Fair Political Campaigning: Does Our Attorney General Understand the Concept?

It is campaign season time now, as it is every four years. But one situation from the 2000 election still remains unresolved, and incredibly it appears likely to stay that way even beyond this November.

When Roy Cooper faced Dan Boyce as the respective Democratic and Republican nominees for attorney general of North Carolina eight years ago, the contest was a tight one. In the last days before voting ended, Cooper unveiled a commercial stating Boyce’s law firm sued the state and charged $28,000 an hour in lawyers’ fees to taxpayers in the process. This was a serious claim – the problem was it is not true.

For one thing, Boyce himself did not work on the lawsuit – his father Gene did. For another, there was no “$28,000 an hour” in law fees awarded to Boyce’s firm, and more importantly, what was awarded was not for that lawsuit.

In the lawsuit in question, specifically as to the Smith A Protestor case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Fulton case that favored thousands of taxpayers complaining the state unfairly taxed stock held in out-of-state corporations while exempting stocks of those in North Carolina. The state refused to pay interest on the judgment awarding principal tax refunds, so Gene Boyce prosecuted a separate claim for interest, and that resulted in a $1.5 million judgment in his favor, which in no way comes out to $28,000 an hour for any North Carolina resident. In other words, the ad claimed the wrong person won an incorrect amount on a claim different from the case mentioned. It compounded error with error and distorted the truth grotesquely.

Boyce & Isley asked Cooper immediately in 2000 to stop the attack ad because it was patently false. Cooper refused, so Boyce & Isley sued him on the day before the election. Cooper won the voting, but the case proceeded, and despite his efforts to have it dismissed, in 2002 the N.C. Court of Appeals, with a panel of three Democratic judges, agreed the case merited going to court, as did the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since that time, Cooper has appealed that decision to the N.C. Supreme Court, who declined to hear the case, and is trying to avoid having a trial date set through various motions from his own attorneys. In a recent one, Cooper’s team demanded that Wake County Superior Court Judge John Lewis recuse himself from the case, since he was among the thousands of taxpayers who benefited from the lawsuit mentioned in the ad. Superior Court Judge Carl Fox – a Democrat, we might add – denied the request.

Why is there such a big delay on this by Cooper? He has been state attorney general for two terms and looking for a third one while all this has occurred. At the same time, many of his fellow Democrats have not sided with him in throwing it out, feeling that the issue has merit.

All Boyce asked for is an apology from Cooper and a statement saying the ad was not true. He was not asking for any money in return. He is not even running for the state attorney general office, for that matter.

Fair is fair, Mr. Cooper. Stop wasting everyone’s time and either go to trial with the case or settle with Boyce outside of it. This stalling tactic is hurting everyone, including yourself, and for a man charged with being the public’s advocate, you know holding up the proceedings is not in the best interest for the state either. It is ridiculous if we have to wait another four-year electoral cycle for this case to be resolved.