North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore and some Republican sheriffs on Monday accused Democratic legislative candidates of pushing to reduce police funding if elected this November, citing a liberal-leaning group’s policy platform.

The Democrats’ leader in the chamber, Rep. Darren Jackson of Wake County, said the pledge that many party candidates agreed to and cited by the Cleveland County Republican contained no demand to “defund the police.” He accused Moore of making “another set of blatant lies.”

Moore cited a pledge promoted by the group Future Now, a nonpartisan issues group. The group’s separate political arm gave $50,000 to the state Democratic Party in June and contributions in March to nearly a dozen House Democrats.

The broad “America’s Goals” statement that Future Now has asked candidates to sign makes no reference to cutting police funding. Moore cites an explanation for one of those goals on another web page. The group backs model legislation that seeks ways to “reduce excessive policing and reinvest the money saved into proven strategies and programs to support communities and reduce crime.”

“Our nation is in a time of crisis right now,” Moore said at state Republican Party headquarters. “The last thing we need to be talking about is reallocating assets from law enforcement and defunding the police.”

Future Now Executive Director Daniel Squadron said Moore was lying about the group’s policy goal, which “nowhere calls to defund the police.”

The broadside by Moore and GOP colleagues came in a news conference that targeted many legislative races weeks before Election Day.

Republicans currently hold small margins in the House and Senate, with Democrats needing six additional seats in the House and five in the Senate to secure majorities. The party in charge for 2021 also will control how district boundaries are redrawn for the next decade.

Photo via the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

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