Democrat AG Josh Stein Tries to Cast Cooper’s Rape Kit Backlog Blame on Republicans, Gets Owned

RALEIGH – During his 16 years as North Carolina’s attorney general, Roy Cooper presided over a backlog of rape kits that left thousands of victims in limbo awaiting justice. Even worse, Cooper claimed he had cleared the backlog while knowing full well it wasn’t true.

Now, his former understudy and now attorney general himself, Josh Stein (D), is trying to cast the backlog blame on Republicans. Instead of the political points he was looking to score, Stein instead got owned by a group of female Republican lawmakers that have no tolerance for the Democrat’s attempted ruse.

“Sens. Shirley Randleman (R-Wilkes), Kathy Harrington (R-Gaston), Joyce Krawiec (R-Forsyth), Tamara Barringer (R-Wake), Cathy Dunn (R-Davidson), Deanna Ballard (R-Watauga) and Trudy Wade (R-Guilford) issued the following joint statement:

“Josh Stein should know better and should be ashamed of this partisan attempt to deflect blame and defend the failures of his predecessor Roy Cooper.

“Under Democratic and Republican budgets dating back to the 2003-04 budget, state taxpayer money was set aside to test these rape kits. And it is unconscionable that during his sixteen years as attorney general, Gov. Cooper not only failed to heed the pleas of rape victims like the woman who said the untested kits were ‘the next stab in my heart’, but then lied to the people of North Carolina and said he had fixed the problem.

“Because of Roy Cooper’s lies and failure, lawmakers are now working to establish a process to track the thousands of remaining kits in the backlog before expending additional tax dollars to have them tested.””

So, Cooper claims the backlog is “fixed,” but his successor as attorney general is attacking Republicans for a purported failure to off funding to clear the backlog.

NC has a massive backlog of untested sexual assault evidence collection kits. Each victim deserves to have his or her kit tested. That requires resources. Unfortunately, the legislature failed to provide any. https://t.co/VparVQAAOF

— Josh Stein (@JoshStein_) May 30, 2018

Whoops. Cooper’s “fixing” the backlog evidently meant there is still a “massive backlog” two years later.

Democrats’ modus operandi is to advocate spending your taxpayer money first, and asking questions later. The more money spent, the better – no matter the actual results.

Republicans, on the other hand, are looking at the actual nuts and bolts of the testing processes and flow chart in order to determine which policy will actually be effective at addressing the still extant backlog.

Imagine that.