North Carolina’s legislative session formally drew to a close at the end of last week, and thanks to GOP inaction, rape remains perfectly legal in the state.
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But lawmakers will return to Raleigh in August and September to take care of some unresolved business, like overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes (Republicans have a veto-proof majority in both legislative chambers) and redrawing state legislative districts to remedy the current unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered ones. (This is how Republicans keep those veto-proof majorities.)
But one thing they’re not addressing in the upcoming sessions and just couldn’t make time for over the past few months: closing a loophole in the state’s sexual assault statutes that prevent someone from being charged with rape for continuing to engage in a sexual act after a partner revokes consent to that act. This loophole has prevented prosecutors from pursuing charges in two rape cases since December.
You read that right. Thanks to a 1979 court decision, “no” doesn’t actually mean “no” in North Carolina if you say it after you’ve already said “yes” to sex.
A Democratic state senator introduced legislation in April to remedy this very real but eminently fixable problem. The bill is simple and straightforward, and you don’t have to be a lawyer to understand it. In fact, why take my word for it?
§ 14-27.37. Withdrawal of consent.
a) A person who initially consents to vaginal intercourse is not deemed to have consented to any penetration that occurs after the person withdraws consent during the course of that vaginal intercourse. A person may withdraw consent to engage in vaginal intercourse in the middle of the intercourse, even if the actual penetration is accomplished with consent and even if there is only one act of vaginal intercourse. The withdrawal of consent must be clearly communicated in a way that a reasonable person would understand to constitute withdrawal of consent.
(b) A defendant who continues the act of vaginal intercourse after consent is withdrawn is deemed to have committed the act of vaginal intercourse by force and against the will of the other person.
See? Just 122 words. Not complicated.
The new law would have the added bonus of clarifying that sex without consent qualifies as rape.
But GOP Senate Leader Phil Berger just didn’t see the urgency. When presented with an easy opportunity to protect and get justice for rape victims, he and his Republican colleagues who run North Carolina’s General Assembly refused to bring the bill to a vote. It languished in committee. When asked about the measure, Berger seemed to think someone would have brought it up before now if it were such a big doggone deal.
“I’m having some difficulty understanding why, if it is the problem that you are saying it is, that it has not come up until now. I mean, that’s troubling,” Berger said.
“There are a lot of times that folks will come to us, and want us (to) ‘Change this law now!’ ” Berger said. “And I just don’t know that’s the way we need to respond to things when you’ve got a period of 30 years where apparently the law has been unchanged, and no one has brought this to anybody’s attention. At least, I’m not aware of it.”
Sorry, ladies, but because Sen. Berger hasn’t been convinced to care about people getting away with rape for the past 38 years because of this loophole, he can’t be bothered to do anything about it now.
Not only has the bill resolving this revoked-consent loophole been before the legislature for almost three months, but its sponsor also introduced legislation to fix this heinous and 100 percent solvable problem back in 2015. (That bill also went nowhere, of course.)
As of late last week, over 27,000 people had signed a petition started by an Asheville women that demanded lawmakers pass SB 553 and close the rape loophole. Republicans were, evidently, unimpressed.
But lest you think North Carolina Republicans were twiddling their thumbs while they let rape remain legal, let’s take a look at what they were spending their time on in the waning hours of session instead of passing a simple and necessary bill:
- They attempted to launch a nonsense impeachment investigation of the Democratic secretary of state, Elaine Marshall. The House Rules Committee passed an impeachment resolution last week on a party-line vote, but movement on the measure was sidelined in the waning hours of session. However, despite the fact that Republican state Rep. Chris Millis has zero legal support for his claims that Marshall is illegally certifying non-citizens as notaries public, GOP lawmakers plan to address impeachment during the upcoming August and September sessions.
- They pushed a measure to gerrymander judicial districts, which would impact the elections of judges and district attorneys statewide. This attempt to remove what might be the last check on the GOP-controlled legislature’s power by accommodating the election of more Republicans to these posts has been delayed for the time being, but lawmakers have pledged to move it forward in one of the upcoming reconvened sessions.
So for those keeping score at home, Republican lawmakers have pledged to pursue multiple naked power grabs in the upcoming special sessions but have no plans to make rape illegal this year. Yet again, North Carolina Republicans demonstrate why they’re top contenders for the worst batch of GOP legislators in the country.
