Where do the conservatives and right-wingers in the General Assembly get their worst ideas for legislation? Some of the nutty ideas come from their own heads and a fair number from right-wing outfits inside North Carolina, like Art Pope’s Civitas Institute and John Locke Foundation. But many of them come from the American Legislative Exchange [...]
5/17/2011 - Ruffin Poole earned the nickname “Little Governor” because he was former Gov. Mike Easley’s patronage gatekeeper and often seemed to act on his behalf. Federal investigators targeting Easley eventually flipped some campaign donors in the patronage orbit, but the donors had more damning evidence against Poole than Easley – and Poole would not, [...]
5/16/2011 - The NC Justice Center holds its annual “Defenders of Justice” awards dinner this Thursday in Durham. Democracy North Carolina is honored to receive the award this year for Policy Advocacy - for “fighting to protect voting rights, increase voter participation and reduce the influence of big money in politics.” It’s a wonderful tribute to [...]
5/13/2011 - The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle has gained a new distinction: Biggest gas guzzling metro area in the nation, according to Forbes. The Triad and Charlotte metro areas are also in the top 10. As Big Oil profits soar and gas prices approach $4 at the pump, more people and politicians are wondering how the [...]
5/11/2011 - After Citizens United, big donors have poured money into a growing number of nonprofit Section 501(c)(4) organizations to finance political attack ads while remaining anonymous (e.g., Karl Rove’s Crossroads conduit). Now comes this irony: The anti-tax, anti-government donors may eventually get hit with a tax bill, courtesy of the IRS applying its gift [...]
Here are two insightful columns related to the fallout from the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision in January 2010. One by Nick Nyhart and Tova Wang points out that the decision became a green light for a beefed-up assault on democratic values, particularly the right to self-organize, the right to vote, and the right to [...]
The Los Angeles Times and Center for Responsive Politics have produced a model expose of the mining industry’s use of campaign money and high-dollar lobbyists to kill mine safety legislation in Congress. The story documents the close correlation of campaign contributions and votes by Members of Congress, and the timing of when the donations were [...]
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature have stirred national passions with their bold attacks on long-held rights of workers to organize. Now they’re making the state, once a leader in voter participation, the new ground zero for the national movement to restrict voting. There’s a connection between attacks on labor rights, voting rights, [...]
In a moment of unthinking transparency, US Rep. Patrick McHenry told a Politico reporter that the Republican redistricting plan for North Carolina will use racial data to pack African Americans into three Congressional districts and thereby make several surrounding districts more heavily white and more Republican friendly. This strategy to isolate (or ghettoize) black voters [...]
Yesterday, after hours of debate on the House floor over the proposed state budget, Rep. Edgar Starnes (R-Caldwell County) suddenly introduced an amendment to kill North Carolina’s public campaign financing programs. The mood in the chamber dramatically shifted. With blistering intensity, several Democrats plummeted Republican leaders for using the devious tactics they campaigned against to [...]