First, consider the type of crimes that might be involved. There are four levels of misdemeanors. Class A1 misdemeanors are considered the most severe and can be punishable by up to 150 days of jail time. Examples of A1 misdemeanors are assault by pointing a gun and assault inflicting serious injury. If someone has committed a serious offense that is punishable by jail time, shouldn’t he or she be treated as an adult?

The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association strongly opposes legislation that would raise the juvenile age from 16 to 18. One issue is the cost. Should North Carolina spend hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the current juvenile justice system?

For example, the Association urges legislators to consider that new facilities would need to be built to house older offenders to separate them from younger kids. Should a 12-year-old who has committed a minor misdemeanor be sharing quarters with a six-foot-tall, 200-pound 17-year-old who has pulled a gun on someone or beaten someone up?

Also, older inmates often have a bad influence on the younger ones. Should facilities now be training grounds for younger children to learn criminal behavior from more experienced criminals?

The Sheriff’s Association also points to how changing the law could make the system less effective. Because younger offenders go into the juvenile justice process, gang members often get juveniles to do their dirty work. The juveniles are told to do certain crimes for initiation into the gang or to even make sure older members do not receive a harsh penalty. If the age is raised to 18 then the gangs will be able to use more physically developed individuals to commit assault crimes without having to face harsher penalties. Should raising the age give gangs the opportunity to use more juveniles to commit crimes?

Criminal justice professionals know that many young criminals start down a career criminal path by the age of 12 or 13. By the time they reach 16 or 17 the juvenile system will do them no good. In criminal justice academia it is widely discussed that when someone is caught in a crime they only admit to 25 percent of the crimes that they commit.

When young criminals are that age and committing numerous offenses, then shouldn’t their responsibility level be that of an adult?

The committee is meeting again in December to discuss issues that need to be addressed. Just a few of the potential pitfalls are listed above. All the details of letting 17- and 18-year-olds go into the juvenile justice system, and the resulting questions, are what need to be addressed in the Committee meeting.

The post “Raise the Age” Raises Tough Questions appeared first on Civitas Institute.

The closing arguments in North Carolina’s initial Racial Justice Act (RJA) concluded a few weeks ago in Fayetteville, and the public will be waiting for another one or two months for the ruling.

Under the RJA, convicted murderers can appeal their sentence under the guise that race played a factor in their sentences. Curiously, appeals can be made regardless of the race of the convicted murderer or their victim.

While three convicted killers are getting publicity, the victims and their families are longing for loved ones who do not have a voice.

Senate Bill 416, passed last session over a Gov. Perdue veto, still allows for the death row appeals but limits the use of statistics in the appeals process.

Critics of the RJA believe SB 416 didn’t go far enough, and that the RJA should be repealed completely.

In the meantime, the families of the victims now have to painfully relive all the details of the deaths of their loved ones due to the appeals process allowed under the RJA.

Below is part one of a four part video series that explores the controversial and flawed Racial Justice Act. The intent is to not only expose the flaws of this legislation, but to remind viewers of the devastation these convicted murderers left behind.

The day their loved ones died will stay etched in their relatives’ minds forever. We often just hear the story about the murderer and of how they supposedly were not treated fairly; it is time to know who the real victims of the Racial Justice Act are.

Video by Alex Rector

Part 1 – This four minute video provides a brief introduction and background on the Racial Justice Act. Included is a discussion of SB 416 and interviews with district attorneys sharing their concerns about the RJA. Future videos in this series will include interviews with victims’ family members discussing their loss and their views of the ability of convicted murderers to appeal their sentence under RJA. 

In part 2 of this video series, we hear the compelling words of Marsha Howell, whose daughter was murdered by a man currently sitting on death row. Ms. Howell adamantly rejects the notion that race played a factor in the sentencing of her daugher’s killer – who also seriously injured her son. Ms. Howell also shares her thoughts on the NAACP’s and Gov. Perdue’s poor handling of the issue. This powerful and heartbreaking video reminds us about the horrific acts committed by those on death row and why the Racial Justice Act is unjustified.

Part 3 of this video series contains an interview with Crystal Davis, whose mother was murdered in 1999 by an inmate currently sitting on death row. Ms. Davis questions the legitimacy of the Racial Justice Act, especially the fact that a killer and victim can both be the same race but the killer can still appeal his sentence under the RJA under its flawed premise of racial bias in sentencing. Davis also discusses the difficulty of victims’ families having to relive the tragic killing of a loved one all over again during the sentence appeal hearings allowed by the RJA.

In the final installment of this four-part video series, we hear from District Attorneys who are concerned about the negative consequences of the Racial Justice Act. Included in the concerns are the high financial cost of re-opening high volumes of files from past cases as well as the inappropriate use of statistics allowed in the RJA appeals process.

The post True Victims of the Racial Justice Act appeared first on Civitas Institute.

College Students are often thought of as two things: eager and broke – and a far-left extremist campaigning organization bases its whole process on this notion.  Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. (GCI), a third-party progressive organization, is hired by the likes of MoveOn, Greenpeace and other leftist groups to do their bidding.  Young, perhaps well-intentioned liberals are easily sucked in under guises of slogans such as “Fight for equal rights!” and “Save Mother Earth!” alongside the promise of a substantial income. (See the accompanying ad — the company promises $1,200-$2,000 per month). To a broke college liberal, what could be better? Advancing progressivism and making money at the same time!

Little do these workers know they’re being sucked into something that is quite possibly a scam. After being recruited by the promise of a liberal cause, employees canvass for the flavor-of-the-month organization currently outsourcing its fundraising to GCI. At the moment, these include the ACLU, OxFam, and Save the Children. To a young liberal, this is comparable to a kid at Disney World – their excitement is unfathomable. Then, the real work starts.

The new Grassroots canvassers are sent out on the streets with T-shirts and clipboards, asking people to help their cause – in other words, they become solicitors for the third-party payer. With high hopes for progressivism, many try to stick it out, but there are many more who realize the injustice of it all within the first week. Just Google the company and you will easily find stories from numerous people full of animosity towards the organization. It’s also interesting to wonder where the money goes – surely some percentage goes to Grassroots Campaigns itself.

In any case, who knew that advancing political causes would turn into a high-pressure sales job ? Numerous claims have appeared across the U.S. accusing the group of violating fair wage standards.  Some workers were paid far less than what federal and state wage laws guarantee. (Ultimately, I believe that minimum wage laws actually hurt the poor, but that’s another argument for another day.) The group was even sued in 2007 for its labor violations. What’s also interesting is the foundation of this group. Since its inception in 2003, the group has been prone to questionable activity, and it shares owners with Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG), the group accused of voter registration fraud right here in North Carolina.

The irony of Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. is overwhelming. The “Progressive Movement” was heavily based on values that this organization seems to be blatantly ignoring – better working conditions and mandatory higher wages. If numerous personal accounts of past employees are anywhere near correct, GCI is overlooking these issues and is instead extracting money from employees who fail to meet their idyllic quota. GCI is using a corporate model to “do good” in the progressive world, bringing in the dough to the top. (I thought they hated anything and everything about the corporate world!)

What a way to exploit America’s youth! Pull them in with what they want to hear and then skid around labor laws because they’re too young and naïve to do anything about it. This organization is a joke.  I wouldn’t wish this kind of fraud on anyone, even if they are the hippy-trippy, granola-munching, “save the whales” liberal type.  The Left needs to hold organizations like this accountable for their hypocrisy and immoral treatment of employees.

The post A Progressive Paradox appeared first on Civitas Institute.

In 2009, the NC General Assembly passed S.L. 2009-464, also known as the Racial Justice Act.  The law provided that in capital cases defendants could use statistical evidence to prove racial bias in their case. If racial discrimination was ruled a factor in the defendant’s sentencing, the defendant’s sentence was then reduced to life without parole.

After almost all death row inmates, even Caucasians, filed a claim under the Racial Justice Act, the legislature readdressed the law in 2010. Death penalty supporters saw a need to end the de facto moratorium the law had placed on the death penalty and weaken the use of statistical evidence. This led to the development of SB 9, “No Discriminatory Purpose in Death Penalty,” which narrowed the original law to protect against discriminatory purpose in death penalty sentencing and eliminated the use of statistical evidence in such cases. SB 9 garnered enough votes to pass the legislature, but not enough to sustain Governor Purdue’s much-expected veto.

The debate did not end here, though. The Racial Justice Act was widely disliked by prosecutors and district attorneys because of the way it bogged down the courts and the complicated nature of prosecution the law required. So in March 2011, SB 416, “Amend Death Penalty Procedures,” was filed and made its way through both houses. This new revision to the Racial Justice Act made several noted changes to the existing law. Statistical evidence alone could not be the only evidence used to prove racial bias in a defendant’s case, and this statistical evidence would also be made more relevant to the actual case: only evidence from the county or prosecutorial district of the case would be allowed, and any numerical evidence must be from an approximate 12-year window.  SB 416 also made a new provision declaring that the race of the victim was not to be considered in determining racial bias.

With these new provisions, the legislature mustered up enough bipartisan support to withstand a veto from Gov. Bev Perdue – which is exactly what happened.  Near the end of the session the bill became law, and will now provide much-needed reform to death penalty litigation in the state.  North Carolina’s death penalty cases can now center more heavily on factual evidence of a case rather than impersonal statistical evidence. This new law ensures that defendants are subject to a fair trial while preventing abuse of our judicial system.

The post Ensuring Justice for North Carolina appeared first on Civitas Institute.

While much is written on the murderers and their allies who are using North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act (RJA) to try and get themselves off of death row, we seldom hear about the victims. Here’s one.

The first victim of the RJA was Erik Tornblom, a 17-year-old from Fayetteville. In 1991, the high school senior was returning home from a job at a restaurant when he gave Marcus Robinson and an accomplice a ride. What Tornbloom didn’t know was that earlier that day Robinson had picked up a sawed-off shotgun from a friend.

The pair responded to Tornblom’s kindness by kidnapping him and stealing his car and the $27 in his wallet. As Tornbloom lay in a field begging for mercy, Robinson killed him with a shotgun blast to the face.

The judge who freed Robinson from Death Row, Gregory A. Weeks, said his crime was “unspeakably horrendous.” The RJA freed this murderer not because there was any doubt about his guilt, or even of anything specific to his trial, but because of statistics that purport to show statewide racial bias in the selection of juries over the decades.

What we are left with is a convicted murderer who will live out his natural life, and an innocent boy of 17 who was gunned down before he could live his. Now Erik Tornblom and his family have been victimized twice — once by the murderer and a second time by the state of North Carolina. We should not forget the victims, especially at a time when all of the publicity is going to the murderer.

As for Robinson, he supposedly is now imprisoned for life. Yet a question lingers: How can the state impose a new sentence on a convict after the trial? Robinson beat one punishment; can he dodge another?

And his story isn’t the end of it. According to news reports, almost all of the 157 prisoners on North Carolina’s death row have filed appeals under the RJA.

The post The Real Victims of the Racial Justice Act appeared first on Civitas Institute.

Juvenile Age to 18 (HB 632/SB 506), otherwise known as “Raise the Age,” seeks to modify the criminal court system by allowing minors (under age 18) charged with most misdemeanors to be tried in juvenile court. More serious felony charges committed by 16-17 year olds, on the other hand, would remain in adult court with some leeway for a judge’s discretion. On April 7, 2011, the bill was submitted to a House Judiciary Subcommittee and is currently waiting to be placed on the schedule for this session.

Currently, North Carolina prosecutes all 16- and 17-year-olds charged with a crime in the adult criminal justice system regardless of the severity of their alleged crimes.  A misdemeanor is usually defined as a lesser crime and often the maximum punishment is less than one year in prison.

However, examples of misdemeanors in North Carolina can include some rather serious offenses such as assault by pointing a gun, assault inflicting serious injury, speeding to elude arrest, prearranged racing, larceny, possession of stolen goods, breaking or entering of building, forcible trespass, resisting delaying or obstructing an officer, simple assault, trespassing, disorderly conduct, shoplifting, and intoxicated and disruptive in public.

Opponents of the bill say Raise the Age is soft on crime and that people, regardless of age, should be held accountable for their actions.

Action for Children, an activist group who supports the bill, says “Raise the Age only applies to young people who commit low level offenses.  Serious, violent offenses will remain only in the adult system.”

On May 21, Sen. Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) in the Winston Salem Journal stated, “I’m not inclined in moving in that direction at this point,” referring to the legislation. “I’d be interested in some discussion about it, but nothing I’ve heard so far would convince me that’s — at least for me — where I think we should go.”

Interestingly, there still important unanswered questions in HB 632/SB 506.  What happens when the juvenile is originally charged with a felony? When is it appropriate to transfer to adult court?  How many times can the juveniles commit misdemeanors before they must go to an adult court?

Other questions still needing to be addressed in this legislation include how the state treats offenders who commit multiple misdemeanor offenses over time, and if there is any opportunity to move a juvenile misdemeanor offender to the adult system if appropriate.

This bill appears to lock the door to all but felony offenders being moved to the adult system. A good lawyer will plead a felony down to a misdemeanor. What about those juveniles who commit a felony but plead to a misdemeanor?

Raise the Age legislation may be a good idea, but it is imperative for lawmakers to answer some important questions before they pass a one size fits all reform.

The post “Raise the Age” Bill Raises Many Questions appeared first on Civitas Institute.

On Monday evening, the North Carolina Senate sent a bill that would reverse prior legislation making capital punishment virtually impossible to Gov. Bev Perdue’s desk.  Perdue’s office has not yet commented on whether or not she will veto the bill.

Senate Bill 9, “No Discriminatory Purpose in Death Penalty”, would eliminate the use of statistical trends as a means of appealing death sentences for death row inmates – the key provision of the 2009 Racial Justice Act (RJA).

While large majorities of North Carolina voters across the political spectrum are in favor of the death penalty, RJA has placed so many obstacles in prosecutors’ paths that capital punishment has been effectively repealed.  Indeed, all but three of the state’s 157 death row inmates, including non-minority defendants, are awaiting the opportunity to use the law’s new tools to thwart executions.

In short, the Racial Justice Act allows death row inmates to appeal their sentence by attempting to show racial prejudice in sentencing based on statistical evidence. If successful, the inmates can commute their sentence to life in prison.

In 2009, North Carolina became the second state in the union, after Kentucky, to enact such a measure. However, Kentucky’s law was much less onerous to prosecutors, as it did not include the statistical provisions that have bedeviled the state in death penalty prosecutions.

As a result of this law, North Carolina has extended its unofficial moratorium on the death penalty. Forsyth County Assistant District Attorney Mike Silver noted at a November 28 hearing that the law allowed defendants to evade justice. Under the RJA, defendants do not have to prove that they experienced discrimination on the part of the judge, jury, or prosecutors, only that there is a general pattern of racism in death penalty decisions. Silver noted that an RJA appeal he is working on has been delayed by several years, and seemed frustrated over the delaying tactics the law enables.

“It is impossible for the state to comply with this law,” said Silver.

The 44 elected district attorneys in North Carolina agreed, and issued a statement in early November asking for repeal of the RJA.  The statement, written by Johnston County DA Susan Doyle, asked legislators to amend or repeal the law to allow for an effective death penalty.

“The Racial Justice Act (RJA), passed in 2009, purports to protect murderers from racial bias. Let me assure you, it does not,” wrote Doyle.”This act simply allows complex statistical maneuvering to over-rule a jury’s decision, ignore the heinous acts of a murderer and ultimately put an end to the death penalty in our state.”

Doyle estimated the costs of each RJA discovery motion to cost the state at least $30,000 at a time when court budgets are already being cut.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1986 case McClesky v. Kemp against requiring general statistical analysis before imposing the death penalty. The case considered whether Georgia’s death penalty violated the 8th and 14th Amendments in the light of a study purporting to show that application of capital punishment was largely tied to race. In his majority opinion, Justice Lewis Powell noted that requiring statistical evidence could undermine the ability of juries and prosecutors to make decisions.

“Implementation of these laws necessarily requires discretionary judgments,” wrote Powell.” Because discretion is essential to the criminal justice process, we would demand exceptionally clear proof before we would infer that the discretion has been abused. “

While the verdict in McClesky struck a blow to anti-death penalty advocates, the statistical case would nevertheless remain  one of the core arguments behind North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act.  The state now requires this extra-constitutional test, despite the Supreme Court’s and all other state’s rejection of this new standard.

Senate Bill 9, as approved by the state’s General Assembly and awaiting Perdue’s signature or veto, would make North Carolina consistent with the McClesky decision and eliminate any race-based statistics and instead allow for appeal based on specific cases of discrimination among jurors or during jury selection.

As citizens, North Carolinians overwhelmingly support the death penalty. Civitas polling shows 64 percent of independents and 70 percent of all likely North Carolina voters in favor of capital punishment for violent offenders. The Racial Justice Act, through its onerous requirements on prosecutors, effectively subverts the will of the people and the decision of the jury by making the death penalty impossible to impose.

It is now up to Gov. Perdue to decide the fate of the Racial Justice Act, and in so doing have a major impact on the future of the death penalty in North Carolina.

The post Time for a Return to an Effective Death Penalty appeared first on Civitas Institute.

The “Occupy” movement has steadily encompassed major metropolitan areas across the nation as discontent spreads among Americans who have faced hardships in this harsh economic climate.  Protesters have gathered here in Raleigh on the Capitol Grounds carrying signs and camping out to protest what they see as too much “corporate influence over our elections and political process.”

Since beginning their protesting, they have had two run-ins with police when they failed to comply with orders regarding trespassing—resulting in arrests both times.  Furthermore, these protesters have begun to cost the Raleigh police department in overtime pay as the police monitor the area in case protesters break the law again.

The most popular slogan of the Occupy movement has been “We are the 99%,” referring to the fact that, in their opinion, 1 percent of the United States’ population controls a disproportionate amount of the nation’s wealth.  However, the ideological makeup of these protesters comprises a significantly smaller percentage of American political thought.

Indeed, many of them espouse fringe politics further left than most Democrats are willing to go and have ties with very liberal organizations.  A closer examination of some of the protesters arrested in Raleigh reveals a movement not of average citizens, but of career agitators.

About as far left as possible, Mr. Benjamin Caroll has been involved in numerous liberal organizations (in both North Carolina and Wisconsin) and was arrested as part of the Occupy Raleigh movement.  He is an organizer of Raleigh F.I.S.T., an openly socialist organization. On their website, Caroll published an article criticizing Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s attempt to reduce the power of public sector unions and the possibility of cutting in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in order to balance the state budget. Locally Raleigh FIST was very involved in the demonstrations and disruptions against the Wake County School Board.  He has also written for Workers World, another leftist group, supporting protests against the North Carolina General Assembly’s education budget cuts necessary to balance the state budget.  In addition, his article for the Bailout People Movement decries the efforts of Gov. Walker to reduce the burdening power of public sector unions.

Another two activists, Angaza Laughinghouse and Margaret Schucker, were mentioned by Indy Week as members of leftist organizations.  They describe Laughinghouse as a veteran organizer for Black Workers for Justice, a left-leaning organization, who helped bring several supporters to Occupy Raleigh when their numbers began to dwindle.  Schucker, the handicapped woman whose arrest riled up several protesters, had protested before as a member of Code Pink—a women-initiated liberal-issue organization.  The Indy Week article also mentioned Dani Moore, who has an article reflecting on the Occupy movement on Progressive Pulse, a liberal blog site.

Carissa Samara, another one of the protesters arrested for trespassing, is loosely affiliated with Code Pink, as she signed one of their petitions, and wrote a guest column for the Triangle LGBT’s publication.  The column mostly decries issues of poverty and ways the LGBT community can alleviate it.

Yet another arrestee is George Gulino.  Though he has no notable organizational attachments, he claimed that a video titled Rainbow Warriors was his primary inspiration for participating in the Occupy Raleigh movement.  In sum, this video is a radical espousal of environmental fascism and socialism implying the use of violence.

Finally, there is Occupy Raleigh’s chief organizer Stacie Borello who founded Liberal Lamp Post, a blatantly liberal organization which advocates leftist causes and candidates such as Obama while denouncing conservatives.

Though the Occupy movement may claim to be independent of parties, many members of the group find common ground with leftist organizations and causes– such as the redistribution of wealth – which some Democrats themselves support.  Even in the latest September Civitas Poll, only 52 percent say that the government should redistribute wealth by increasing taxes on the wealthy—much of which the John Locke Foundation considers a result of the lack of information. That’s a far cry from being the 99 percent.

Far from representing the views of a vast majority of U.S. citizens, the self-appointed “99 percent” actually is largely composed of fringe radicals, holding extreme views that most find threatening to individual liberty.

The post “Occupy Raleigh” Protesters Led by Fringe Activists appeared first on Civitas Institute.

The General Assembly worked tirelessly throughout the 2011 legislative session to push through hundreds of bills aimed at dismantling the old liberal guard.  In the area of tort reform, several significant legislative improvements were offered with bi-partisan support.  Two of the bills, HB 542, “Tort Reform for Citizens and Business” and HB 709, “Protect and Put NC Back to Work,” even survived Gov. Bev Perdue’s trigger happy veto pen.

This unusual outcome is likely because parties from both sides of the aisle have realized that reforming the tort system, the legal system created to correct civil wrongdoing, is long overdue. Tort reform is vital to keeping insurance costs down, ensuring good doctors remain in the medical field and guaranteeing that North Carolina remains an attractive place for businesses.

HB 542 was signed into law June 24, 2011.  One of the most important and controversial provisions in this bill requires evidence of past medical expenses to be limited to the actual amount paid to satisfy medical bills as opposed to the amount charged.  For example, a medical provider may charge $100,000 for a medical service, but due to a contractual rate with the patient’s insurer the actual amount paid and collected is much less, say $70,000.  Under HB 542, the patient would be limited in a malpractice suit to the $70,000 actually paid and not the $100,000 that was never collected by the medical provider.

This provision seems fair.  If medical providers routinely agree to accept lower rates, then shouldn’t they only be liable for the rate amount they routinely accept?  Before this bill, juries were only allowed to hear evidence of the full charges which was much higher than the amount actually received by providers, leading to runaway juries with astronomical jury awards.

Another important reform bill, HB 709, passed the House and Senate with near unanimous support.  Through this legislation, lawmakers affirmed their desire to keep our state’s business climate competitive and ensure a fair worker’s compensation system.

A key provision includes bringing North Carolina’s indemnity costs in line with nearby states by limiting the duration of temporary total disability benefits.  It also provides an opportunity for injured workers to extend benefits beyond the 500 week cap if they can make the case before the Industrial Commission.  This bill incorporates the first major workers’ compensation reform legislation in the state Legislature since 1994.  HB 709 was signed into law by Gov. Perdue on June 24, 2011.

Gov. Perdue missed an opportunity to reform medical malpractice liability, however, by vetoing SB 33, the “Medical Liability Reforms Act.”  Medical malpractice reform would reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits, drive down the cost of health and malpractice insurance, and attract new medical jobs to North Carolina.

SB 33 would allow patients to continue to recover full medical expenses and lost wages, but would implement an upward cap of $500,000 for noneconomic damages such as pain, suffering, and emotional distress.  The new cap does not apply if a defendant is grossly negligent, or acts with malice or reckless disregard, and the malpractice results in an individual’s death, disfigurement, permanent injury, or loss of a body part.

Furthermore, the legislation protects emergency room providers by offering a higher threshold, holding them to a standard of care of a reasonable emergency room doctor rather than a routine family practice physician.  Including this provision seems reasonable considering emergency doctors must make split second decisions on a daily basis.

The probability of an override remains unclear as the Legislature returns for its July session.  The Senate passed SB 33 by a wide margin but the House passed the legislation 62-44, with 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans voting contrary to party lines.  If the measure is modified to change the $500,000 cap structure, Gov. Perdue has also expressed the possibility of signing it into law.

With frivolous lawsuits, every North Carolinian pays the price through increased medical and health insurance costs and decreased access to affordable care.  The General Assembly made great strides in the area of tort reform this session but legislators must continue to push for medical liability reform if North Carolina wants to be at the forefront of an effective and fair tort system.

GOP: Makes Good on Promises, More

Historic State Budget Battle Focuses on Taxes, Jobs

Regulatory Reform: Jobs and Economic Recovery Take Priority over State Bureaucracy

Legislature Imposes New Hurdles for Involuntary Annexations

Lawmakers Perform Healthcare Reconstructive Surgery

2011 Redistricting is a Process

Session Filled With Steps – And Missteps – to Redirect and Reshape Public Education

Immigration Reform Long Time in Coming, Long Ways to Go

North Carolina’s Attempt at Election Reform

Second Amendment Gets a Fresh Look in 2011 Session

Session Gains Ground on Family Issues

The post Tort Reform Not Forgotten in Historic Legislative Session appeared first on Civitas Institute.

The recent shooting spree against U.S. Democratic Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords of Arizona shocked the political world, a world already riddled with very little compromise and reliable uncertainty. Giffords has been heralded as a positive advocate for her constituents, a fighter who narrowly wins her district in a conservative-leaning state. When Giffords was shot in the head by a shooter described by both Republicans and Democrats as characteristically “unstable,” she was participating in what many news reports detailed as Giffords doing what she loved best, which is communicating with the public in a town hall style meeting.

Reaction to the shooting, although, will provide much insight as to how we define the relationship between Congressional members, as well as state and local leadership, and their constituents. Shaping that relationship will be mainstream and social media. The rate to which information is now passed around and consumed is tremendous. Several writers immediately jumped at the chance to exploit party lines after the Arizona shooting in an effort to place blame on the Tea Party and conservatives who oppose the controversial, national health care package. Giffords supported Obamacare.

According to The Washington Examiner, “In the hours after the attack, little was known about (Jared Lee) Loughner beyond some bizarre and largely incomprehensible YouTube postings that, if anything, suggested he was mentally ill. Yet the network (CNN) that had shown such caution in discussing the Ft. Hood shootings openly discussed the possibility that Loughner was inspired to violence by…Sarah Palin. Although there is no evidence that Loughner was in any way influenced by Palin, CNN was filled with speculation about the former Alaska governor.”

The Examiner article concludes, comparing the Loughner shooting to the Maj. Nidal Hasan Ft. Hood shooting spree that happened on Nov. 5, 2009: “Other media outlets were also filled with speculation about the attacks and the pronouncements on the state of American political rhetoric.”

Speculation pointed fingers to a target list of representatives who favored President Obama’s health care initiative that Palin had developed. The list was turned into a map that had crosshairs on the US districts where they represented. Palin’s graphic was just that, a graphic, not a literal hit list.

This action is tremendously saddening – six others, including a federal judge and nine-year old girl, were killed. Knowing that a person who sacrificed her life to advance what she thought was best for America and who continued to be fearless in spite of previous threats, is highly exemplary of Giffords’ willingness to fight for freedom.

The facts are a Congresswoman is in critical condition, six people were killed and it was an attack on liberty. Unfortunately, this type of attack is not new. As the 112th Congress is underway, new leadership is in place and the balance of power has changed in the state Legislature. Elected officials are working for the people; they are standing up for what they believe. This is neither a time for the public to stop standing up for what they want, nor representatives to back down from people who try to plant the seed of fear.

Constituents need to talk to their representation. Increasing federal and state security for every representative would be costly, costly in terms of a hefty price tag and decreasing communication vital to liberty.

Jana Benscoter is Managing Editor and Reporter at the Civitas Institute in Raleigh (nccivitas.org)

The post Increased Communication Vital for Liberty appeared first on Civitas Institute.