- [Kelly] State legislative leaders promise criminal justice reform in the wake of the Charlotte Transit murder, and Senator Ted Budd calls for faster release of federal hurricane recovery funding.

This is "State Lines."

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[triumphant upbeat music] - Welcome back to "State Lines," everyone.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Join us around the table for this next half hour.

We'll hear from Steve Rao, our political analyst and friend, WUNC Radio's Colin Campbell.

Donna King, editor-in-chief of the "Carolina Journal," is in seat three, and the debuting rookie, NC Capitol Strategies, former Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest.

Dan, welcome to the seat four.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Are you ready?

Well, there's a lot going on, and it's a heavy week.

I'll usually like to come in with a lot of energy, and man, was the air taken outta the balloon of society.

I mean, not to make light of anything.

It's just been a heavy week for all of us in the media and I'm sure in the political world.

Well, let's start with North Carolina House and Senate leaders promising a package of criminal justice reforms for when the legislature convenes in Raleigh in about two weeks from now.

The video release of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska's murder on the Charlotte Light Rail back on August 22nd had to focus national attention on North Carolina, with State Republican leaders appearing on national media to discuss it.

This week, they came back to Raleigh, said they'll offer a plan to reign in what they're calling soft-on-crime policies offered by task forces and practices by some magistrates.

- We will fight back against soft-on-crime policies that permeate our judicial system.

When the General Assembly returns on September the 22nd, we're going to propose a package of common sense policies to more effectively tackle crime in our state.

We can start by ensuring that Governor Stein and other members of the executive branch cannot establish any future task forces, like the one Roy Cooper created, that advanced weak-on-crime policies that kept Iryna's murderer on the streets.

We cannot keep our citizens safe if our policies favor criminals over public safety.

- Donna, that was Senator Phil Berger, of course, the GOP leader in the state.

You know, we have a choice here.

The Charlie Kirk assassination is galvanizing in all 50 states.

The Iryna Zarutska murder is absolutely affecting North Carolina law, potentially, at this point.

That's why we kick off with this and look at Charlotte.

Tell me about this issue right now, the timing of the Republican stepping forward.

What made her death different than other people who might have died in Charlotte or Raleigh or Greensboro or anywhere else in the past two months?

- Sure, sure.

Well, there's many things, among them, and you can't minimize it, is this video that circulated.

It really brought it home to people.

My own daughter lives in an apartment building right on that Light Rail.

It could have been any one of us.

And I think that what really brought it home was that, and knowing that the alleged assailant had been arrested 14 times, and in his most recent one was out because he signed a promissory note that he would come back rather than, and that's why this issue of cashless bail is coming up.

The lawmakers say they are working on the details.

They wanna present a total package around September 22nd when they come back.

And among them is going to be things like proposals to eliminate cashless bail.

Senator Berger says he wants to start looking back into bringing back the death penalty.

And another point that they brought up, that Speaker Hall brought up, is barring, you know, these executive branch and governors from being able to create these task forces.

And he is alluding to the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice that was formed by former Governor Cooper.

In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, this was created, and it had just miles of recommendations among the dozens of recommendations was this idea of cashless bail.

And so this is something that lawmakers say would have prevented, could have prevented this murder on Charlotte's light rail.

- Dan, I've never seen a case- How does a task force get to create state law?

Or is it the recommendation that influences a magistrate, maybe even- - Yeah, I think it's more about influencing opinion than anything else.

It kind of, you know, permeates through the system and then people start to assume that there's really something broken with the system.

And the reality is, in some of these cases, we shouldn't be talking about cashless bail or we really shouldn't be talking about bail.

This guy should have been in prison and he should have been behind bars.

He never should have been on that train to begin with cuz he was a danger to society.

So we gotta get back to a basis of criminal justice that says if somebody's a danger to the people of this state or to your community, get 'em off the street.

You know, then you can deal with all the other issues later, but let's not use people like Irina as an experiment in this process.

- Steve, talk to me about local governments versus having the state leaders step in and say we need state laws to change to correct the behavior that we're seeing in cities.

You have experienced, you know, advocating it to one and leading in another.

How important is the divide between keeping localism local when it comes to leadership?

- Well, I think local governments can do a lot.

I mean, you know, you look at Durham for example, they brought back shot spotter.

We can use technology and AI and data and analytics to actually address crime and reduce that.

So I think city governments can work with state governments.

You know, I think also I wore my purple tie today because I knew we were gonna talk about this issue, but this isn't, shouldn't be a partisan issue, it's Democrats, Republicans working together.

Democrats should work with Republicans to address crime.

I mean, you know, we need to, you know, make sure that we're, you know, addressing mental health issue.

Last year I think the legislature appropriated about 845 million for behavioral health, mental health, background controls for guns.

Just making sure that we're keeping our eyes open for crime.

And I'll end with this.

I want to thank our law enforcement officers on the heels of 9/11 for everything they do to keep us safe.

We have to be so grateful for them.

But I also have a daughter, she's a journalist in New York and she takes the subway every day to work.

So when I hear these stories, she lives in Brooklyn, her husband graduated now at the New York Times that it really brings it home for me.

So I think local governments can play a role and we need to make sure we're working with our representatives and legislature, Republican and Democrat, to address crime.

- I think it's important not to conflate too many issues when we talk about mental health.

Obviously there's a mental health crisis in America is one right here in our, you know, community, but there are millions of people that have mental health issues and they're not out killing people on trains.

We need to deal with the people that are dangerous criminals and make sure they're off the streets first before we start to deal with- - But also opioids as well, drugs, you know, people are just taking too many drugs.

- We have a lot of problems out there, col- But, you know, a few years ago, Colin, we've covered this beep before, the idea of task forces making recommendations for more policing, maybe treat suspects, those who were arrested a little more compassionately was the hot topic say 2021, 2020.

And has the pendulum swung or did one city or one magistrate get something wrong?

- I think there overall in the political discourse, we've shifted much more towards a tough on crime mindset than we saw in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.

So as some of these task forces, I mean this task force ended at the end of Governor Roy Cooper's term, it does not look like, at least up until now, Governor Josh Stein has reinstated something similar, which I think telling in of itself.

But I mean in general, you know, this is one case that's really shined a light on some of these issues, but it's this whole host of issues.

It's, you know, was there enough security on the train?

Does Charlotte have enough police officers?

Is there, you know, speaker Hall pointed out yesterday, do we need to look at involuntary commitments Cuz in this case, I saw an interview with the mother of the suspect and she said, I knew he had mental health issues, I knew he was aggressive, potentially violent, I wanted him committed, but you know, he was out the next day.

They wouldn't keep him in there if he didn't want to be treated.

And so, I mean there's this whole host of issues that sort of leads to this very poignant case where you see the video and everyone can imagine themselves in that seat on the train getting attacked for utterly no reason.

- The US Senate candidate, Michael Whatley, was at that press conference speaking as well.

Is this now fair game or can campaigns look at the voter and say, set this aside, it's time for us to come together?

Should Roy Cooper answer for that task force?

- It'll be interesting to see.

I mean, that's clearly, we saw from President Trump citing Cooper's involvement in his statement about it and including vote for Michael Whatley to Michael Whatley being included, kind of in a rare move in a policy press conference at the Legislature.

You don't usually see folks who aren't currently elected officials come to a press conference where they're unveiling a policy proposal.

So this is definitely getting political.

This is definitely going to be an issue in that Senate race.

But whether tying Roy Cooper is gonna seem like a legitimate connection to the dots, to the average voter, I don't know.

It feels a little bit specious.

- Donna, educate us if you can.

None of us are law enforcement experts, I don't believe.

Cashless bail.

I mean, I know people that have, you get arrested for a crime and they'll let you out on your, you know, just on your own agreement to come back.

What's the difference in that and truly cashless bail that keeps supposed felons- - It does seem surprising, certainly.

I think in the case of this particular person, he was given the opportunity to sign a promise that he would come back for his trial rather than presenting any level of cashless, any level of cash for bail in his last one.

And this is something that actually was one of the recommendations from that task force, that Cooper-created task force.

And in the recommendations, it did say cashless bail where necessary, unless it's a public safety threat.

And that's what that recommendation did say, but clearly a public safety threat.

And that's the question.

Lawmakers are saying, we're gonna really start digging into Charlotte to make sure that that, one, they have the resources, they're spending it well, and things like this can't happen again.

They've never really checked tickets on that light rail, and I've never seen security whenever we use it.

- Dan, you're a Charlotte guy.

What kind of image problem does Charlotte have right now?

- Well, I haven't lived there for 26 years, but, yeah, I grew up in Charlotte.

I was actually there yesterday.

In fact, I was meeting the whole day with a group of city leaders who are very concerned about the train issue, the crime in general, the homicide rate being very high for a city of its size.

And so I think there's one, the image problem, right?

Are people gonna ride the train?

Are they gonna come downtown or they, but there's reality behind this too, and there's kind of a cultural reality.

It's an underlying thing.

If you watch that video, you see people sitting on the train watching a murder happen and people like ignore it.

They subtly turn their back and walk the other way.

And like there's something about being a part of a community and there's something about being engaged in that community and having, you know, the wherewithal to be paying attention.

We want, first of all, there's a lot of young people that ride that train from UNC Charlotte to downtown that need to pay attention.

But, you know, the engagement of these people that are sitting there watching, that's a real cultural challenge that you're facing.

So I say the officials are doing what you would expect them to be doing.

They've created a task force in Charlotte amongst the business community, and they're trying to step up now and to stop this notion of being soft on criminals.

They realize that, they think that since COVID there's been kind of a disgrace period where people were kind of turning their backs to hard stances on crime and they need to get back to protecting their citizens so that, you know, people want to live in Charlotte and want to go downtown.

- Steve, how do Democrats grab the mantle of criminal justice and reform?

When it was reform the post George Floyd era, it did go more in a what would be perceived to be a progressive liberal way.

Can Democrats pull it back to the right?

Should they, or should they just debate the issue openly with Republicans and find a balance if they can?

- I think they've got a, you know, I wouldn't say pull to the right.

I think they did come to the center and have a logical conversation of how do we make the investments, both Democrats with Republicans, to fight crime, you know, to focus on, I think Colin Campbell brought up a good point, more police officers on the street.

This is something the local governments can do.

This is something that county governments can do.

You know, public safety, sheriff's offices, making sure, security programs.

I mean, one thing I've always wondered about is that on the subway systems, you don't really see a lot of security, like you do in an airport, so people can just come in with weapons and things like that.

So, absolutely, I think we need to talk about the issues.

Protests are good, rallies are good, you know, but I think we, you know, I don't think task forces are gonna solve the problem that's gonna take the people that pass the laws, the people that make the decision at the local level, that's what's gonna solve crime.

And that's what I would do if I were a Democrat.

- Colin, the death penalty could be, at least an attempt to restart the death penalty, it's not banned in North Carolina.

Certainly, been stalled for over 20 years, or about 20 years at this point.

Does that debate rise up and get voter attention as lawmakers return, or is magistrate reform and cashless bail more important topics to voters?

- Well, certainly, Senator Berger has said that he thinks it's time to look at how do you restart the death penalty, but they've said that before.

That's something that Republican leaders in the legislature have wanted to do for years, but there's this huge legal morass around the ability to do it.

And they haven't figured out a way that legislatively, you can get past some of these court cases that are blocking executions in North Carolina from taking place.

The interesting thing about this case is it may also be a federal crime, because it occurred in a public transit system, and whether the federal crimes can result in the death penalty for this suspect, if he's convicted, will be interesting to see.

- Donna, in the early days, especially with the video coming out of Charlotte, we're not to Kirk yet, but they went right on the attack of Roy Coopers, the US Senate candidate, I guess all's fair in love and war and politics, is bipartisanship possible to find a common ground or will Republicans, they have the high ground, they can seize the policy directive in March for it?

- Yeah, I mean, I don't see how this is not a bipartisan issue.

Public safety should be a fundamental.

- It can be very partisan.

- While we saw in 2020 through creation of this task force and other activities that went on, particularly, with former Governor Cooper, it became very political when it didn't need to be.

And I think that this is what we're seeing, this is the result.

I think he's got a lot of things he's gonna have to answer among them is this, you know, shut downs during COVID, but public safety should be a core fundamental issue for both parties.

And, you know, moving past politics to ensure that your constituents aren't murdered on the train is critical.

- As lieutenant governor, I know you sat on and probably led a bunch of task force for state of North Carolina.

How are they empowered and how do you remove power from a task force?

I always perceive them to be advisory when I was governor.

- Yeah, they're advisory.

I mean, they really are advisory.

I never saw any of our task force being, having any real power.

We'd gather, you know, experts from around the state and around the country, set 'em on task force.

We'd meet for a series of months and we put together, you know, some kind of summary document.

Then we'd present it to the General Assembly and they get to take that and do what they want to with it from a legislative perspective.

So yeah, there's nothing on statute anywhere that says a task force has, you know, the authority to create law in North Carolina obviously.

- You told us you were friends with Charlie Kirk, and that happened in Utah, far away from North Carolina, but bring that home to North Carolinians other than us watching it on national television.

- Wow.

- How should it affect our thinking about civic engagement in North Carolina?

- I don't know if it's just civic engagement.

I think it's actually, much deeper than that.

I think it goes to the very heart and soul of our nation and what our nation's about.

There's a deep darkness and evil that is like prevailing across the country now, where it wasn't just that a normal, normal, this was an assassination, right?

So, a political assassination, and there were people that went into prayer and did prayer vigils and those types of things, but there are also lots of people on social media that were celebrating and dancing and cheering for the death of this young man, you know, 31 years old who, you know, they called a fascist and a Nazi and were thankful the Nazi's dead, and he was anything but he was the opposite of a fascist.

He brought people together.

He sat, he was sitting in a stool when he was assassinated, just taking questions from students in Utah.

I mean, that's the opposite of a fascist.

He did not believe in big government, that's the opposite of a fascist.

So, he really, he cared deeply, but we have a serious problem in America and we have to address it at that really deep level about the soul of our nation.

- Steve, the democratic legislator speaker of the house, shot at their home with the dog, was also murdered with the family, and then Charlie Kirk, and then the train.

If you're in the public square, how do you behave yourself right now?

You only have two sets of eyes.

- Well, I mean, we're in a very dark time, and look, I agree with the Lieutenant Governor.

I mean, we are not respecting each other.

We are not having civil conversations about what it means to be an American.

And being an American means that we come together.

We shouldn't be celebrating when a 31-year-old dies.

When a 31-year-old man gets killed, I think of my own children.

He has mother and father, he has his own children, he has a wife.

Think of that, but when we go to the social media, so it's very scary because people are just so emboldened now by these platforms, they're willing to say anything and do anything behind a keyboard, rather than being silent, and coming forward, and praying and understanding.

And you know, I said this at 9/11 event, I was speaking at that, you know, 9/11 was a time in the country where we all came together.

We saw firefighters going into burning buildings.

We saw neighbors helping strangers.

We heard President George Bush say, "I hear you, we hear you, the world hears you."

We're Americans, and I think we need to come together and have a civil conversation.

Diversity of opinion.

We talk about diversity all the time, but it's really out of control.

- Colin, at the legislature, I watch it daily, and you're right up close and personal.

I see disagreements part.

I see fiery debate among our legislators, but I don't see anything from any elected leader in the state right now that I would say rises to the level of a TikTok or Twitter troll.

- Yeah, exactly, I think there's a certain level of respect that takes place among elected officials in the state of both parties, that they don't go there in some of the ways that you see national politics go, that you see some of the social media trolling go.

Certainly we have social media trolls in North Carolina and they pop up periodically, but in terms of the debate that you see between the two parties in the state government, in the legislature here in North Carolina, it's still relatively civil, despite the times that we're living in.

- It is, it is civil, but I also think that people don't see that.

What they really see is what's happening on social media and Twitter.

That is the culture that is much more prevalent than the civility that we see on the floor.

One of the things that I think Charlie Kirk did that very few other people are willing to do, is he literally walks out into the town square where people hate him.

The vast majority of people who show up support him.

They love him.

99% of the people who show up for this.

But there are people who hated him and he continued to do it.

He continued to take that dialogue to the next generation, and I think that through this, through his life and through this, he's really created millions of people here, right in North Carolina, our massive university system, he gave courage to those kids to speak up, defend themselves, and go right out into- - And one interesting aspect of his legacy in North Carolina is that the youngest member of the State House, Wyatt Gable, a Republican who won a upset primary as an East Carolina student, was previously head of the Turning Points, USA chapter at East Carolina, which is the group led by Charlie Kirk.

- Huge, he's made a huge impact in North Carolina on our college students.

- Yeah, and there's a poll that just came out.

This was just last week, Fire did it, and it said one third of college students in America are willing to use violence to stop speech in America.

I mean, that's what we saw with Charlie.

One third, that's six million students.

There's six million people in our country that say it's okay to use violence to stop speech.

You know, that's totalitarianism.

That's very dangerous for America.

We have to nip that in the bud.

We have to get to the heart of that real quick.

- Are conservatives, you think, are they ready to bend on the Second Amendment?

Are they ready to bend on the First Amendment, depending on, 'cause the video was very violent and it was posted out there.

People say, "Take it down," but that's not a First Amendment move.

- Like I think people should watch it.

You know, I saw it immediately, 'cause I go to X for things I can't find, and you know, on mainstream media, and I saw that, and I was like, whoa, I didn't wanna see that.

It was so violent and so horrific.

And yet, I went to bed and I slept on it that night, and I got up and I said, "Everybody should see this."

Young people should see the consequence of what this death and destruction actually looks like.

- Yep.

Other issues happened in the state.

U.S.

Senator, Ted Budd, for instance, is calling on the Trump administration to speed up or keep it up with the release of Hurricane Helene Recovery Funds to North Carolina, Governor Stein has already written some letters to the US Department of Homeland Security, Steve, over the slow release of funding, Trump administration responds publicly saying, Mr. Stein's request shows he's unfit to run a state.

Well, Senator Budd was stalling some Senate confirmation of some Trump nominees that seemed to get their attention better, Mr. Rao.

Senator Budd says, yes, Homeland Security officials and his words were stonewalling at least a bit.

But cash is flowing now I'm told.

- Well, I wanna thank Senator Budd for taking on the federal bureaucracy to put money into North Carolina, Western Carolina.

I mean the people of Western Carolina have really, really suffered and struggled.

And it's gonna take all the resources we need.

So I commend the senator and his staff for doing that.

60 billion, I think is what they're saying the damage has been done.

We need to get that and more.

And I also think that the state treasurer found 170 million state treasurer Briner in the fund somewhere.

We should put that money to work.

Any dollar that we can go to help build Carolina.

And in terms of calling a governor unfit for state office, I don't think this is time to be political, but I'll say that, you know, he came in with a good mandate.

He's been a very effective governor, put in a good cabinet.

He's been going to Western Carolina a lot.

I recently liked his commissioning of an AI task force or leadership council, the first governor and one of the first governors to the US to talk about how we use AI from an economic development tool, productivity agencies.

So he's leading.

- Yeah, I think it's kinda like being the quarterback of a football team.

You know, if you're out there winning and you're on the cameras saying, Hey, we're winning and everything's great, then you get the applause.

But if you know things start to turn south, you're gonna get the heat, you know?

So he's been out there taking the credit and then he is gonna get the heat.

I talked to a senator Budd this morning and he said, first of all, the president's been great on this.

He's still 100% in.

He said there's still some stickiness with DHS and he did talk to the secretary last night.

Money's starting to be freed up, but we're not there yet.

It's not going fast enough.

The bureaucracy is still slowing it down to a degree that's really dangerous for Western North Carolina.

- I thought it was interesting that even with the relationships that Ted Budd has in Washington, that he had to sort of threaten to hold up a nominee to get any movement on this.

And they did.

I mean, president Trump announced, I think yesterday, that the money is now flowing.

- And it's not acceptable in my mind when the secretary is not responding to the senator of the state who's trying to garner the support for the state.

And I'm a friend of Kristi Noem as well, and I love her.

But the reality is there should be dialogue going on between those two to fix the problems of our state.

- I was gonna say, Donna, it's not just bureaucracy.

If Senator Budd can make one move to stop Mr. Trump's agenda and get some money for Western North Carolina.

Good call for Ted Budd.

- It is, absolutely, but I think what we're also seeing is that FEMA's broken.

I mean, you know, like many of these bureaucratic processes, FEMA is broken.

It's not there, it's not pulling people off rooftops.

At a minimum it should be distributing that money.

We need some more efficiencies.

- And the DHS has its hands full I mean, they're doing stuff all over the country.

They're spread thin.

Like come on, should FEMA really be sitting there and you know, secretary having to deal with that as well as everything else, - Everybody that ran for office and spent millions of other people's dollars to get elected, they've asked for the job and we're gonna have to count on them whether they're Democrats or Republicans, Steve.

You keep that in mind.

Hey, a three judge panel has ruled that two state constitutional amendments, which were voter approved last decade, are in fact constitutional.

The panel of superior court judges unanimously ruled the North Carolina NAACP did not prove that lawmakers had racially discriminatory intent in passing or offering up a voter ID and state income tax referendum.

We'll go into that.

The details of that Colin, caps the state income tax rate, there was an argument there.

Voter ID we can see that's been an issue.

Racial animus for over about a decade now, if not more.

- Yeah, so we have this in place.

I think there was maybe a slight chance that the judges in this case might rule and block it and then you'd have a different set of rules for the municipal elections happening right now, the primaries and election next year.

Sounds like none of that's really gonna move forward at this stage.

So the voter ID law that we have in effect, and we had in effect.

The last election's gonna stay in place for this year and for next year and probably the foreseeable future.

I think this sort of, we're getting to the point on this issue where it's been debated for years and years.

It's gone back and forth.

Now, it just seems to be sort of the status quo and I think people are getting used to it.

- Yeah.

Donna, talk to us - Sure.

- about those amendments.

It has been a long time.

- Sure.

- And it seems - It has been a long time.

- like a lawsuit goes away and then it pops back up in a court somewhere else and I go, "Didn't we talk about this a year ago?"

- Sure, sure, well, I mean, North Carolina's voters actually approved this in 2018, is that right?

2018.

So, you know, it's been a very long time.

We're talking about almost, you know, seven, eight years before voters said, "Yes, we want to cap taxes and we want to have voter ID."

So, you know, this has been pushed off a lot.

This lawsuit by the NAACP was based on them arguing that it disproportionately impacted black voters, they're saying that the state legislature was a gerrymandered map, and therefore anything they put up wasn't really legitimate.

I mean, that could apply to everything passed by that state legislature.

So, this three-panel judge said, "Look, they have not proven that this is impactful, so we are gonna go ahead with this."

But it is seven, eight years after voters said yes.

- Dan, you were in office way back then.

That was only seven years ago ago.

- Oh, I mean.

- Seven years ago.

- I was running for governor in 2020 when, you know, they halted voter ID, and, you know, for a...

I mean, this is personal too, right?

You win on election day, you win on early voting, but you lose by 75% on absentee mail-in ballots that don't need signatures or any kind of witness.

So all of a sudden, people, what it does is it deteriorates the trust of the people, right?

They just wanna go, "Listen, okay, at least you're gonna do the basic things."

We're gonna say, "We know who that person is that's voting."

And so, all of a sudden people are like, "Okay, I at least trust that part of the system."

So voter ID is, it is basic, right?

We know that even when this was passed, Colin, you know this as well, the General Assembly put provisions in there for anybody to get an ID that did not have an ID and they were going to ensure that that happened.

So, there's nothing egregious going on there and I agree, I think the status quo- - Thief, 30 seconds.

This is an old issue as the news cycle goes, but it catches our radar.

Your last word.

- Well, I think voter ID is here to stay.

There's no reason to debate about it.

I don't really think there's a lot of election fraud in North Carolina, but it does ease people's minds.

So, it's something basic and we have to accept it.

With taxes, what I'll say, that I'm concerned about, you know, not increasing taxes when the state's growing so much and we have tariffs and economic impact, inflationary times.

- Yep.

- We have a lot of companies pulling out because of, you know, they get taxes and so they're not coming to North Carolina.

So, I think that's something to discuss on another show.

- We will.

Thank you so much.

Good to have you on, Dan.

Hi and bye, everyone.

It's been a distracting week and I'm sorry to you folks.

Email your thoughts to statelines@pbsnc.org.

Good bye.

- Thank you.

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