That’s how resident lefty Chris Fitzsimon described the changes to the sentencing grid that I point out in my blog post yesterday.
Apparently, he feels that giving future child rapists a 16% reduction in their prison sentences is just “a minor adjustment.” I wonder how the victims of the crimes, that he seems to make light of, feel about the changes. Indeed, I wonder if he would still feel the same way if one of these crimes happened to his family.
Second, Fizsimon continues to falsely state that these changes were supported by the sentencing commission. They most certainly were not. If you read the report, on page 2 it very clearly states:
These are alternatives presented for consideration by the General Assembly, not necessarily recommendations by the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission.
There’s a key word there — alternatives. The sentencing commission gave the General Assembly a list of alternatives to choose from and it is up to the General Assembly, in its responsibility, to decide which alternatives it chooses to adopt.
The General Assembly could have very well chosen that it is more important to spend taxpayer dollars keeping violent, recidivist felons in prison rather than reducing their sentences, but they chose not to. They’d rather reduce the sentences of rapists and murderers so they could spend $25 million on a fishing pier.
In one of its final acts of the 2009 session, the NC House gave final approval to two Senate bills that together will significantly reduce prison sentences for felons.
SB 488 and SB 489 change the way sentences are calculated according to the “sentencing grid” which establishes a range for sentencing based on a convict’s prior record and class of felony committed.
Let’s take for example a person who has committed a minor crime before and has one record point who then commits first degree rape (B1 felony). Under the current sentencing structure that person would receive a sentence of 230-288 months. Under the new sentencing grid enacted by SB 488 and SB 489, that person would now receive a sentence of 192-240 months — basically shaving 3 years off the sentence of a rapist.
Most other sentences for prior felons are reduced as well.
The Senate approved SB 488 by a 23-22 vote and SB 489 24-22.
House approval was 61-52 on SB 488 and 61-53 on SB 489.
A seemingly innocuous change to a bill late last week could have far reaching effects if it is approved by the NC House today.
Last year, two candidates for office, Bob Crumley for Attorney General and Bill Faison for NC House (and coincidentally, both lawyers), ran television advertising for their respective legal firms in which they both appeared on camera pitching the benefits of hiring their firm. Both candidates were featured prominently in the ads. A copy of Crumley’s ad and corresponding questions regarding the legality of the ads are in a Greensboro News and Record story here. The question was raised, if known candidates are appearing in TV ads, but aren’t mention as candidates, then where is the line between legitimate advertising for a company and attempting to subvert campaign laws by using corporate dollars to run television ads?
The State Board of Elections (SBOE) ruled that these ads constituted campaign speech and could not be run.
A bill (H1111) passed last Friday by the NC Senate during its flurry of activity to wrap up session would completely change this ruling.
It would re-write the electioneering communication and candidate specific communication statutes to exempt ads such as these so long as they didn’t mention the candidacy, party or election in which the candidate is running, and the ad proposes a commercial transaction.
The loophole this creates is big enough to drive a Mack truck through. If this bill is enacted, any candidate could simply appear in his/her business’ television advertising at any time during a campaign. The possibilities to exploit this new loophole are limitless — lawyers, insurance agents, car dealership owners or any business owner could spend an unlimited amount of corporate dollars (which wouldn’t be disclosed) on running “ads” for their business, but were nothing more than commercials designed to improve their name identification.
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to see an individual form a corporation solely for this purposes. What would stop a candidate from forming his or her own “consulting” firm and spending unlimited dollars running ads promoting themselves and his/her business acumen at lowering costs, hiring more workers and helping businesses streamline operations. The answer, under this new proposed law, nothing, as long as they solicited business and didn’t mention they were a candidate for office or the upcoming election.
We’ll see later today if the House notices this new interpretation when the bill comes up for concurrence.
One of the most interesting things that happens at the end of the legislative session is the common practice of taking a bill that has passed one body, stripping out all of its language and replacing it with a completely different bill.
Take H 752 for example. When it passed the House on May 7, it was a bill requiring the annual registration of farm vehicles.
It appeared yesterday in the Senate Commerce Committee where it was promptly stripped of its language and replaced with a bill that makes it harder for the Secretary of State to assess fees to lobbyists who file late disclosure reports.
Gotta love the last minute shenanigans!
There have been some reports that the tax increase contained in the NC budget was to be $990 million. Those reports appear to be premature.
According to the estimates in the budget bill released late last night, the tax increase is actually $1.08B. The new taxes will generate as follows:
Individual Income Surcharge – $172.8M
Corporate Income Surcharge – $23.1M
Sales Tax Increase – $803.5M
Digital products and click throughs – $11.8M
Tobacco, beer, wine, liquor – $68.8
Total $1.08 billion. Add in another $55 million or so in increased fees and it’s over $1.1 billion in new revenues for the government.
There seems to be quite a bit of confusion among the public regarding just how the new income tax surcharge that is included in the soon to be revealed budget agreement will be applied. Much of the confusion can be traced directly to WRAL’s varied and often inaccurate reporting of the tax surcharge.
Reporter Bruce Mildwurf got it correct on Friday when he accurately stated that in addition to taxing all businesses regardless of profitability:
The surcharge would be calculated on total tax liability, including withholding taxes that have been paid throughout the year and any quarterly estimated tax payments that have been made.
Confusion comes when a story posted this morning on WRAL by reporter Erin Coleman contradicts Mildwurf’s story by (incorrectly) saying:
It would impose a surcharge on those who don’t have the full amount of their income taxes withheld. The surcharge would range between 2 and 3 percent and apply to individuals making $60,000 and couples making $100,000 or more.
WRAL is arguably the most powerful and influential voice for news in North Carolina. I read one estimate that said its web traffic was nearly 7x that of its main rival, the News and Observer. Thus, the importance of WRAL accurately informing the public of the details of a $1 billion tax increase is critical.
**10am update – Since I posted this, the story has been corrected and now contains the accurate description of the income tax surcharge.
Gov. Perdue scuttled last week’s budget agreement over her concern over raising income taxes on “working families and middle class families” yet has openly supported increasing the cigarette tax up to $1 per pack.
I’d like to point out to the Governor the hypocrisy of her statement. Take this chart from Gallup for example:
So tell me, Governor, which type of families will be paying your recommended cigarette tax increase?
Just how bad is it to be Governor Perdue right now? Check out this case in point:
Support for taxing services drops by 24 percentage points when it is presented as a plan by “Gov. Perdue” rather than a plan by the “state legislature.”
In our May poll, we asked if voters approved of a plan by the state legislature that would reduce the sales tax rate while expanding the number of things taxed to include services like auto repair and home repair. 37 percent supported the plan.
When we asked a similar question in our July poll, but this time saying it was a Perdue plan to charge sales taxes on services, the support dropped to just 13 percent.
Now there are two viable explanations for this. First, is than in just two months time the support for a service tax has eroded completely due to the publicity it has received in the media. Or second, just by attaching Perdue’s name to the plan, any support it had (which was not much to begin with) goes away very quickly.
I tend to believe its more the latter than the former.
Since the General Assembly is nearly a month overdue on passing the budget (the only thing they are technically required to do), we asked voters this month if they thought that legislators should forgo their paychecks if they miss the July 1 deadline of completing a new budget.
65% said they should give up their pay. Only 27% said no.
What’s most interesting is the group with the highest percentage supporting is government employees at 75 percent. I guess they’re still feeling a little jilted over the whole furlough thing, eh?
Full results and crosstabs here.
North Carolina law currently provides no mechanism for voters to remove elected officials from office outside of normal elections. According to this month’s Civitas poll, 64 percent of voters would support a new North Carolina law providing them the ability to have just that.
Not too surprising.
What is surprising is that a majority voters are open to recalling Governor Perdue from office. 35% would support it, 17% are not sure and 48% are opposed.
So despite not having been involved in any scandals or accused of any crimes, 52% of the population isn’t opposed to removing the sitting governor from office. If that doesn’t say something about their feelings on her handling of the budget and economy, I don’t know what does.
What’s even more surprising that over a quarter of the governor’s own party (28%) would recall her. To lose that significant of a portion of your base vote that they want to remove you from office is going to be very difficult for her to ever get back. The best thing Perdue has going for her for re-election in 2012 is Obama is going to be on the ticket again.
Full results and crosstabs are here.