It’s time for a fact-check of North Carolina politics. This week we’re looking at a claim made by North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who made national news when he vetoed legislation Saturday that would ban most abortions in the state after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The legislature overrode Cooper's veto in a party-line vote Tuesday. Cooper claims that the bill violates some Republican legislators’ campaign promises.
Chris Jones: In a video posted to Twitter, Cooper singles out four legislators, by name, who he said made campaign promises to protect women’s reproductive health.
(Gov. Cooper): "Republican legislators like Ted Davis and Michael Lee, from Wilmington, John Bradford and Tricia Cotham, from Mecklenburg County, made campaign promises to protect women's reproductive health."
Jones: For more, we now turn to Paul Specht of WRAL. OK, Paul, so what campaign promises is Cooper referring to here for these four state legislators, and what did they actually say?
Paul Specht: Let's start in Mecklenburg County with Rep. John Bradford. Now, there's not a lot out there on Bradford's opinions on abortion. We checked his campaign website, we checked his social media. And the quote that stands out comes from an Axios Charlotte story that was published in October of last year, Oct. 24, when Bradford said, "I have no intentions myself of going back to Raleigh and trying to make the 20 weeks more restrictive." And that's the end of his quote. And so that particular quote stood out, and our team considered that to be a pretty strong statement.
Moving on from that to Tricia Cotham, another Mecklenburg Republican who just joined the party famously. She ran in her Democratic-leaning district last year on a liberal Democratic platform, saying that she would work to codify abortion rights protection from Roe v Wade. And then when she got to the legislature this winter, she did sign on to a bill that would do that. So it's fair to say that her constituents expected her to try to either keep the status quo or even expand abortion rights.
And then there's Ted Davis on the coast in New Hanover County — that's Wilmington, basically. He said the same thing as Bradford, that he preferred the existing 20-week ban. And he said that in multiple interviews. But with Davis, what stands out is he was in a candidate forum in October when someone suggested that Republican leaders might change his mind on this issue — and referring to House Speaker Tim Moore specifically. And Davis replied, "The speaker doesn't tell me what to do. I'm going to vote to keep it just the way it is." And so, again, another really strong statement there.
Also in New Hanover County, there's Michael Lee — and now this is Cooper's weakest case as far as making claims against these Republicans. Michael Lee wrote an opinion article for the Wilmington News Star newspaper last September. And in that he very, you know, pretty specifically laid out his position of being against bans within the first trimester, but being OK, restricting most abortions after the first trimester. And again, this new, this new bill bans most abortions after the 12th week. And so we reached out to Cooper's team and asked, you know, hey, where do you see him breaking campaign promises? And they brought up the other part of the bill that deals with medication abortions, saying that the requirement that medical professionals would have to verify the gestational age of the fetus at 10 weeks would basically scare a lot of women, medical professionals, out of prescribing or using abortion pills after 10 weeks. But still, they could get surgical abortions up to 12 weeks. And so we felt like that Cooper was sort of misrepresenting Lee's position there.
Jones: Let's drill down a bit on Rep. Tricia Cotham from Mecklenburg, who switched from Democrat to Republican last month, gave the Republicans a veto-proof supermajority. Aside from campaign promises, what has she said about abortion in the past, especially in her first stint in the General Assembly?
Specht: Right. She's a very interesting case. She previously served in the legislature from 2008 to 2016, and during that time, she was an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights. And 2015, she got up on the House floor and gave this impassioned speech about dealing with her own pregnancy, which was not viable, and having to get an abortion procedure done. And she accused Republican lawmakers at the time of "wanting to play doctor," and saying, "My womb and my uterus is not up for your political grab." That made national news. She was profiled in Time magazine and sort of hailed as a hero in liberal spaces.
Jones: Have any of these lawmakers spoken out against these claims made by Cooper directly referring to them?
Specht: Bradford gave a statement to WSOC-TV, and in that he didn't address his past comments, but he said he does not feel inclined to help out Gov. Cooper because he feels like Cooper sort of snubbed them on other bills and in other efforts. And then there's representatives, Cotham and Davis. They didn't respond to any of our emails or calls. And then Sen. Michael Lee, he did send us a statement saying that the governor is misrepresenting his position, which frankly, as I mentioned, is what our team found, too.
Jones: So, Paul, how did you rate the claim overall by Gov. Cooper?
Specht: We rated this half true. And I need to explain this a little bit because we acknowledge that Cooper is right. About three out of the four Republicans that he mentioned in that Twitter video and in other interviews he's done with media. And, of course, someone might point out like, hey, three out of four, that's not half. That's more than half. Well, our rating system does not judge claims based on their proportionality, if you will, getting three out of four more. So fits our definition of half true.
