Bev Perdue's Record

Bev Perdue's Record on Civil Rights

In the 1980s, various organizations noted North Carolina was a hotbed of hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.  According to contemporary media reports, various anti-hate groups like North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence (NCARRV), Klan Watch, and the Center for Democratic Renewal reported that North Carolina led the nation in hate group activity from at least 1983 until 1988.  [UPI, 2-8-89; Associated Press, 12-13-85]

One of the more brazen and disturbing examples of the hate group activity was alleged during the trial of a white-supremacist group leader,

a convicted dealer in illegal arms testified he sold [the white-supremacist group,] $50,000 worth of mines, grenades, anti-tank rockets and explosives stolen from Fort Bragg. 

[ Charlotte Observer, 8-5-86]

On January 9, 1986, the North Carolina Human Relations Council (now the North Carolina Human Relations Commission), a state Department of Administration organization, issued a report concerning hate-group activity in the state.  TheCharlotte Observer reported

the N.C. Human Relations Council issued a report Thursday saying North Carolinians must wake up to growing hate-group activity in the state. ‘We think it`s pretty rampant out there,’ said Dr. Jimmie Morris of Oxford, council chairman. ‘We think it`s time to take our heads out of the sand and face this problem.’
. . . 
The report also noted: Statewide monitoring of extremist groups and enforcement of laws they may violate must be broadened and better coordinated. The State Bureau of Investigation, for instance, doesn’t enter racially motivated cases unless requested by local authorities.

[ Charlotte Observer, 1-10-86]

The Bill

In April 1987, State Rep. Dan Blue introduced House Bill 726.  The bill was rewritten in the House Judiciary Committee II, which Rep. Blue chaired.  The bill allowed

the State Bureau of Investigation to look into actual or suspected crimes without being asked by local law enforcement authorities

[ News & Observer, 7-30-87]

and was

designed to let the SBI keep a closer eye on ‘secret societies’— particularly hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

[ News & Observer, 7-30-87]

H.B. 726 Authorized the SBI to Investigate Crimes Associated With Hate Groups

The bill authorized the SBI to investigate numerous crimes without request from local law enforcement – specifically those crimes defined in Article 4A of Chapter 14 of the General Statues and ten other sections of the General Statues.  The crimes defined in these statues include:

• “placing burning or flaming cross on property of another or on public street highway.” [General Statute 14 12.12]

• “wearing of masks, hoods, etc” on public ways and public properties, [General Statute 14 12.7; General Statute 14 12.8]

• “holding meetings or demonstrations while wearing masks, hoods, etc.,” [General Statute 14 12.10]

• “Weapons at parades, etc., prohibited” [General Statute 14 277.2]

• “Exploding dynamite cartridges and bombs” [General Statute 14 283]

• “Riot; inciting to riot” [General Statute 14 288.2]

• “Manufacture, assembly, possession, storage, transportation, sale, purchase, delivery, or acquisition of weapon of mass death and destruction” [General Statute 14 288.8]

Perdue Was Only One of Two Democrats to Vote Against Bill

On May 26, 1987, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 726 by an 86-7 margin on its second reading.  On its second reading, Bev Perdue, then in her first term in the General Assembly, was one of only two Democrats to vote against the bill.  The only other Democrat to vote against the bill was Perdue’s seatmate and future business partner Gerald Anderson.  

Two Years Later, She "Gutted" the Black Caucus's Top Legislative Priority

Black legislators in 1989 wanted to change North Carolina's rule that a candidate must get more than 50 percent of the vote in a primary to avoid a runoff between the top two finishers. African American leaders argued that runoffs favored white candidates. They said a black candidate could finish ahead of several other whites, but in a runoff against one white opponent, white supporters would coalesce behind the white candidate.

The Senate passed a bill to lower the threshold to 40 percent. When that bill reached the House election laws committee, Perdue raised the number to 45 percent.

"What Beverly Perdue did was a slap in the face of black people," Michaux told the (Raleigh) News & Observer at the time.

He suggested the move could affect any aspirations Perdue had for higher office.

"Anybody who is as outspoken as that is going to be in trouble in the black community statewide," Michaux said at the time. "That's just my opinion."

[ Charlotte Observer, 4-26-08]

Bev Perdue's Record on Reproductive Choice

As one of the NC Senate’s chief budget writers in 1995, Beverly Perdue cut funding for the state abortion fund by 96% -- from $1.2 million to $50,000:

Sen. Beverly Perdue, a New Bern Democrat, has ambitions for higher office, but the 1995 session demonstrated she lets politics, not principle , govern her performance. A longtime supporter of abortion rights and of the state's fund that pays for abortions for poor women, Sen. Perdue this year saw to it that the fund was chopped to a bare minimum of $50,000. The reason? Not because she thought abortion funding was wrong, but because she thought continued support for it would cost the Democratic Party several seats in the Senate, and Republicans would take control. Many Democrats upset with Sen. Perdue's reasoning were left to wonder what difference that would make, if Democrats were acting like Republicans anyway.

[Charlotte Observer, 8-7-95]

Perdue also voted for new restrictions making it nearly impossible for women to use the fund.  [H230, 1995]

Women such as the empty-eyed young mother desperate for counseling recently at Planned Parenthood's Greensboro clinic are victims of a cruel, calculated Catch-22.

At 21 she is poor enough to qualify for Medicaid (the state-run health plan) - which means she falls below the poverty line. Her income ostensibly qualifies her for help paying for an abortion from a special state fund. But the rules for that fund say Medicaid recipients can't use it. Her plight is neither isolated nor unique: Because all N.C. women with incomes below the poverty line qualify for Medicaid, no woman in the state can use the fund. And no woman has for the past seven years.

Medicaid won't pay for abortion services. So she must either raise the money herself or plead for help from two distant private groups.

This is deplorable - and doubly so because it was deliberate.

Legislators authored the straitjacket 1995 rules knowing all women would be disqualified. Appeasing their anti- abortion constituents pleased conservatives. Liberals were glad to hide behind the technicality of keeping the fund alive in name only.

[Greensboro News-Record, 7-14-02]

In 1999, she authored a budget provision extending the abortion fund restrictions through 2001. [H168, 1999, Page 101]

And on the 1996 National Political Awareness Test (NPAT), Perdue said,

Abortions should be legal only when the pregnancy resulted from incest, rape, or when the life of the woman is endangered.

[ National Political Awareness Test, 1996]