Our legislative overlords in Raleigh have only one more step to go before they get their wish of making it easier to execute black men. On Wednesday, the House judiciary subcommittee approved, along party lines, the complete repeal of the Racial Justice Act, originally passed in 2009. The Senate has already passed the repeal, thus the bill's last hurdle is a vote by the full House, which could happen any day now.

• Justice NOT served

The Racial Justice Act says that it is unacceptable for racial prejudice to play any role in the implementation of the death penalty in North Carolina. It allows judges in death penalty cases to consider statistical evidence of historic racial bias. Although no one on the anti-capital-punishment side put it in so many words, the law amounted to the legal enshrinement of the view that since the death penalty is used disproportionately on African-American men, execution is inherently unjust. But as soon as the first prisoner had successfully used the act to challenge his death sentence - and, as the law calls for, was given life in prison without parole instead - Republicans got to work to dump the law. In late 2011, the GOP majority voted to repeal the act. Although she kept re-iterating her belief in the death penalty, former Gov. Beverly Perdue vetoed the repeal. The General Assembly supported her veto.

Afterward, the GOP changed the law, restricting the use of statistical evidence in Racial Justice Act cases, which in effect, gutted the statute. The upcoming total repeal will let the GOP lawmakers campaign next year on a platform of having "kept dangerous murderers in prison," even though the act doesn't allow the release, or even parole, of any prisoners.

So congrats to Thom Tillis, Pat McCrory, Ruth Samuelson and other Mecklenburg Republicans who have gone over to the dark side. They and the rest of their GOP colleagues have been determined for some time to use the act as part of the party's crusade to turn North Carolina back to the "good ol' days" when the state could execute black men all day long without having to listen to whiners wailing about a prissy notion like "justice." At the very least, you have to figure that Tillis & Co. are confident their repeal of the Racial Justice Act will garner them more votes from racist whites than lose them support among African Americans. Such a great time to be alive.