As noted by the News & Observer this weekend, Ross sided with sex offenders and wrote to ACLU members that the registry “would make it even harder for people to reintegrate into society and start over and could lead to vigilantism.” The story also points out, “news reports show she continued to criticize the registry after it went online.”
The profile on Ross’ ACLU career also highlighted the recent NRSC ad “Vulnerable,” targeting Deborah Ross. As Executive Director of the North Carolina ACLU, Ross threatened to block a bill making it illegal for a person who knows about child abuse to not report it. The bill was proposed after 45 children, an all-time high, died from child abuse in 1996. As the bill was being debated, Deborah Ross told the News & Observer, “The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is working to ensure an exemption for the clergy. If the legislation becomes law without such an exemption, the ACLU will sue.”
READ MORE from the News & Observer:
Deborah Ross’ ACLU leadership looms large in US Senate race
News & Observer | Colin Campbell
Deborah Ross left the ACLU 14 years ago to run for state House, but her time leading the civil liberties group has been a magnet for criticism in the U.S. Senate race this year.
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Many voters are still not familiar with Ross as the Senate contest gets overshadowed by the campaigns for president and governor. So the Burr campaign and groups backing him have focused on Ross’ record at the American Civil Liberties Union in an effort to paint her as too liberal for North Carolina. Among other attacks, they point to concerns she raised about legislation placing sex offenders in a public database.
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One of the Burr campaign’s first ads targeted Ross’ concerns about the [sex offender] registry. The campaign argued that she “put the rights of sex offenders over our families.”
In a memo Ross wrote to ACLU members, she said the registry “would make it even harder for people to reintegrate into society and start over and could lead to vigilantism.” She also argued that the registry might harm victims who were abused by family members because the victims’ names could become public by association.
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She says she wanted lawmakers to consider potential consequences of the registry. “Nobody really knew what was going to happen with what was going to go out over the internet,” she said.
Ross notes legislators ultimately revised the bill to make it clear that victims’ names aren’t public record, but news reports show she continued to criticize the registry after it went online.
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Republicans are now hitting Ross on a similar issue: a 1997 bill that made failure to report child abuse a misdemeanor. Ross threatened an ACLU lawsuit if the bill didn’t exempt clergy.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee recently launched a TV commercial highlighting the law.
“Who was she trying to protect?” the narrator asks over sinister-sounding music and footage of children. “Not the victims of sexual abuse. Deborah Ross: Too radical for North Carolina.”
Ross says her request to exempt clergy was in order to ensure the law complied with court rulings on religious freedom issues. Some were concerned that Catholic priests wouldn’t be able to promise confidential confessions, for example.
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But the following year, Ross clashed with conservative religious groups when the ACLU opposed legislation allowing schools to post the Ten Commandments. She argued that the Ten Commandments could only appear in public education if they were integrated into the curriculum as an appropriate study of history or world religions. She said later, as a legislator, she voted for a bill that did just that.
The Senate Leadership Fund, which is spending millions on ads against Ross, points to the case as an example of “anti-religion activism (that) would fit right into San Francisco or Manhattan, but not in North Carolina.” The group notes that the ACLU under Ross also told a school it could not include “songs specifically concerning Jesus” in its Christmas pageant.
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