SHAW UNIVERSITY PRES.
FURIOUS AFTER S.C. DEPUTIES
SEARCH TRAVELING STUDENTS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Shaw University President Dr. Paulette Dillard isn’t having it.
As far as she’s concerned, there was no reason for eighteen students and two advisors from the private historically black institution to be detained and searched by Spartanburg, S.C. deputies with drug sniffing dogs last week as they traveled by charter bus to an economic conference in Atlanta, Ga..
“In a word, I am “outraged,” Dr. Dillard said in a statement. “This behavior of targeting Black students is unacceptable and will not be ignored nor tolerated. Had the students been White, I doubt this detention and search would have occurred.”
Reportedly, the driver of the charter bus carrying the Shaw students and staff on Wednesday, Oct. 5th was stopped for a minor traffic infraction by several Spartanburg sheriff’s deputies, who asked where the bus was headed. At that point, “ Multiple sheriff deputies and drug-sniffing dogs…” appeared.
All of the luggage carried below was examined while the Shaw students and staff were detained.
Nothing illegal was found or detected.
An outraged Pres. Dillard, made it clear that the traffic stop-and-search was illegal at best, and racist in the least, and is having the university’s general counsel to look into the matter.
“It’s 2022,” Dr. Dillard said. “However, this scene is reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s—armed police, interrogating innocent Black students, conducting searches without probable cause, and blood-thirsty dogs. It’s hard to imagine. Yet, it happened to the Shaw University community, and it is happening throughout this nation in alarming fashion. It must be stopped.”
“To be clear, nothing illegal was discovered in this search by South Carolina Law Enforcement officers,” Dr. Dillard continued. “The officers said they stopped the bus because it was swerving and issued the driver a warning ticket for “improper lane use.” Throughout this unnerving and potentially dangerous situation, our students and staff conducted themselves calmly and with tremendous restraint.”
“Our students stood tall amid an unnerving and humiliating experience and because of their dignified and professional response, the situation did not escalate into something far more sinister."
NCCU School of Law Professor Irving Joyner told WRAL-TV that the deputies may have stepped over the legal line when they employed drug sniffing dogs during the traffic stop.
"You don't even have to get into racial discrimination, although there may be a factual basis to support it," Joyner told the TV station "Clearly there is a constitutional violation."
-30-
WILL COLUMBUS COUNTY
SHERIFF KEEP HIS JOB
AFTER RACIST COMMENTS?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Will Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene hold onto his job after a Superior Court judge, at the request of local District Attorney Jon David, temporarily suspended Greene from office after WECT-TV reported that he vowed to get rid of “Black bastards” working for the sheriff’s department?
At press time, Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser had suspended Sheriff Greene on Oct. 4th on the basis of obstruction of justice charges, and was expected to soon hold a hearing on October 24th, per a petition by D.A. David, to permanently remove Greene from office.
Greene has denied making racial remarks about African-American deputies, but the television station aired surreptitiously recorded remarks allegedly made by the Republican sheriff by one of his former captains in the department in February 2019, after Greene won a controversial 2018 election over the Black incumbent.
That former captain, Jason Soles, a Democrat, is now running against Greene’s re-election, and says he began taping the sheriff after he started calling Soles late at night after winning, complaining that, “I’m sick of it. I’m sick of these Black bastards. I’m going to clean house and be done with it. And we’ll start from there.”
Soles, who is also white and a Democrat, said he didn’t share Greene’s racist concern that Black employees at the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department opposed his election, and that’s why he began taping their phone conversations after Greene said “I hate a Black f—king Democrat.”
“It broke my heart. Because that’s not what I believe in. It upset me to the fact that I did have to start recording his phone calls. And I’m not wanting to go around recording people’s conversations. But... this was not the leader that we needed leading the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office making these racial slurs,” Soles told WECT-TV.
In the time since Greene was recorded allegedly making the racist remarks, several Black employees of the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department have either lost their jobs or have been demoted, WECT-TV reported.
D.A. David, also a Republican, has said his concern is about the hundreds of cases his office handles from arrests by Columbus County deputies that may be tainted because of the racial attitude of Sheriff Greene. He wrote a letter to Sheriff Greene urging him to resign.
“There can be no question that the use of racist language, directed at all officers of color under your command, is conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, which brings the Office of Sheriff into disrepute.”
For his part, Greene has refused to resign, suggesting that some how the recording was manipulated to make him sound racist by a political opponent. Greene’s supporters defend him, lauding him as an outstanding last enforcement official, and doing his best to rid the southeastern county of drug dealers.
After the television station’s report, Governor Cooper’s office condemned Sheriff Greene’s remarks, calling for an investigation.
The Columbus County NAACP issued a “call for action,” for Sheriff Greene’s permanent removal, and expressed concern that he could be re-elected in November if all fair-minded citizens did not come out to vote. NC NAACP President Deborah Maxwell joined the local chapter in urging citizens to get out to vote Greene out.
So unless Sasser rules otherwise, it is quite possible that Greene could be officially removed from office later this month on October 24th, only to be re-elected on November 8th.
-30-
NC SUPREME COURT HEARS
NEW ARGUMENTS ON VOTER
I.D. AND REDISTRICTING
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
In order to make sure their decisions on two critical 2024 election issues are the ones that count before they possibly lose their majority on the NC Supreme Court, Democratic justices heard back-to-back arguments last week concerning voter I.D. and redistricting. The three Republicans on the seven-member panel had previously objected, opining that Democrats were fast-tracking the two cases knowing that if they lose even one seat of their 4-3 majority in the November midterm elections, they lose their majority for the first time since 2016. So Democratic justices took advantage.
On Monday, October 3rd, the state’s High Court heard a new round of arguments over the constitutionality of North Carolina’s 2018 voter photo identification law. The case was appealed by Republican state lawmakers after the NC NAACP won before a three-judge Superior Court panel in 2021.
That panel ruled that even if the Republican-led NC General Assembly had no racial animus towards African-Americans when it wrote the 2018 voter ID law, the effect was still discriminatory because the GOP was seeking a partisan advantage, and because most African-American voters support the Democratic Party, past courts have ruled that Republicans were trying to diminish the Black pro-Democrat vote, knowing that many African-Americans do not carrying the voter photo ID required by the law.
The 2018 voter ID law hasn’t been allowed to be implemented yet because of various successful legal challenges, and Republican legislative leaders sought to change that in their Oct. 3rd legal arguments.
Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby questioned whether anyone would be disenfranchised given that the 2018 law, just as the controversial 2013 voter ID law which was overturned, made provisions for voters who did not have a photo ID, but could prove a “reasonable impediment.” A Republican attorney argued that the GOP made sure anyone and everyone eligible to vote could cast a ballot.
Republican Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr., whose father is NC Senate Pro team Phil Berger Sr., questioned plaintiffs’ attorney about whether they would like any voter ID law the legislature passed.
But Jeff Loperfido, a plaintiff’s attorney for the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice, forcefully argued that when the 2013 voter ID law was implemented, over 1,200 eligible North Carolina voters without photo ID - many of them Black - were prevented from participating in subsequent elections.
Lopefido warned that if the 2018 law were allowed to stand, that injustice could happen again.
When the state Supreme Court reconvened on Tuesday, October 4th, the case was about how Republicans deliberately drew new voting districts for themselves that assured their legislative and congressional election advantages, even if Democrats won a majority of the votes cast.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that partisan gerrymandering, unlike racial gerrymandering, is constitutional under federal law. But state law is another matter.
Partisan gerrymandering is not constitutional under North Carolina law, and Democratic justices were listening intently to Republican arguments as to why it should be.
By no coincidence, Republican legislative leaders are also arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that the NC Supreme Court shouldn’t even have the power to touch any of their legislative decisions, especially those involving have federal elections are managed, regardless of the outcome.
The state High Court’s Democratic majority didn’t like that explanation last February when the GOP-led NC legislature’s most recent redistricting maps were challenged. It was ordered to redraw its congressional, state House and state Senate Districts because of how they overwhelmingly favored Republicans. The court recommended a set of metrics.
A three-judge Superior Court panel was tasked to review the maps, and redrew the congressional one, deciding that the state House and Senate maps passed legal muster.
That didn’t stop a lawsuit by the National Redistricting Foundation against all of the Republican maps.
So on Oct. 4th, attorneys arguing against the Republican maps said GOP legislators could have drawn fairer maps if they followed the suggested metrics, but they didn’t want to.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Elisabeth Theodore told the court, “ When the Republicans get 55% of the vote in the Senate map, they get 33 seats, which is a supermajority. And when Democrats get 55% of the vote, they only get 28 seats.”
She wanted both the Senate and Congressional maps struck down.
An attorney for the Republican legislators warned the High Court that by doing so, it “…would be barreling into a political wilderness, where legislative authority to redistrict will be transferred from the legislature to the courts.”
Decisions in both the voter ID and redistricting cases are expected before the end of the year.
-30-
BEASLEY/BUDD CONTEST
IN THE HOMESTRETCH
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
With less than a month to go before their November 8th midterm Senate election showdown, Democrat Cheri Beasley and Republican Congressman Ted Budd (6th District) are gearing up for the homestretch of their tight contest.
Last Friday, Beasley and Budd faced off in their only televised statewide debate, hoping to gain an edge in their race with undecided and unaffiliated voters. The winner succeeds outgoing Republican U.S. Senator Richard Burr, and could decide whether Democrats or Republicans will take the majority in the next Congress.
No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate seat representing North Carolina since 2008. If Beasley, a former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice, wins, she will be the first African-American female ever elected from North Carolina, and only the third to serve in the U.S. Senate.
If Congressman Budd, a gun shop owner from Davie County, is victorious, he will prove the power of former President Donald Trump’s political endorsement. Trump led a raucous political rally for Budd and other North Carolina Republican candidates a few weeks ago in Wilmington. The controversial ex-president’s backing has kept Budd at least a few points ahead of Beasley, if not neck-and-neck by most of the latest polls.
Even though Beasley’s campaign has raised more money than Budd’s, outside groups have battered Beasley on Budd’s behalf, raising concerns that national Democrats are not supporting her race adequately. Thus far, Beasley has been accused of supporting Pres. Biden’s inflationary economic policies, and being soft on crime.
She has denied those charges, and fastidiously kept her distance from both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In their debate last Friday, Beasley tried to make Budd’s close relationship with Trump a negative, hoping that most unaffiliated voters would agree.
Trump “represents the most extremist policies and ideology … the reality is Congressman Budd has aligned himself with somebody who is truly extremist in this race, and that’s a reflection on him,” the former chief justice charged.
Budd defended Trump, saying the economy was better under him, and won North Carolina both in 2016 and 2020.
Budd also made clear that he believed Trump won the 2020 election over Joe Biden, though he did concede that Biden is the president now. Budd also agreed to accept the results of his race with Beasley should he ultimately lose.
While Budd tried to nail Beasley on Pres. Biden’s shortcomings. Beasley counterpunched with his support for the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade abortion rights from over the summer. Polls show that is an issue of deep concern for women across the country, and weak spot for Republicans.
Budd is against abortion rights, and Beasley would not let women watching the debate forget it.
“Congressman Budd wants to be in between a woman and her doctor, and there is no place in the exam room for Congressman Budd,” Beasley sharply charged.
Budd retorted that Beasley was an abortion “extremist.”
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment