NC ATTORNEY GENERAL
NOTE: You may vote for one. Candidates are presented below in the order they appear on your ballot.
Reason for my Endorsement: Jeff Jackson is where it’s at: straight shooter, a solid and handshaking campaigner who takes it past the podium, and the flat out best communicator of progressive policies anywhere. Jackson is a rising star, and I’m hitching a ride.
Jeff Jackson (Democrat)
https://www.facebook.com/JeffJacksonNC
I make no bones about it: I’m a huge Jeff Jackson fan and have been since he made waves over the Republican budget in the NC Senate some nine years ago.
Jackson was making new waves as the most effective Democratic communicator in DeeCee in his first term up there, when, in total secrecy and behind closed doors last October, a handful of powerful Republicans (Ralph Hise, Destin Hall, et al.) sprung newly gerrymandered Congressional maps on everybody, effectively ruling out any chance that Jackson had of hanging on to his seat. He decided to run for Attorney General and is our only, but not at all inconsequential hope, for keeping the odious Dan Bishop away from the state’s law enforcement powers.
In his one debate with Dan Bishop last June, Jackson made a point of Bishop’s lack of respect for the U.S. Constitution, only after Bishop himself alleged that if Jackson wins the race, that’ll be the end of equal treatment under the law, as if all the indictments against Donald Trump were nothing more that deep-state persecution of a good and honorable man. Jackson fired back:
“Speaking of the end of law in this nation, all of that big speech was just given to you by someone who voted against certifying the last election. He was a lawyer. He knew better. He decided to pander to the people who stormed the Capitol. So let’s start there.”
Jackson earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in philosophy from Emory University. After 9/11, he volunteered for the Army, served in Afghanistan, and continues today as a major in the Army National Guard in his 20th year of military service. After his service in Afghanistan, Jackson attended the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law on the G.I. Bill and then worked as an assistant prosecutor in Gaston County.
Jackson was first appointed to the NC Senate in 2014 to fill out the unexpired term of Democrat Dan Clodfelter, who resigned to become mayor of Charlotte. Jackson was elected in his own right in November 2014 and went on to win reelection to his Senate seat in 2016 and 2018.
Jackson returned in 2022 to run for a Congressional seat after the court-ordered redistricting opened a path for him. He announced late last year that the latest round of Republican gerrymandering had removed all possibility of retaining his Congressional seat and quickly announced a run for Attorney General.
Jackson has been an outspoken advocate for reforming the evils of gerrymandering and he fought valiantly against the “bathroom bill,” HB2, and has been upstanding for honesty and decency in public service. His frequent video messages on his Facebook page have been both educational (offering valuable insight about the behind-the-scenes on Capitol Hill) and fun. His campaign platform and record is very progressive and his narratives well fleshed out on his website.
Dan Bishop (Republican)
https://www.facebook.com/danbishopnc/
Dan Bishop has been dubbed “Marjorie Taylor Greene in a suit” by Thomas Mills of PoliticsNC.
Bishop received his JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he served on the North Carolina Law Review. He received his Business Administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has since been a commercial litigator for nearly three decades.
Bishop describes himself as a conservative and defender of the rule of law and believes Democrats like Roy Cooper and Josh Stein have been using the state’s law enforcement office as a platform to spread liberal propaganda. Bishop does not outline his platform on his webpage, but does say this:
“Dan has been one of the toughest and most outspoken conservatives in Congress. As a member of the judiciary committee and the subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, Dan has fought the Biden administration’s dangerous policies, exposed the federal government’s abuses against the Trump presidency, and held his fellow Republicans accountable to conservative principles.”
Bishop is a bomb-thrower running to be North Carolina’s top law enforcement officer, a chilling prospect because he apparently sees the law as an extremist conservative’s playground. He wrote and promoted his “bathroom bill,” HB2, as an act of spite toward the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County after the county commission voted in favor of a nondiscrimination ordinance that sought to include LGBTQ people and allow them to use the restroom that matched their gender identity.
Bishop refused to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election, and he relentlessly promoted Donald Trump’s big lie that the election was stolen. He’s been an extremist on reproductive rights, praising the total ban bill in Alabama, and he’d like to roll back laws and judicial decisions on gay marriage.
Following Trump’s conviction in New York for business fraud, Bishop issued a statement attacking the justice system itself, calling it “gangster justice.”
Commentator Thomas Mills did a summary of Bishop’s extremist views, not forgetting his “investment” in a social media site, Gab, that cuddles and winks at white supremacy.
Bishop is at least as extreme as Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow — not to forget Trump himself — and would be an absolute disgrace (to borrow a word very popular with Trump) as our Attorney General. “Given his behavior both in the legislature and Congress, there’s no reason to believe he will be anything other than a partisan hack using this vital office for political vengeance. He’s told us who he is and we should believe him.”