COOPER COUNTERS ROBINSON,
SAYS THERE IS SYSTEMIC RACISM
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Last week, and on the record, Gov. Roy Cooper said that when it comes to North Carolina’s criminal justice system, “…systemic racism still exists, …whether that is conscious or unconscious…and throughout our society.”
Cooper made his remarks after receiving the 2023 end of the year report from the NC Task Force for Racial Equity, which made 125 recommendations to make criminal justice more equitable in North Carolina.
The Democratic governor’s remarks are in stark contrast those of black Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, who is currently seeking to replace Cooper as the state’s top chief executive..
It was exactly three years ago, in January 2021, when, while criticizing the NC Dept of Public Instruction for adopting new social studies standards he called “divisive” and “…smack of a lot of leftist dogma," that Robinson then added, “The system of government that we have in this nation is not systemically racist. In fact, it is not racist at all.”
The Greensboro native, who in at least one poll shows is leading other Republicans candidates for governor by 55%, has also been quoted as saying that “I’m not no African-American,” and has also criticized the 60’s civil rights movement, that fought systemic racism, as being “Communist-inspired” and doing more harm than good.
“Proof “ that there is no systemic racism anymore in America, according to Robinson, is the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president, and Robinson’s own 2020 election as North Carolina lt. governor.
For his part, Gov. Cooper, upon receiving the NC Task Force for Racial Equity report, said that systemic racism was “built into the criminal justice system, “ and the task force’s role was to come up with policy recommendations to eliminate it.
Cooper formed the 27-member task force in 2020 right after the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. He extended its work from 2020 to 2024 to focus on violence prevention and restorative justice.
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NC SENATE REDISTRICTING
MAP IS APPEALED TO U.S.
FOURTH CIRCUIT COURT
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The two African-American plaintiffs in the NC Senate redistricting map case that was dismissed by a Republican federal judge last week aren’t wasting any time. They immediately filed notice of appeal with the U.S. Fourth Circuit of Appeals, claiming illegal racial gerrymandering.
If the plaintiffs don’t succeed in stopping the senate map, not only will it be use in the 2024 elections, but the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections as well.
On January 26th, after two months, U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III would not issue an injunction petitioned for in a lawsuit Rodney D. Pierce, a social science teacher in Halifax County, and Moses Matthews, a Martin County resident, sought to stop two newly drawn state senate districts in the new redistricting map passed by the Republican-led NC General Assembly last October. The plaintiffs claimed that Republican-leaning Senate District 1 and 2 diluted Black voters so they couldn’t elect their own state senator, and violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA).
Their federal lawsuit was against the N.C. State Board of Elections.
But Judge Dever ruled the senate map had to stand because there wasn’t enough time to stop the 2024 elections as petitioned. Dever also wrote in his 69-page order that plaintiffs failed to prove that NC Republican legislative leaders were even required to create a Northeastern Senate district that complied with the VRA.
“This case does not involve the North Carolina General Assembly engaging in race-based districting,” Judge Dever wrote. “Indeed, the record demonstrates that when the General Assembly created the Senate districts in North Carolina Senate Bill 758 (“SB 758”) in October 2023 for use in the 2024 elections, the General Assembly did not have racial data in the computer, in part, because federal litigation from 2011 to 2016 helped to show that there was not legally significant racially polarized voting in North Carolina, including in the counties in northeast North Carolina at issue in this case.”
Dever instead chose to believe a Republican redistricting expert who said that per his study, white and Black Democrats would support a Democratic candidate, regardless of color, in the area. The federal judge chided the plaintiffs by writing in his decision, “This case involves two plaintiffs who contend that the General Assembly violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by not engaging in race-based districting and not creating a racially gerrymandered majority-black Senate district in northeast North Carolina.”
Dever seemed to be saying that plaintiffs were suing because Republicans did not use race as a determining factor in drawing their state Senate map, and should have. As far as he was concerned, Dever would not be stopping the March 5th 2024 primaries accordingly.
“Plaintiffs make this extraordinary request even though (1) the 2024 Senate elections are underway in North Carolina, (2) plaintiffs presented no evidence that anyone provided the General Assembly in 2023 a strong basis in evidence to believe that Section 2 required the General Assembly to create a majority-black Senate district in northeast North Carolina, and (3) insufficient evidence shows that Section 2 requires a majority-black Senate district in northeast North Carolina.”
Judge Dever continued, “Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires an extraordinary, mandatory preliminary injunction compelling the race-based sorting of voters for the 2024 Senate elections in North Carolina. On the current record, plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on the merits of their Section 2 claim and are not likely to suffer irreparable harm absent the requested extraordinary, mandatory preliminary injunction.”
Dever then added that “…the requested mandatory preliminary injunction is not in the public interest.”
According to WRAL News, Judge Dever, who was appointed to the federal bench by Republican Pres. George W. Bush, “…was an attorney who represented North Carolina Republicans on election law cases.” In the 1990s, attorney Dever went before the U.S. Supreme Court to successfully argue that “…Democrats who controlled the state legislature in the 1990s had impermissibly used racial data to give Black voters too much representation in Congress.”
In his January 26th ruling, Judge Dever cited that 1990’s High Court decision as creating more majority-Black districts that “…threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters."
Both Gov. Cooper and State Attorney General Josh Stein filed an amicus brief on the side of the plaintiffs in the case saying that Republican state lawmakers repeatedly “…targeted Black voters with discriminatory legislation.”
Edwin Speas, Jr., the Democratic attorney from the law firm of Poyner and Spruill LLP representing the two black plaintiffs, filed notice of appeal on the same day, January 26th, as Judge Devers’ decision.
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