Senate budget tries again to move SBI from attorney general
RALEIGH For the third time since Republicans took over the General Assembly, Senate budget-writers are trying to shift control of the State Bureau of Investigation from the attorney general to the governor.
They say it would be a more efficient and logical place to put the agency, and they have developed safeguards to “depoliticize” the move. But since Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper is likely to run against Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016, politics overshadows everything about the issue.
The Senate budget would also strip the State Crime Lab from Cooper’s Department of Justice and, along with the SBI, move their 638 employees to the Department of Public Safety, which already houses the rest of the state’s standalone law enforcement divisions.
It would be a massive transfer of power from one elected official to another. Cooper, many prosecutors and law enforcement officials strongly oppose the move. They say it would jeopardize the independence of the SBI, which investigates executive branch as well as legislative and judicial branch agencies.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/05/29/4941385/senate-tries-again-to-move-sbi.html#.U4iKJfldWSo#storylink=cpy