Where NC Senate candidates Budd and Beasley stand on violent crime, drugs and policing
READ MORE
North Carolina U.S. Senate race
With the November election ahead, the candidates campaign across the state.
Expand All
Ted Budd, the Republican candidate in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, and Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee, have different perspectives on what needs to be done to improve public safety and alleviate crime and drug challenges in the state.
These topics have been front and center for many following the recent deaths of two North Carolina law enforcement officers in the line of duty, the latest data on violent crime and fentanyl overdoses, and the ongoing national debate on policing and public safety practices.
The public appearances and statements of the two candidates on policy issues from safety to health care, reproductive rights, inflation and more hold special significance: North Carolina is one of the swing states that could determine the power split in the U.S. Senate. Beasley and Budd are vying for votes to take the seat of retiring Richard Burr, a Republican.
Budd, a three-term House member, has campaigned on his support for law enforcement. Most recently, he remarked on the endorsement he received from the North Carolina Troopers Association and held press conferences to highlight his support of law enforcement. The troopers association supported Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, in North Carolina’s 2020 U.S. Senate race.
“Throughout my time in Congress, I’ve made it my decision and my mission to back the blue and to back law enforcement each and every day,” Budd said last week during a press event in downtown Raleigh. “We need to fund them. We need to back them.”
The latest North Carolina violent crime rates are higher than the national rate, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which collects data reported by law enforcement agencies nationwide. In 2020, the most recent data available, overall crime rates in North Carolina decreased but violent crime went up almost 11%, from 378.7 violent crimes to 419.3 per 100,000 people. This is the first year in a decade that violent crime rates are above the nationwide rate, currently 398.5 in 2020. Violent crime includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
Beasley has not made support of law enforcement as central to her campaign but has often called attention to her work in the criminal justice system as a former public defender, judge and then chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Last weekend, during a school supply giveaway event in Southeast Raleigh, Beasley spoke with The News & Observer on law enforcement and safety.
“Partnerships in law enforcement have always been central to our communities. I certainly understand that law enforcement needs resources for training and to make sure that they can do their jobs as best possible, while also appreciating that we need community support,” she said. We should also “make sure that there’s transparency and accountability in law enforcement relationships with communities,” she said.
Beasley said she’s worked in partnership with law enforcement to create the state’s first human trafficking court and to expand the School Justice Partnerships program, aimed at keeping kids out of court.
Police funding, criminal justice reform
Among other public safety and criminal justice provisions, her campaign website says, Beasley supports the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 which addressed issues regarding policing practices and law enforcement accountability. This bill did not become law but it did pass the U.S. House. Budd voted against it.
She also supports increasing investments in public safety, community policing, and training for law enforcement addressing racial bias, deescalation and crisis intervention.
Her website also includes support for legalizing and regulating marijuana, ending some mandatory minimum sentences and ending the cash bail system (in which money is paid to get someone out of jail), particularly for nonviolent offenders.
In turn, Budd on his website highlights having written the Community Policing Act, a bill that did not become law, which directed the U.S. Department of Justice to make grants to law enforcement agencies for deescalation training and community outreach. He also highlights having written the No Tolerance for Rioters Act, a bill that did not become law and which sought to increase from 5 to 10 years the maximum prison term for crossing state lines or using interstate facilities for rioting.
“The radical left is lying to abolish police departments across the country. They are moving from socialism to complete anarchy. It’s dangerous, and Ted will fight against any effort to weaken the Thin Blue Line,” reads his campaign site.
Estella Patterson, chief of the Raleigh Police Department, who attended the school supply giveaway event and who is not backing a candidate, said she hopes for a senator who will “be very serious about reducing violent crime” in the state.
Democratic state Rep. Rosa Gill of Raleigh threw her support behind Beasley, saying she liked how Beasley “believes in law enforcement.”
“All elected officials ought to support law enforcement and public safety,” she said. “We in the General Assembly have to find what we can to help local law enforcement, since that is the responsibility of the local government, and I think on the congressional level, they’ll have to do the same thing, support.”
During his press event Friday, Budd was backed by former U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon, former Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison and Bill Grey, a former head of the N.C. State Highway Patrol.
Harrison, who is running to return to the sheriff’s office, also attended the school supply giveaway event. While he supported Budd in the campaign, he looks to connect with all leaders and community members to look for solutions, he said.
“We’ve got to be able to raise our salaries and get good people,” he said.
Opioids and immigration
Budd also focused on the fentanyl crisis, stating the problem stemmed from the border. “We need to finish this wall,” he said. “Right now, fentanyl deaths are the leading cause of death between males 18 and 45 years old.”
“It’s an absolutely tragic, unforced error. And they’re saying that we can stop if we first get control of the border,” he said.
Budd, who was endorsed by Trump in the state’s Republican Senate primary, seeks to increase the resources available to border agents, and he supports Kate’s Law, which would increase criminal penalties for people who re-enter the country illegally after being deported, according to his website.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which appears to be the source for Budd’s male youth fentanyl death statistic, suggests expanded distribution and use of naloxone and overdose prevention education and intervention as proposed solutions to the drug epidemic.
In North Carolina, according to the most recent data released by the state’s health department, there has been a 40% increase in overdose deaths in 2020 compared to 2019.
For Beasley, the solution lies in expanding programs and help, such as substance use courts, expanding the Affordable Care Act and making sure that Medicare can negotiate drug prices.
“It is a real issue,” she said. “And many of our communities, but particularly our rural communities, are suffering from substance use. And as the next United States senator from North Carolina, I fully will work very hard to make sure that people have access to affordable health care, and mental health and substance use care.”
Beasley on her website cites immigration reform as a priority issue, centered on supporting a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are already in the country without legal authorization;, protecting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that provides deportation protections for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children; investing in border security and reducing wait times for legal immigration proceedings, among other provisions.
Guns
Beasley’s campaign website includes support for what she called gun safety measures, including universal background checks.
Budd says on his own website he “is tired of politicians treating law-abiding gun owners like criminals. He will never waver in defense of the Second Amendment.” He is the owner of ProShots gun store and shooting range.
Budd voted against a measure passed by Congress this year with bipartisan support that included new gun restrictions, saying he worried it would “have the unintended effect of infringing on the due process rights of law-abiding citizens.”
Beasley backed the deal, calling it “commonsense action to save lives.”
Whether Beasley and Budd will have a public debate on crime and other issues remains to be seen, though Budd indicated during his press event he’s open to it, Beasley has previously said she would be, too.
This November, Libertarian Shannon Bray will also be on the ballot. Green Party candidate Matthew Hoh is expected to be on the ballot as well.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published August 19, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
