Gov. Pat McCrory is expected to sign the monster anti-voting bill any day now. H-589 began in the state House as a photo ID bill but in the final days of the session, the state Senate rolled out a harsher version of the ID requirement, plus 40+ new provisions, including dozens that had never been discussed [...]
Late Thursday night, the NC General Assembly passed an elections bill that it is breathtaking in scope and radical in purpose. It makes the most regressive and sweeping changes to the core parts of our state’s election process in decades. In 56 pages, this redefines and restricts who can vote, where, when and how and [...]
The Senate took a preliminary vote late Wednesday to pass the monster bill that aims to limit voting and expand ways for big money to influence North Carolina elections. This WRAL story gives a rundown of the provisions in the bill (H-589) and the action on the Senate floor. The Senate will take up the [...]
From Bob Hall, Executive Director Democracy North Carolina Direct line: 919-489-1931 Regarding H-589 rewrite at: http://bit.ly/nc-anti-voting-bill The Senate leadership’s rewrite of H-589 is being taken up at 2 PM today in LOB Room 544. It is breathtaking in scope and radical in purpose. It makes the most sweeping changes to the core parts of our [...]
A host of data collected by Democracy North Carolina shows how legislation to change election rules would significantly affect the voters in each county. For example, the bill to require that voters show a government photo ID could impact nearly 5% of North Carolina voters, according to the Board’s analysis conducted this spring. Statewide, 318,000 registered voters [...]
In a remarkable sweetheart deal anchored with $1 million in campaign contributions, Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration yesterday agreed to settle a lawsuit against Duke Energy’s pollution of drinking water supplies in western North Carolina. Millions of tons of ash residue from Duke’s power plants have leaked contaminants into Mountain Island Lake near Charlotte and the [...]
On the same day that the New York Times posted its widely circulating, must-read editorial about the demise of North Carolina as “a beacon of farsightedness in the South,” a more thoughtful column by veteran political reporter Tom Edsall received too little attention. His essay is titled, “The Decline of Black Power in the South,” [...]
The day after the Supreme Court’s disappointing decision on the Voting Rights Act, Portside.org posted an article documenting the less talked-about economic benefits of the VRA. In addition to an increase in African-American elected leaders, passage of the VRA correlates to improvements in the quality of life for millions of African Americans and other Southerners. [...]
Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show has two recent segments on “conservatives gone wild” in North Carolina. One features the “radical restructuring” of its election laws and another focuses on the state Senate’s “sneak attack” on women’s constitutionally protected access to an abortion. A longer segment places the North Carolina attack in the context of similar sinister [...]
The parasite sucking life from the body politic is smaller than the 1%, according to a new study of the political money suppliers. The Sunlight Foundation found that just 1% of the top 1% gave 28% of all the disclosed political contributions influencing the 2012 federal elections - $1.7 billion of the nearly $6 billion [...]