SATURDAY, DEC. 3,2011
COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS
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Gov. Perdue’s really bad week
RALEIGH
A lthough fans, foes, and
disinterested observ
ers may differ about the
causes, I suspect they
would all agree that Beverly
Perdue has had a rough first
term as governor of North
Carolina.
Unfortunately for her, the
events of the past few days have
only made things worse.
On Thanksgiving weekend,
the Republican-led General As
sembly convened in Raleigh for
a brief special session.
The main item on the agenda
was a Senate vote on a bill the
House already approved earlier
this year to roll back a 2009 law
making it easier for murderers
to challenge their death sen
tences.
The so-called Racial Justice
Act allows inmates to go beyond
the facts of their own cases to
assert broader claims of racial
discrimination. Perdue and
other supporters of the 2009
law said their intention was to
address bias in sentencing. Of
course, the real objective was to
halt North Carolina’s death pen
alty through endless litigation.
Objective achieved. Of the
157 inmates on death row, 154
have sought hearings under the
new law. White, black, brown, it
doesn’t matter - all are claiming
to be victims of discrimination.
The bill would have been more
accurately titled the Racial In
justice Act, given that it consti
tutes a brazen attempt to use
CONSERVATIVE
JOHN HOOD
racial demagoguery to delay or
deny the administration of jus
tice for the families of murder
victims.
If you read the racial-bias
claims carefully, you will find
that they do not involve the race
of the killer.
There is no evidence that, all
other factors being equal, blacks
are more likely to be executed
than whites. The real claim is
that those who kill white victims
are more likely to get the death
penalty than killers of black
victims are.
This is an odd claim to make
if you oppose capital punish
ment, because its implication
is that juries fail to value black
victims as much as white ones
— which is why they don’t ap
ply the death penalty as much.
Based on this logic, as the ves
tiges of racism continue to fade,
the use of capital punishment
should increase. I’d welcome
that. Would its opponents?
Of course not. They simply
oppose the death penalty itself,
either on moral or efficiency
grounds. Fine. They should
make those arguments. But they
should stop making disingenu
ous arguments about racism.
To get back to Perdue’s di
lemma, her problem is that the
Senate voted 27-17 to concur
with the House rollback of the
Racial Justice Act. It is now on
her desk. If she sticks to her
position and vetoes the bill, she
will once again have taken a po
sition contrary to that of most
North Carolinians, including
many moderate Democrats. But
if she allows the rollback, the
left-wing base of her party will
go ballistic.
If that wasn’t bad enough,
the day after the special legis
lative session began, a Wake
County grand jury indicted her
campaign fundraiser Peter Re-
ichard and two other people for
a criminal conspiracy to evade
campaign-finance laws during
her 2008 run for governor.
The timing gave state law
makers of both parties the op
portunity to weigh in for the TV
cameras. One who seized the op
portunity was Rep. Bill Faison,
an Orange County Democrat
who has made no secret of the
fact that he’s interested in run
ning for governor should Perdue
decide not to file for reelection.
“She doesn’t seem to be acting
like somebody who should be
running for governor,” Faison
remarked.
Two other issues drew discus
sion during the special session.
One was the deal Gov. Perdue
just struck to allow the Eastern
Band of the Cherokees to ex
pand their casino. The other was
a House bill to block a scheduled
rise in the state gas tax.
Neither issue was concluded
to Perdue’s benefit. The legisla
ture left town without acting on
her gambling compact. And the
Senate refused to go along with
a gas-tax cap, a popular (though
in my view unwise) measure
that Perdue would probably
have signed and thus gotten
some credit for.
All in all, the governor had a
lousy week - and her reelection
prospects just got a little dim-
TIME'S
RUNNING^
OUT... W
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Left to right: Gary Powell, Debra Powell, Carol Daniel, Brenda Rickman & Melanie Garrett.
mer.
JOHN HOOD Is president of the
John Looke Foundation and pub
lisher of CarolinaJournal.com.
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