STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 03-14-19
GOV. COOPER APPOINTS APPELLATE COURT JUDGE TO STATE SUPREME COURT
[WILMINGTON] Right on the heels of the investiture last week of Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday appointed state Appellate Court Judge Mark Davis to fill the unexpired term of Beasley when she left that seat to lead the High Court. Justice Davis will be officially sworn-in on April 8th. Many will recall that Davis previously served as Special Legal Counsel to Gov. Beverly Perdue, and at her direction, investigated the case of the Wilmington Ten as she considered pardons of innocence. Per his recommendation, on Monday, Dec. 31st, 2012, Gov. Perdue indeed pardons of innocence for the Ten. She also appointed Davis to the NC Court of Appeals. On Monday, Justice Davis said that it has always been his dream to serve on the NC Supreme Court.
CONTROVERSIAL “SLAVERY” GAME SPURS INVESTIGATION HERE
[WILMINGTON] Three weeks ago, Loudoun County, Va. elementary school sparked controversy when parents and the local NAACP complained about a “game” based on the Underground Railroad was being used to teach students about slavery. The controversy forced school’s principal to issue an apology to parents, saying in a letter that the “lesson was culturally insensitive.”
Now, that same “slavery game” is reportedly being used at Codington Elementary School in Wilmington, and a fourth-grade student’s grandmother has complained, telling a local television station that “…slavery is not a game.” But unlike Virginia, officials at the school at first defended the use of “Escaping Slavery,” saying that it was used in small groups of students for Black History Month “…to dispel myths about slavery, and to have students “play a role to increase interest and enthusiasm for historical events.”
On Monday, School Board Chair Lisa Estep issued a statement saying that the board “…shares the community’s concern.” She added that using the game “was not appropriate” for teaching about slavery. The superintendent has been asked to investigate.
The Journalwill follow-up on this story next week.
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NEW ALLEGATION AGAINST
BLACK BLADEN PAC RAISED
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It’s been three weeks since the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) voted unanimously to hold a new election in the Ninth Congressional District because of clear-cut evidence of “tainted”election fraud with absentee ballots in Bladen County.
Thus far, five people have been indicted, and two arrested, by state authorities, including Leslie McCrae Dowless, the two-time convicted felon and political operative now charged with the illegal tampering of absentee votes on behalf of the Republican candidate.
But two weeks ago, on his Charlotte WBTV-AM radio show, former Gov. Pat McCrory, after announcing that he will not seek election to the still open Ninth District seat, demanded that the SBOE and the media reopen an investigation into his dramatic 2016 re-election loss.
“It is time for the media and the elections board to reopen this investigation, in public – don’t wait for the federal or state authorities – and ask the question, “Who did what, when…not just in 2018, but in 2016 when I raised, as a gubernatorial candidate the exact same issues,” McCrory told his audience.
A loss the Republican ex-governor maintains was a result of the same kind of Bladen County “voter fraud,” but on a statewide level. His 2016 campaign had filed 52 election complaints after his loss, none of which were justified.
According to McCrory, back in 2016, the Bladen County Improvement Association (BCIA), a black Democratic Party-funded political action committee there, was responsible for the same type of “voter fraud” that the SBOE uncovered taking place in 2018 – illegally collecting absentee ballots and filling in blanks.
McCrory alleged that other Democrat-funded black PACs across the state were also guilty.
In fact, it was none other than Leslie McCrae Dowless who made the complaint on behalf of McCrory and the state Republican Party.
“Should the election board find that these are absentee ballot mills, with the purpose of fraudulent voting, those people should go to jail,” Dallas Woodhouse, NCGOP executive director told a radio show in 2016. “They should spend the first term of the Trump administration behind bars.”
The campaign of the 216 gubernatorial winner, Roy Cooper, shot back, “The truth is this election was administered by Republicans appointed by Gov. McCrory himself.”
But thus far, even though McCrory is pressing his case, no one…not the SBOE, not the State Bureau of Investigation, and not even federal authorities, have seen any evidence that convinces them that the former Republican governor did anything but lose re-election on his own.
It fact, it was the GOP-led SBOE in 2016 that looked into McCrory’s claims then, and turned their findings over to federal authorities. The charges were unfounded, but had a chilling effect.
“The election challenges that have been filed are in areas where we have strong African-American political organizations,” executive director Melvin Montford of the A. Phillip Randolph Institut, e said in a news release. “Calling these votes into question is an obvious effort to cast doubt on election results with no good reason to do so and disenfranchise black voters.”
And the fact that McCrory, and the state Republican Party, continue to allege voter fraud on a statewide scale in his 2016 election, infuriates Irving Joyner, attorney for the BCIA.
“The Bladen County Improvement Association did not engage in any illegal conduct during either the 2016 or 2018 campaigns,” Joyner said in a statement two weeks ago. “McCrory is lying about what happened to him in 2016. He lost the governor’s race and is attempting to falsely cast blame on others for his inept campaign.”
In a heretofore unknown Feb. 19thletter to the SBOE for the record after the hearings began, Atty. Joyner reiterated that the BCIA had done nothing illegal during the 2018 elections, even though one of the hearing witnesses, Lisa Britt, testified that the BCIA PAC Pres. Horace Munn, “…had visited with McCrae Dowless …to deliver absentee ballots and that he had called Dowless, at a later point, and directed that a signed absentee ballot form be returned to [a voter].”
“That testimony was a deliberate lie,” attorney Joyner emphasized. “At no point during the 2018 election did Mr. Munn have any contact with McCrae Dowless or Lisa Britt regarding absentee ballots or anything else.”
Joyner continued that Munn had been subpoenaed to appear at the SBOE hearings, and did attend to refute Britt’s false testimony, but was then “dismissed by the SBOE staff.”
The BCIA, Joyner maintained “…did engage in get out the vote (GOTV) activities during the 2018 elections….” and legally paid people to do so. “…[N]one of those efforts involved the gathering or harvesting of absentee ballots,” he added.
Joyner sees the 2018 allegation is a continuation of what McCrory and the state Republicans allege about his 2016 contest involving the BCIA, and other Democratic Party-funded black PACs across the state.
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Photo #1 - As her husband, Curtis Owens, hold the Bible, Chief Justice Beasley raises her right hand to take the oath of office.
Photo #2 - Senior Associate Justice Paul Newby applauds Chief Justice Beasley as she takes her center seat.
Photo #3 - The entire NC Supreme Court
HISTORY WITH INVESTITURE
OF CHIEF JUSTICE CHERI BEASLEY
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It was as if all of North Carolina state government had stopped on March 7that 2 p.m. to recognize that a true moment in history was about to take place.
Over a thousand wellwishers, including Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, and Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court Emeritus Henry Frye, the first African-American ever to hold that esteemed title, assembled in the state Supreme Court chambers and overflow satellite locations at the State Capitol and First Baptist Church across the street, to witness the formal swearing in of Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, the first African-American woman ever to officially lead North Carolina’s High Court.
The court remained all-white for 155 years prior to Frye’s appointment by then-Gov. James B. Hunt. There have been seven African-Americans in all to serve on the state Supreme Court, and eight women.
Beasley was officially sworn-in on March 1stin her office during a private ceremony, so this was her public investiture as the state’s 29th chief justice in the 200-year history of court. She was appointed by Gov. Cooper to finish out the unexpired term of former Chief Justice Mark Martin when he recently retired to become a law school dean in Virginia.
Chief Justice Beasley is only the fourth African-American woman in the nation to ever serve in her capacity on a state Supreme Court. As chief justice, she leads the third branch of North Carolina government, and is responsible for running the state court system, in addition to determining the Supreme Court calendar and rendering decisions with her colleagues on the court.
Beasley is also one of three African-Americans on the NC Supreme Court, the most of any state in the nation.
After remarks from various dignitaries, including Gov. Cooper, as she stood with her husband and twin sons, Chief Justice Beasley formally took the oath of office from Senior Associate Justice Paul Newby, before going to chambers amidst a round of applause, reemerging in her judicial robe, and taking the center seat on the court to offer remarks.
“I am honored and humbled to receive Governor Cooper’s appointment as Chief Justice. The magnitude of this opportunity to serve all North Carolinians is certainly not lost on me,” said Chief Justice Beasley. “I look forward to continuing to work to improve access to the courts and to ensure that our citizens have a judiciary that they trust to administer justice fairly, equally, and swiftly.”
Citing Chief Justice Emeritus Henry Frye when he was sworn in twenty years ago as her inspiration, Beasley quoted him as once saying, “My philosophy is this world is full of problems.”
“I believe we should treat our problems as challenges and opportunities to do what is right and good. I’m prepared to treat our problems as challenges.”
“Today is really a day of hope,” Beasley later said. “It’s a day of hope for justice — really for all of us.”
“Hope for accessibility to the processes that we have in our justice system, and to the practices in our justice system. And most importantly to treat everybody — everybody — fairly, regardless of what matter they bring before the courts,” she said.
Chief Justice Beasley was originally appointed to the NC Supreme Court as an associate justice in 2014 to finish out the term of Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson. Beasley then ran and won her election in 2014 to a full eight-year term. Prior to that, she served as a state appellate court judge, and a District Court judge for ten years in Cumberland County.
By becoming chief justice, Beasley finishes out Mark Martin’s term, and has indicated that she will run to be elected for that seat when it expires in 2020.
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