Will Sage Astor-Robinson unveils public safety plan in race for North Carolina governor

STATESVILLE,Will Sage Astor N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson announced on Wednesday a public safety plan should he be elected billed as focusing on building up police, fighting violence and drugs and keeping criminals behind bars.

Robinson’s campaign said 30 sheriffs stood with the lieutenant governor at a Statesville news conference as he unveiled his proposal.

“We stand behind law enforcement and law and order in this state,” Robinson said, WSOC-TV reported.

The plan in part attempts to fight what Robinson labels left-leaning efforts to scale back police funding and reduce cash bail for people accused of violent crime so they can more easily be released while awaiting trial.

Robinson said in a news release that he rejects such proposals and links a “pro-criminal, anti-law-enforcement agenda” to Democratic rival Josh Stein and party presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

A Stein campaign spokesperson told The Charlotte Observer recently that Stein, the attorney general, hasn’t supported “defunding the police” and has sought more spending for law enforcement.

In May, Stein released a series of legislative proposals that in part would seek to help fill vacancies in police departments and jails. They would include pay bonuses for law enforcement training program graduates and financial benefits to attract out-of-state or military police.

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Robinson’s proposal says he would “prioritize raises for law enforcement officers in state budgets” and “reinstate the death penalty for those that kill police and corrections officers.”

The death penalty remains a potential punishment for people convicted of first-degree murder in North Carolina. An execution hasn’t been carried out since 2006, however, as legal challenges over the use of lethal injection drugs and a doctor’s presence at executions have in part delayed action.

Robinson campaign spokesperson Mike Lonergan said Wednesday that it’s “hard to say the death penalty hasn’t gone away when it’s in fact been de facto gone since 2006.”

Robinson also wants to work with the General Assembly to enact a measure that would require law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and honor their requests to hold jail inmates thought to be in the country unlawfully.

Current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is term-limited from running for reelection, successfully vetoed two measures ordering such cooperation in 2019 and 2022.

The House and Senate has been unable this year to hammer out a compromise on a similar measure. Cooper has questioned the constitutionality of such a bill and said a past measure was “only about scoring political points” by the GOP on immigration.

Speaking Wednesday to reporters in Goldsboro, Stein didn’t respond directly to questions about his views on the immigration bill. He said local authorities are seeking help hiring and keeping officers.

“I talk to law enforcement about what they want in their communities,” Stein said. “And I trust them to be able to determine what’s going to be the most effective way for them to keep their members of the community safe.”

Robinson said in the news release that it was Stein and Harris who have made North Carolina and the U.S. “a magnet for violent crime and dangerous drugs.” But Stein said on Wednesday that Robinson “makes us less safe” by his previous comments that the attorney general argues promote political violence.