Soon after donating $100,000 to Obama's 2013 inaugural committee, the Southern Company announced it was “newly optimistic” about prospects for gaining an $8.3 billion loan guarantee from the federal government for building a new nuclear power plant. Is a quid pro quo involved here, asks Public Citizen. Answer: “We need more information to answer that [...]
WRAL-TV has created a searchable database of the major stockholdings listed by NC legislators and other state officials on their ethics disclosure forms. For example, eight legislators disclosed owning at least $10,000 worth of stock in Duke Energy or Progress Energy – although the amounts may be much higher, and smaller amounts held by others [...]
After a review of the changing landscape in the NC General Assembly, reporter Jordan Green of YES! Weekly provides an in-depth analysis of the NC Republican House Campaign Committee. According to its plan of organization, it is responsible for “recruiting candidates and raising funds for use in electing Republicans to the North Carolina House.” Donations [...]
A new report from Demos and U.S. PIRG gives us an insight into the post-Citizens United campaign financing system in the U.S. It’s a sad view. According to the report, 2012 marked the first ever billion-dollar presidential campaign. With Super PACs pouring an unprecedented amount of money into campaigns, this should hardly come as a [...]
Here’s a thorough analysis of how “mystery money” from secretive outside groups, mixed with extreme partisan redistricting, allows a handful of elitists to manipulate voters for political and economic riches. ProPublica examines how the process works at the national and state level, with North Carolina taking center stage. The story includes more revelations about the [...]
For the latest analysis of electioneering groups spending money to influence the outcome of North Carolina’s gubernatorial, Supreme Court and other elections, see this updated report from the Institute for Southern Studies released today. WRAL reports that the volume of Republican Party money spent on ads to elect Paul Newby to the Supreme Court puts [...]
An update from the Institute for Southern Studies asks, “What do Big Tobacco, insurance interests, and a D.C. group that's spent millions to help Republicans draw political lines all have in common? In North Carolina, they've all put big money into a pair of super PACs that want to re-elect Justice Paul Newby and maintain [...]
The group that spent $1.5 million in 2010 to help Republicans win control of the NC General Assembly is back again this year. New reports show Real Jobs NC has spent nearly $700,000 so far on a handful on state legislative races and the governor’s contest. More spending is expected, most of it for nasty [...]
Here are a couple in-depth stories that look at the money involved in a North Carolina state senate race (from the Independent Weekly) and the money involved in this year’s presidential contest (from NPR). A lot more money is expected to flood into the state senate race profiled here (Doug Berger vs. Chad Barefoot), much of it [...]
The Center for Public Integrity has a useful new report about the role of outside money in the North Carolina governor’s contest. It picks up on a theme raised by Democracy North Carolina in a formal complaint to the State Board of Elections in 2008 – namely, that national Republican and Democratic groups were pumping [...]