3 Quick Thoughts About Today’s Durham Election
Tues., Nov. 2: Bull City at a crossroads + RPD fires Detective Abdullah + Supreme Court might quash Texas abortion law
+3 BIG STORIES
1. Election Day in Durham
I was planning to write a longer preview of today’s election, but, well, a) it’s midnight now, and I’ve been writing since 9 a.m,, and I’m freaking tired, and b) there’s not much I can tell you that is both new and wouldn’t be stealing my own thunder. (See Friday’s post about the magazine story I’ve spent all of October working on.)
So with a promise to dive into the results in Durham and elsewhere tomorrow—the post may come later than usual, depending on how late things roll in—here are three quick table-setters for today’s election:
Expect low turnout, again. Ahead of the Oct. 5 primary, 4% of the city’s electorate early-voted. Ahead of the general, 5.65% have, according to the Durham County Board of Elections. With no mayoral contest—Javiera Caballero dropped out—and the two city council primaries being blowouts, there doesn’t seem to be that much interest. (Note to self: Go vote today.)
History suggests Mark-Anthony Middleton and DeDreana Freeman will be reelected. Middleton is easy money because he’s facing token opposition. Freeman is a reasonably safe bet, too, because she dominated the primary. For those of you Marion T. Johnson fans, hope springs eternal: This is a clean-slate election; October doesn’t matter. Allow me to harsh your mellow: Since at least 2007, no Durham council candidate who has placed second in the primary has won the general.
Control of the city council will (probably) come down to the ward 3 race. If you think of Durham’s coalitional politics as a de facto two-party system, then if everything else goes as expected, the council will split 3–3 between the People’s Alliance/Durham for All slate and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People/Friends of Durham slate. That means the winner of this contest—AJ Williams (PA/D4A) vs. Leonardo Williams (DCABP/FOD)—will tip the balance of power on the election’s central issue, public safety: AJ Williams is a member of Durham Beyond Policing, and Leonardo Williams is less likely to reduce the size of the Durham Police Department.
2. RPD Fires Detective at Center of Fake Drugs Scandal
Last week, the Raleigh Police Department (finally) canned Detective Omar Abdullah, the drug-squad detective whose confidential informant, Dennis Leon Williams, allegedly framed at least 15 Black men on heroin trafficking charges, as I reported for The Assembly last month. The city subsequently settled a federal lawsuit with the victims for $2 million, as readers of this newsletter learned about first.
The News & Observer reported yesterday that Abdullah got the boot but seems to be appealing the RPD’s decision. He’d been on paid leave for a year.
There was no other way this could end. Can you imagine a prosecutor trying to put Omar Abdullah on the stand? Any case he touched would be flayed.
A few months ago, a source predicted that the RPD would wait for Williams to get indicted and the lawsuit to settle before it unloaded Abdullah. That source gets a gold star.
Lorrin Freeman told the N&O that while the case is ongoing, she still has no evidence Abdullah knew the drugs were fake. I’ve read virtually everything in the public record about these cases. I simply don’t see how that’s possible.
3. Supreme Court Might Knock Down Texas Abortion Law
Given that I’m writing a 10-million-word (approximate) story about something else right now, I didn’t pay enough attention to the Supreme Court hearing on Texas’ SB 8 yesterday. But from the media accounts, it seems like even the right-wing justices have caught on to the idea that they should be concerned about a law designed specifically to evade judicial review.
Per WaPo:
A majority of Supreme Court justices Monday seemed willing to allow a challenge by abortion providers to a unique Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and allows enforcement by private citizens. …
But at Monday’s three-hour hearing, Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — part of that five-justice majority — repeatedly and pointedly questioned Texas’s arguments and seemed more swayed by challengers’ claims that the law improperly blocks the judicial review necessary when constitutional rights are at stake. …
The cases the court heard Monday raise complicated questions about legal procedure precisely because S.B. 8 was intended to avoid federal court review. Its effect is to ban abortions before many know they are pregnant.
But its enforcement structure was designed to keep it from being stopped by federal judges before it went go into effect—the fate of other state laws prohibiting abortion earlier than Supreme Court precedent allows.
OK, but …
The justices grappled with what exactly relief for those challenging S.B. 8 would be.
Prelogar said the court should rule that the United States can proceed with its suit, reinstate the injunction from Pitman and dissolve the 5th Circuit’s action.
“So that Texas cannot continue to deny women in its borders a right protected by this court’s precedents one day longer,” she said.
Grappled? That doesn’t seem like that much of a head-scratcher to me.
Related: In the first month after SB 8 went into effect, abortions in Texas dropped by about 50%—a smaller reduction than many experts predicted.