Cooper should represent the state in federal lawsuit
Published October 3, 2013
Editorial by News and Observer, October 3, 2013.
Roy Cooper has served honorably as North Carolina’s attorney general since his election in 2000 and has been re-elected by the people three more times, most recently last year. It is a personal and professional insult to him that Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders have hired outside lawyers to defend the state’s horrible voter identification law, one that contains voting restrictions (including photo ID) clearly designed to suppress the votes of minorities and others likely to vote Democratic.
The law has to be defended because the U.S. Department of Justice is suing to stop it. Under state law, Cooper’s office is tasked with that defense, and the attorney general strongly objects, and rightly so, to the fact that McCrory has hired Butch Bowers, an active Republican in South Carolina, to lead the defense at $360 an hour. Republican legislative leaders have hired Tom Farr of Raleigh to represent their interests in the suit. They passed a law giving them the right to do that. They have not said what Farr will be paid.
It’s true that Cooper advised the governor not to sign the voting bill, believing it to be “regressive” and likely to be challenged. But Cooper rightly notes that his office has defended other laws with which he did not agree, in the name of doing the duty of the attorney general.
Republicans have thumbed their noses at common sense and common courtesy ever since they gained control of both the legislature and the governor’s office, and now they’re going to waste the public’s money, lots of it, defending a bad law that could well be overturned. Cooper’s record is clear. In hiring expensive outside counsel, Republican leaders, including the governor, show they assume that because they have ruled with harsh partisanship, blindly plowing ahead with their marriage amendment and their campaign against public education, Roy Cooper also would allow ideology to guide his performance of his duty.
Not all public officials do that. Not all.
October 3, 2013 at 9:03 am
Richard Bunce says:
N&O is totally biased on this issue and hope the NCAG will lose this case.
October 3, 2013 at 10:22 am
Norm Kelly says:
As soon as I saw this was an editorial that ran in the Noise & Disturber, I knew their conclusion was going to be wrong. Who would have expected anything other than the N&O supporting DEMOCRAT Roy Cooper. For the N&O it's not that they are defending a good AG, it's that they are pi--ed off that anyone would question the loyalty of a DEMOCRAT. The N&O would support Roy no matter his position on anything, because he is first & foremost a Democrat.
Then they continue to refer to the new law, passed in many other states, as 'horrible', and 'clearly' designed to suppress Democrat voters. Obviously the editorial board at the N&D believes that if you tell the same lie often enough people will begin to believe it. How does it suppress anyone's vote to require a photo ID? How does it prevent anyone from getting a picture ID when the state gives you at least 2 years to acquire it? How does it suppress the vote when the state says they will pay the measly $10 (for 5 years!) fee? Are minorities really this helpless? Obviously people of the liberal mindset have extremely little faith/belief in the ability of minorities to perform in life. Obviously people of conservative/libertarian beliefs expect that minorities are as capable of living in the real world as anyone else. As a minority, which group would you rather associate with, those who think extremely little of you & your abilities, or a group that knows you are intelligent & could be self-reliant if given the chance.
And if it's Democrat voters who are not able to get a photo ID, then perhaps the majority of voter fraud actually is happening in the Democrat ranks. Is the N&D editorial trying to claim that any voter fraud that exists is by the Democrats? What other conclusion can we draw if it's Democrat voters who won't qualify for an ID?
Roy Cooper did not simply tell the governor that he thought the law was regressive (which can't be proved, by the way). He made an extremely public statement against this staying law. Roy did not simply warn people that the law would be challenged. Any bloody idiot could have come to this conclusion. Roy went way beyond a simple warning. Roy went almost to the point of saying that he objected to it so strongly that his ability/willingness to defend it was in question.
The editorial ends with a claim that is so obviously true. Not all politicians are partisan and allow ideology to cloud their vision. Of course, since it's the N&D the implication, not very well hidden, is that only the Republicans do this. Roy would never let his party affiliation get in the way of his job. Can the N&D document other times when Roy was so outspoken about his opposition to a law that he later had to defend in court and did a good job at it? I think it's an extremely wise decision of Republicans to hire their own lawyers. The racist Holder is obviously playing politics with this useless lawsuit, so it behooves Republicans who know that voter ID is right to find lawyers who are willing to properly defend it.
The N&D ends with another lie just laid in their sorta like a throw-away line. 'their campaign against public education' is meant to get the liberal base all fired up. Republicans increased spending on public education. After Democrats had cut education spending. It may be true that education spending is not back up to where it used to be, but doesn't that show just how much prior Democrat administrations had cut public education? So, the Republicans get NO credit from the N&D for restoring some of the money to public education. Just continue the lie that Republicans are responsible for cutting spending on education. When Democrats claim to cut spending (in general) the net result is that spending actually goes up. When Republicans increase spending, the net result is that Democrats, liberals, socialists claim the 'draconian' cuts will send us back 50 years, and that minorities will be sacrificed. When Democrats claim that the budget has been cut to the bone, the result is that the temporary sales tax is converted to permanent, money is stolen from the e-911 fund, and spending increases.
What has this country come to when liberals lie and are believed and conservatives tell the truth and aren't believed? Worse than people simply believing this garbage is that media outlets carry the lies without question and go out of their way to justify the lie. Which is why newspaper subscriptions are dwindling nationwide. Which is why NBC, CNN, and other (supposedly) news organizations are seeing their viewers leave. Perhaps there is hope for our future. If we can get enough minds changed quickly enough. I'll continue to pray.
