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 [...]
5/13/2011 - 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 [...]
We are writing to alert you to a new attack against basic voting rights in North Carolina. A new bill in the NC Senate would eliminate Same-Day Registration and youth pre-registration, slice a week off Early Voting, end Sunday voting, and require other changes that will make it much harder for millions of NC citizens to vote. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Charlotte and Raleigh McClatchy newspapers have a story today about the new voter suppression bill in the General Assembly, featured in our April 21 Link of the Day: S-657. You can read the lame reasoning of the Art Pope-funded legislators who are the bill’s chief sponsors. Saving tax money can’t be a justification for [...]
A trio of state Senators introduced a bill this week that hits each of the goals of the Art Pope-Civitas-Americans for Prosperity agenda for voting: Senate Bill 657 would kill pre-registration for teenagers, repeal Same Day Registration, cut down the days and hours for in-person Early Voting, cripple out-of-precinct provisional voting, but allow organized campaigns [...]
Day of Action: This Wednesday. After sending some mixed signals last week, Republican leaders waved off a possible compromise with Democrats on the photo ID bill. They’ve decided to line up with the Art Pope-financed advocacy groups and freshmen legislators who apparently hope requiring a government-issued ID will create enough confusion at the polls to [...]
Help Us Fight Voter Photo ID! (HB 351) Wednesday, April 13th at 11:00 AM NC General Assembly Building 16 W. Jones St. Raleigh, NC As you probably know -- along with protecting voter-owned elections and fighting against big money politics -- Democracy North Carolina is opposing a hard-line bill in the General Assembly that requires [...]