A couple of recent articles cast a spotlight on former Governor Roy Cooper’s actions.
The North State Journal reports that his statewide emergency order lasted for 888 days. That is equivalent to 2.5 years.
And Don Brown has a great article at Carolina Journal chronicling what happened in North Carolina:
Gov. Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 121 and subsequent orders drew sharp lines between “essential” and “non-essential” businesses, shuttered large parts of the economy, restricted churches while permitting other gatherings under shifting rules, and imposed mandates that courts later found to raise serious First Amendment and due-process concerns. Federal Judge Jim Dever shot down Cooper’s church ban as unconstitutional.
All the while, DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen served as principal architect and public face of those oppressive policies. The General Assembly and NC Attorney General should examine the full record: the executive orders, death-certificate practices, differential treatment of institutions, and the measurable harm to students — their education disrupted by prolonged Cooper-Cohen closures and fear-driven policies. Learning losses measured in years are not abstract. Small businesses permanently closed and never reopened.…
The damage to North Carolina’s schools, economy, and social fabric has still not been fully catalogued. While Congress attempts to extract answers from Fauci, North Carolina’s General Assembly should do the same with respect to Cooper, Cohen, and the state officials who implemented the same approach…
North Carolinians have a right to know whether the policies that closed churches, classified livelihoods as non-essential, incentivized certain hospital practices, suppressed inconvenient data, and inflicted lasting educational and economic harm were driven by genuine public-health necessity or by power and institutional self-protection. If the evidence shows recklessness or worse that rises to criminality, those responsible must be held to account. The people of this state deserve answers...
The time for polite forgetting has passed.
This issue has never been fully pursued by the Raleigh Republicans. Now, Cooper appears to be on the verge of winning a valuable U.S. Senate seat because he never faced accountability for his dastardly actions.
This is an issue that needs to be discussed at length during the Senate campaign.
Roy Cooper and Mandy Cohen were responsible for the reign of terror that you detailed. They should be , somehow, be held accountable.
I agree wholeheartedly, Fred. An enterprising Republican DA in a Republican county can begin the process. The Republican General Assembly can do much more, as Mr. Brown says. Although he calls for Jeff Jackson to take action, we know that isn’t going to happen.
Fred, you take the words right out of my mouth. Exactly! I’m not hopeful. When has any govt big shot been held accountable for abuse of their power? Even when people died?
Thanks to Don Brown for at least saying it…if more politely than the subject deserves.
J. Sobran, you are right. Some have been in an obvious position to hold them accountable– state legislators and judges. The state legislators have whiffed thus far; and the judges have made partial amends on certain questions, although there has been no punitive/ restorative accountability.