Stein rebukes Robinson during meet and greet

Jan. 26—HENDERSON — A good portion of gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Josh Stein's campaign event on Wednesday centered around Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, one of three Republican candidates vying for the nomination in the March 5 primary.

Mayor Melissa Elliott got the 50-strong crowd in the Farm Bureau Room excited and introduced Sheriff Curtis Brame, who gave the AG a glowing endorsement.

"There is another fight ahead of us," said the sheriff. "Robinson. He wants to be the governor of North Carolina. Can you believe that?"

A few crowd members booed.

With that, Stein took the mic, asking who present loves North Carolina, home to good people ready to offer kind words and full of natural beauty. Everybody raised their hands.

"Friends, our home is under assault — right-wing politicians are taking a sledgehammer to its foundation," said Stein. "They damage our democracy to cling to power. They gerrymander legislative districts and make it harder to people to vote. They promote the big lie."

Robinson is his likely opponent, he said. The lieutenant governor believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from then-incumbent Donald Trump, an "un-American" lie, Stein said.

Robinson has called teachers "wicked people," said Stein. That came from a speech the lieutenant governor delivered at Winkler's Grove Baptist Church in Hickory last July.

"We're going to work like heck in Raleigh to make sure these schools get straightened out," said Robinson at the time, encouraging listeners to form their own schools. "... Do not turn your children over to these wicked people."

Robinson also denies the existence of climate change, vilifies LGBTQ people, "casts doubt on the Holocaust," opposes a clean energy economy and supports a total ban, with no exceptions, on abortion, said Stein.

That last one isn't quite true, not nowadays, at least. Robinson seemed to support a total ban during his bid for lieutenant governor in 2020, when he said abortion was a "no compromise" issue and it didn't matter to him "why or how that child ended up in that womb," CNN reported last Wednesday.

Nowadays, he seems to have softened his stance.

"Lt. Gov Robinson has publicly supported legislation that would limit abortion after a heartbeat is detected, with protections for extreme situations such as rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger," a spokesperson for his office told Business Insider in December.

To boot, Robinson doesn't want women to be leaders, Stein claimed, gesturing to Elliott. "He's crazy," she said.

"All of it is wrong, all of it is backwards," said Stein. "All of it must be stopped, and it's on us to fight for our home and fight for our people."

He's no stranger to fighting for North Carolinians, Stein said. He and other attorneys general have won some $55 billion, $6 billion for North Carolina, from Teva and Allergan, companies alleged to have a role in the opioid crisis.

In 2018, North Carolina had the most untested rape kits in the country at 16,200. Stein's office has been working on the backlog. As of the time of writing, the Department of Justice lists about 11,000 have been tested.

"Each one of those thousands and thousands of kits come from a single person," said the AG. "Every one of those people deserves justice."

He expressed support for voting rights, condemning Republican-led gerrymandering that targets Black voters, he said, quoting the fourth district court of appeals.

"To be able to do this work," said Stein, "is a blessing... we can make North Carolina even stronger if we invest in our people and their futures."

Futures meaning broadband, "roads and railroads, ports and airports," water and sewer. Raising the minimum wage and cutting taxes on working-class families, too.

The Medicaid expansion, which launched last month, is a beginning.

"We have to get drug and hospital costs under control," he said.

As for education, he said the state "must raise teacher pay."

"If we do all of these things and more, we will begin to deliver on the promise of North Carolina and build that better and brighter future," said Stein.

Stein's father, Adam Stein, was one of three who opened the state's first integrated law firm, Ferguson, Chamber and Stein.

"They and so many other heroes across the state, good folks like Abdul Rasheed," said the AG, "teach us that some things are worth fighting for, no matter how tough."

"I've watched Josh as a young, young man, grow up in North Carolina, finish his education as a scholar, go to Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School," said Rasheed. "I don't know that we can have a better North Carolinian to lead us."

Rasheed implored the crowd to consider supporting Stein.

After all that, locals had the chance to ask a few questions.

Alicia Campbell, founder of the Ahmad Campbell Foundation, said she would like to see more confiscated guns. Her son, Ahmad, a student at North Carolina A&T was shot and killed in 2016 off campus. The gun used in the crime was confiscated two weeks later but there weren't any arrests for 18 months.

Stein offered his condolences and praised her for turning her pain into something positive for other moms. Though respectful of the Second Amendment, he said, he believes violent criminals shouldn't be allowed to purchase them and expressed the need for red-flag laws, which would allow courts to take guns away from people in danger of harming themselves or others.

"You know, a teenager can't buy a cigarette or a beer, but a teenager can go buy an AR-15. That doesn't make any sense," said Stein.

Gun safety lies with community members as well — gun owners need to do a better job, he said, of keeping their firearms under lock and key so that they don't get stolen. He drew a comparison to America's history with cars — after World War II, roadways were a "place of carnage."

The advent of speed limits, seat belts, air bags, crumple zones and more reduced the number of people who died per mile of roadway by 95%. As for guns, common sense regulations are the way forward.

One crowd member advocated for the banning of assault rifles outright, calling them weapons of mass destruction. Stein thanked her for her comment.

Another asked what Stein could do as governor to get the Leandro v. State of North of North Carolina forward. That's a 30-year-old lawsuit against the state government that accuses it of underfunding five school districts, including Vance County's.

"It's about making sure that the state lives up to the guarantee in our Constitution to the young people of this state that you will get a sound, basic education," Stein explained. "We are not providing that, right now. My office, along with the governor, negotiated with the plaintiffs a strategy to try to stop fighting in court and start solving the problem. We came up with a plan."

That Leandro Plan would improve teacher pay, increase the number of counselors, social workers and nurses to take the burden off the teachers. The North Carolina Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the case in February — the fifth time in the past 30 years or so. Stein's office has filed a request to the NCSC to consider the case closed and get payments moving.