LOD: Pope Protests

Art Pope is unhappy that a national campaign reform leader says he uses the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and Super PACs to pump money from his stores into North Carolina politics. Pope is partly right: he doesn’t depend on the CU ruling or a PAC for targeting candidates with nasty ads; instead, he uses earlier court rulings that allow him to run those ads through 527 committees and other nonprofit groups financed with profits from his Roses and Maxway stores. As the Institute for Southern Studies explains, it’s a distinction without a difference. The ISS report includes a video link to NC NAACP president Rev. William Barber talking about Pope on the steps of the Supreme Court as justices inside argued about giving millionaires more control over election “speech” through their large donations.