AG cuts will cost constituents
Published June 30, 2017
by Senator Terry Van Duyn, published in Asheville Citizen-Times, June 24, 2017.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein heads up the Department of Justice. He and the attorneys that he employs work for us, the people of North Carolina. They are our last line of defense against bad actors who would cheat consumers, pollute our clean air or water, and defraud state government of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
For example, when he was attorney general, Gov. Roy Cooper sued the TVA to get them to clean up their smokestacks and quit sending carcinogen loaded emissions to Western North Carolina. As a result we have less asthma and cleaner air, and our beautiful mountain vistas have been restored.
The N.C. Department of Justice also investigates and prosecutes Medicaid fraud with skill and success. That work returns millions of dollars to our state that would otherwise be lost, money that can be used to keep rural hospitals from closing, or provide addiction treatment to address the ever-growing opioid epidemic.
In criminal proceedings, the N.C. Department of Justice stands up for the people of North Carolina. They represent us in criminal appeals – about 700 each year. Prosecuting criminals aggressively and effectively helps keep North Carolina families and communities safe. If the DOJ is no longer able to do this work, it will be left to our county district attorneys to take on this additional burden, at a time when they are already strapped for resources.
Our Department of Justice has been working effectively on our behalf in all these areas. That’s a good thing, right?
So why did the General Assembly, after the budget debate was over, slip a provision into the conference report that would drastically cut our attorney general’s budget, causing him to have to lay off over 100 employees, attorneys whose job it is to advocate for the people of North Carolina?
If they had a problem with the job the attorney general was doing, they could have raised the issue earlier, presenting their evidence and giving him the opportunity to respond. Could it be that the real reason is that the attorney general has stood up to bad Republican policies, like voter suppression and weakening environmental protection?
Have we really gotten so partisan in the General Assembly that punishing public servants that don’t agree with you is more important than protecting the citizens of North Carolina?
It is important to remember that this cynical slapdown of the attorney general could end up costing the taxpayer big time. Another one of the duties of the Department of Justice is to defend the state against lawsuits. Right now, North Carolina faces more than $363 million in potential liabilities from prisoner lawsuits, highway condemnation awards, and civil rights cases.
The cuts in this budget threaten our ability to defend the state from these, and other potentially frivolous actions. Where is the sense in that?
Terry Van Duyn is the Democratic Whip of the North Carolina Senate. She represents District 49, which includes constituents in Buncombe County.
