DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2017
VOLUME 96 - NUMBER 16
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Republican lawmakers dilute Democratic governor’s powers
By Emery P. Dalesio
RALEIGH (AP) - After being rebuffed once by
judges who determined lawmakers went too far,
Republican legislators on Tuesday (April 11) tried
a second time to dilute the power of North Caro
lina’s new Democratic governor to run elections.
In separate votes, the state House and Senate
voted along party lines to trim the power gover
nors have had for more than a century to oversee
elections by appointing the state and county elec
tions boards that settle disputes and enforce ballot
laws. The state elections board has had five mem
bers appointed by the governor, with the major
ity being members of the governor’s party, since
1901, according to state records.
Gov. Roy Cooper has promised to veto the new
legislation, which lets the governor appoint all
eight members of an expanded elections board -
but from lists provided by the two major political
parties. A Republican would chair the board dur
ing years that presidential and gubernatorial elec
tions are held. Democrats would lead the elections
board for midterm elections. County elections
boards, which previously featured two Republi
cans and one Democrat, will be increased to four
members, also evenly split between the parties.
The previous effort to trim Cooper’s elections
authority was passed in a surprise special legisla
tive session in December, prompting raucous pro
tests and arrests, two weeks after former Republi
can Gov. Pat McCrory conceded his loss by barely
10,000 votes.
Some Republicans bristled as Democrats ac
cused them of again acting primarily to weaken
Cooper.
“Just because someone voted for governor,
they did not vote for someone to oversee every
other issue and everything - have a complete and
total power of the whole state,” said Sen. Andrew
Brock, a Republican from Davie County. “We’re
trying to make a system that’s fair.”
A three-judge panel ruled last month that the
General Assembly’s initial effort to take some
control over elections was unconstitutional. The
court ruled that the law prevented Cooper from ex
ecuting his duties by blocking him from appoint
ing and administering elections board majorities.
Democrats said the new, even-numbered elec
tions boards divided equally between the two ma
jor parties was a recipe for the same gridlock that
for years has gripped the evenly split Federal Elec
tions Commission. Critics say that has meant the
commission can’t punish violations and has failed
to stop the flow of anonymous campaign money
into elections.
With North Carolina increasingly a battle-
ground in national elections, Democrats com
plained that Republicans were trying to grab
another political advantage and protect their ini
tiatives to constrict ballot access.
“We’re setting up an election system that will
have the potential to perpetuate voter suppres
sion,” said Sen. Angela Bryant, a Democrat from
Nash County. “In many instances when there may
be a deadlock, which will be in essence a no-de
cision, people’s fundamental rights to vote are at
stake.”
Republicans hold legislative majorities large
enough to override any Cooper veto. But GOP
lawmakers said they hoped the revised legislation,
which also gives the elections board oversight of
government ethics rules and lobbying regulations,
would end one of several ongoing legal disputes
with Cooper.
Arkansas death penalty foes
hope for suspensions of deaths
By Jill Bleed
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - While outrage on social media is
growing over Arkansas’ unprecedented plan to put seven inmates to
death before the end of the month, the protests have been more muted
within the conservative Southern state where capital punishment is
still favored by a strong majority of residents.
A few dozen people regularly have kept vigil outside Republican
Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s mansion for weeks, holding signs that say
“Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “End the Death Penalty.” And the Arkan
sas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty hopes to draw hundreds of
participants to a Good Friday rally at the state Capitol to protest the
executions that start Monday (April 17) - three nights of double exe
cutions, followed by a single one. Ajudge last week halted a planned
eighth execution.
“Arkansas is known across the world for the Little Rock Nine and
all of that atrocity,” said the coalition’s execution director, Furonda
Brasfield, referring to the 1957 desegregation battle in Little Rock
involving nine black students. “And now it’s the Little Rock eight in
10, and it paints our state in such a horrible light.”
The group is using the hashtag (hash)8inlO to highlight the execu
tions, although one man has received a stay and the seven lethal in
jections are scheduled to take place over 11 days, the first on April 17
and the last on April 27. Hutchinson set the unprecedented schedule
because a key lethal injection drug expires April 30.
On Thursday April 13, two pharmaceutical companies, Fresenius
Kabi USA and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp., asked a federal
judge to prevent Arkansas from using their drugs to execute inmates,
saying they object to their products being used for capital punish
ment.
In Arkansas, a vocal critic of the plan is Damien Echols, who
spent nearly 18 years on Arkansas’ death row before he and two oth
ers were freed in 2011 as part of a plea deal in which they maintained
their innocence. Echols, who now lives in New York, planned to at
tend a rally along with Jason Baldwin, who also was convicted then
freed in the 1993 killings of three boys in West Memphis.
“It’s not even the dignity of a person being executed on their own,
which is horrifying in itself,” Echols said in an interview last month
with Arkansas Public Media. “You know, they’ve stripped away even
that dignity now and you’re being in essence shoved into a cattle
chute and killed in mass numbers. It’s absolutely horrifying.”
Sister Helen Prejean, a death penalty opponent who was the sub
ject of the movie “Dead Man Walking,” has taken to Twitter to fight
the execution schedule, at times tweeting the phone numbers of
Hutchinson and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. On Sunday, the
governor tweeted a Bible verse praising God to which Prejean replied
with a verse of her own: “Blessed are the merciful.”
Author John Grisham, an Arkansas native, wrote in USA Today
that the schedule would result in a “spectacular legal train wreck.”
“It undermines the gravity of our legal process and the death
penalty itself by denying the eight due process, full access to their
lawyers and established clemency proceedings,” Grisham wrote. “It
risks the specter of botched executions, which would haunt everyone
involved and take an incredible emotional toll on the innocent staff.
The plan simply risks too much.”
Still, the protests in Little Rock so far have been fervent yet small,
with vigils outside the Governor’s Mansion typically involving fewer
than 30 people. The University of Arkansas’ annual Arkansas Poll
last asked about the death penalty in 2015, when a strong majority of
residents said they supported capital punishment.
“The families of the victims have not only had to live with the
loss of their loved ones through brutal murders, but they’ve also had
to live with the unending review of these cases year after year after
year,” Hutchinson said in a statement this week. “Now to suggest,
after all of the court reviews have been completed, that they ought to
be delayed once again shows an incredible amount of insensitivity to
the victims and their families who continue to suffer because of these
heinous crimes.”
Alfred J. Whitesides Jr.
NCCU Alumnus
Alfred J.
Whitesides Jr.
Honored
Asheville City Schools Foun
dation will honor NCCU alum
nus Alfred J. Whitesides Jr. for
his work in the community dur
ing its annual Celebration of
Champions event.
Whitesides will be presented
with the Lifetime Achievement
Award at the organization’s an
nual event on May 6. The civil
rights activist and retired banker
was among 12 community lead
ers, parents and organizations
recognized for making a posi
tive impact on Asheville City
Schools students and teachers
In 2016, Whitesides became
the first African-American to be
elected as a member of the Bun
combe County Commission.
After a successful career in
finance at Wachovia and Moun
tain 1st Bank and Trust, where he
served as vice president, White-
sides became board president of
The Arc of Buncombe County,
an organization that serves chil
dren and adults in the Asheville
area who have intellectual and
developmental disabilities.
His career in banking spanned
more than 35 years, during
which time he was active with a
number of organizations, includ
ing the Asheville City Schools
Board of Education, the United
Way of Asheville Board, and the
Boys and Girls Club of Ashe
ville, among other organizations.
Previously, he served as chair of
the University of North Carolina
at Asheville’s Board of Trustees
and also as president of the uni
versity’s Bulldog Athletic Asso
ciation.
Whitesides received his bache
lor’s degree from NCCU, where
he also served as student govern
ment president.
Ms. Joan Higginbotham
Retired NASA Astronaut to
Deliver Commencement Address
Retired astronaut, Lowe’s Companies Inc. executive and North Carolina Central University (NCCU)
Trustee Joan Higginbotham will deliver the keynote address at NCCU’s 129th Commencement Exercise
on Saturday, May 13, 2017. The Commencement Exercise will take place at 8 a.m. in O’Kelly-Riddick
Stadium on the university’s campus.
Higginbotham will speak to approximately 762 students receiving their bachelor’s degrees from the
university. According to estimates from the NCCU Registrar’s Office, the class of 2017 will be one of
the largest graduating classes in the university’s history. In May 2016, NCCU awarded 718 bachelor’s
degrees.
Higginbotham began her career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as
a payload electrical engineer in the Kennedy Space Center’s Electrical and Telecommunications Systems
Division and later became an astronaut at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
Higginbotham is one of three African-American women to travel into outer space. In 2006, she com
pleted NASA’s space shuttle discovery mission STS-116 serving as mission specialist during the 12-day
excursion. During her time with NASA, she completed three additional missions.
After her successful stint with NASA, Higginbotham served in an executive role with Marathon Oil
Company. Currently, she serves on the NCCU Board of Trustees as secretary, an appointment she has
held since 2013.
She is active in a number of civic and service organizations, including: the Association of Space Ex
plorers, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., The Links Incorporated, the Charlotte Douglas International
Airport Commission and Johnson C. Smith University Board of Visitors and Science Center Advisory
Board.
A separate ceremony for graduate and professional students will take place Friday, May 12, in Mc
Dougald-McLendon Arena
Bank of America settles racial
discrimination case from 1993
By Emery P. Dalesio
RALEIGH (AP) - Bank of America settled a decades-old case that accused its predecessor company
of systematically discriminating against black applicants for entry-level jobs in Charlotte, the U.S. Labor
Department said April 17.
The largest U.S. consumer bank settled the 1993 case against its Charlotte-based predecessor Nations
Bank by agreeing that 1,027 people who applied for clerical, teller and administrative positions a genera
tion ago would share $1 million in back wages and interest, the department said.
Bank of America’s penalty roughly corresponds to what a Labor Department review board last year
determined it should pay, according to court documents. The bank challenged the decision in federal
court before reaching the settlement. A district court judge delayed that case until Bank of America fully
complies with the settlement.
“Although much time and effort has gone into this case by all parties, the department is pleased that
the matter has been resolved,” Thomas Dowd, the agency’s acting director for federal contract compli
ance programs, said in a statement.
NationsBank merged with San Francisco-based Bank of America in 1998.
Bank of America did not respond to emailed questions about why it fought the case for so long or
why it settled now. The bank said in a statement: “We remain committed to fair hiring practices. While
we continue to disagree with the Department of Labor’s analyses, we are pleased to have resolved this
nearly-25-year-old matter.”
The dispute began during the first year of former President Bill Clinton’s administration, when the
department decided to check whether NationsBank was living up to its legal requirement for doing busi
ness with the federal government to not discriminate in employment because of race, color, religion or,
other conditions.
pice
NcU