Here’s a newspaper report of a woman in Tennessee who has voted more than 60 years but who lacks a government photo ID and couldn’t get a “free” one from the state after many hours of ridiculous hassle. It’s a very thorough story, and it will be repeated in NC many times if the Republicans [...]
The NC Center for Voter Education has produced a handy, on-line voter guide for local elections in more than three dozen cities. If you live in Chapel Hill or Mint Hill, Waynesville or Morrisville, Raleigh, Concord, Durham or Greenville, etc., you can see what the candidates for city council and other offices are saying about [...]
Following up Friday’s LOD, here’s the link to the in-depth profile of Art Pope, his mind, money and rise to power. The New Yorker is known for its long and comprehensive pieces, and this one lives up to the reputation. It’s titled “State for Sale.” See also links to the analysis by the Institute for [...]
The Oct. 10 edition of The New Yorker magazine features an in-depth look at North Carolina’s most politically powerful unelected individual – J. Arthur “Art” Pope, chain-store retailer and Republican patron. One measure of Pope’s power comes from an accounting of his political spending in a set of two charts prepared by Democracy North Carolina [...]
Two national campaign reform groups are asking the IRS to take away the tax-exempt status of 501(c)(4) organizations that are electioneering shells, not genuine “social welfare” organizations as required by law. The letter challenges four Republican- and Democratic-leaning non-profits. Democracy NC has promoted this approach to cope with the expanded use of non-profits after the [...]
The US Census Bureau is out with its biennial post-election survey of who voted - and who didn't. You can see breakdowns of voting in the 2010 election by race, gender, education level, occupation, and so forth, often by state. For example, nationally, people in families that earned $100,000 or more were twice as likely to [...]
For North Carolinians concerned about the maze of bills in the General Assembly designed to make voting harder, here’s a link to a Democracy NC factsheet that provides an update of each bill’s status. The NC General Assembly is set to reconvene in November, when it could take up any of these bills – or [...]
A series of charts and analysis by the NC FreeEnterprise Foundation provides an excellent profile of the largest PACs giving to NC General Assembly contests in 2010. PACs supplied nearly $10 million of the $33.3 million raised by legislative candidates in 2010, and they balanced their donations fairly evenly between Democrats and Republicans, in contrast [...]
Two more developments in the evolving world after the Citizens United decision: One is a legislative response by the Congressional brain trust of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD). They have introduced a bill that calls for an amendment to the US Constitution to give Congress and the states authority to regulate [...]
Public Campaign has a good bi-partisan campaign that challenges members of the debt reduction Super Committee to stop raising money while they are choosing whose ox will be gored by possible spending cuts or tax increases. The nonprofit has calculated that each of the 12 Members has so much money already stockpiled that they can [...]