s say-so.

There is no denying that the $25 million Jennette’s Pier run by the North Carolina Aquariums will be a big tourist attraction, even though it was a lightning rod for Basnight detractors in this year’s election. And you have to wonder if U.S. 158 would have been repaved before the centennial of the First Flight had Basnight not been in Raleigh.

Basnight has been a friend of the environment, too, although critics will say that the plastic bag ban is not too friendly to small businesses — or particularly important in a year with more pressing problems.

But he was the driving force behind the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, which supplies money for sewer and storm-water runoff projects and acquires waterfront property for preservation. It would be hard to find many negatives about that program.

When you get right down to it, pretty much anything that passed through the General Assembly since 1993 bears Basnight’s mark to some degree. So if you are not a Basnight fan, you can blame him for many of the things that have gone wrong, too.

Less public is what he has provided for individuals over the years — constituent service, which goes a long way in accounting for his legion of admirers. That is something he can continue to do as long as he is in the state Senate, even if not as its leader.

For sure, Basnight has to be skilled at horse trading and political hardball to have remained in a position of power for all these years. You don’t get there just by being a nice guy. I would love to get the inside story on how he’s done it.

Tuesday’s elections elude analysis. His opponent, Hood Richardson, lost in his home county of Beaufort. Basnight fell to the Republican tide in Camden and Currituck counties, took Dare with 55 percent of the vote and breezed to victory in the district’s other four counties.

His counterpart in the House, state Rep. Tim Spear, got a scare in his district’s largest county, Dare, losing there to Republican Bob Steinburg. But Steinburg lost in his own county, Chowan, and Spear sealed the deal by winning big in Hyde and his home county, Washington.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Bill Owens’ future was uncertain until the Tyrrell County votes were finally counted.

So now we have three Democratic incumbents representing our region in a General Assembly run by Republicans. It’s probably safe to say that we should be content with what we already have, at least for the next couple of years.

That said, let’s hope that the GOP can find some solutions to the broader problems that affect us all, whether we live on the Outer Banks or in Blowing Rock.

This column originally appeared in The Virginian-Pilot.

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