NC Republicans Accuse NC Democrats of Pledging to Defund the Police
House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, addresses a news conference Monday, Sept. 14, at N.C. GOP headquarters in Raleigh. Source.
Tim Moore (R), Speaker of the North Carolina State House, accused North Carolina House Democrats of taking $100,000 from a group called Future Now in exchange for pledging to defund law enforcement across North Carolina. Due to concerns about Democratic candidates signing this pledge, Republican lawmakers organized a news conference at the Guilford County GOP Headquarters in Greensboro. At the conference, area sheriffs expressed their worries over nationwide calls to defund police departments, with Moore calling the signing of the pledge “a betrayal of the basic public trust to keep families safe.”
NC House Democrats were quick to respond in fervent denial of the allegations. House Minority Leader Darren Jackson called Moore’s accusations “libelous.” Representative Robert Reives went on to say, “no Democrats in the North Carolina House want to defund the police under any circumstance, period, and have never said such.”
The organization at the source of the pledge, Future Now, is an issue advocacy group that strives to elect the next generation of American leaders to create a “blueprint for the nation’s renewal.” It prioritizes working with state legislatures by investing in candidates who pledge to stand up to special interests and make their state the “best place on earth” to live, work, and raise a family.
Many House Democrats signed this pledge with Future Now to work to ensure job growth, education funding, and access to health care, but the pledge does not mention law enforcement or cutting police budgets. Winston-Salem city council member and Democrat Dan Besse signed this pledge and said, “I can tell you, I have never supported defunding the police and I never will.” After hearing these false claims from Republicans, Besse went looking for how these claims could have taken off.
In addition to their general pledge for politicians, Future Now separately promotes a collection of model policies that are not proposed bills. One of the policy proposals discusses reallocating police funds to mental health organizations to give them resources to respond to mental health-related cases instead of police officers. This specific policy proposal is what Speaker Moore was referencing, but it was not included in the pledge signed by House Democrats. Additionally, Future Now’s pledge states online that candidates “signing the America’s Goals pledge is not an endorsement of any specific bill.”
The Future Now Fund gave $59,400 to eleven Democratic candidates in State House of Representatives races this year, giving each the maximum contribution of $5,400. The NC Democratic party also received $50,000 from the Future Now Fund on June 30 because the fund matched an hour’s worth of donations given to the party during an NC Day of Giving fundraiser. The Democrats who signed this pledge did not pledge to defund the police or carry out any of the model legislation that is on the Future Now website.
In response to the dispute, Future Now executive director Daniel Squadron stated that “America’s Goals Pledge is not a one-size fits all pledge or an endorsement of a single policy,” and suggested Moore is using his accusations to frighten voters: “The speaker is lying about the policy he highlights, which is actually about experts identifying the most effective spending to keep communities safe and strong and nowhere calls to defund the police.”
In 2018, when most of the House Democrats signed the pledge, it contained only two topics regarding enforcement policy: ending mass incarceration and protecting constituents from racial profiling. Defunding the police was not referenced, and Squadron said the organization has never taken a stance on this topic. The signature statement states that by signing the pledge, candidates promise to advocate for these seven goals: jobs, health care, children, people over special interests, equal opportunities, sustainable infrastructure, and clean air, water, and energy.
Democratic Representative Graig Meyer said, “there’s nothing in the pledge about police and they’re doing this because they’re in an election season where they want to distract the public from the issues that the public wants to talk about, which are education and health care.” Reives called Moore’s accusations a blatant lie and an attempt to defeat Joe Biden in the presidential election by charging Democrats with radical policies.