Voter-owned elections
The best op-ed of the weekend
If you missed it, be sure to check out the featured Sunday op-ed in Raleigh’s News & Observer by Melissa Price Kromm of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections. In it, she explains why our state desperately needs the General Assembly to pass a recently introduced omnibus reform bill that has been aptly dubbed the […]
Hayes-Lindberg scandal demands a revival of publicly financed elections
More than 80 percent of Americans believe that elected officials do favors for big campaign donors, according to a recent national poll. Recently, a billionaire campaign donor attempted to secure just such a favor—right here in North Carolina. With the chairman of the state Republican Party Robin Hayes (pictured at left) recently indicted in a […]
Sigh…legislature will convene this week and then adjourn for two weeks to rake in PAC/lobbyist cash
In case you’ve been wondering about the General Assembly’s plans for the coming weeks, a recent email from one of House Speaker Tim Moore’s top lieutenants makes things distressingly clear. In a plea for cash sent out by Rep. David Lewis, the powerful Harnett County Republican and Rules Committee chair reveals that: a) lawmakers will […]
This year’s election got you down? Here is one solution
Melissa Price Kromm, the Executive Director of N.C. Voters for Clean Elections, has a shared a timely pep talk with us this morning that is directly on point and worth filing in your memory bank on this, the morning before Election Day 2016. Attack ads got you down? Support Voter-Owned Elections! By Melissa Price Kromm […]
The Patrick Cannon mess: Helping to make the case once again for campaign finance reform
By all (or at least, most) indications. Charlotte’s disgraced former mayor Patrick Cannon is a rather pathetic, small-time crook. Though it’s hard to know exactly how someone with such a massive character flaw will behave in every circumstance, it seems a safe bet that he would be “on the make” in just about any circumstance […]
New report: Repealed public finance system for judicial races was working well
A new report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics finds that North Carolina’s recently repealed system of providing public financing for judicial campaigns had been doing what it was designed to do — namely, to reduce the influence of special interest money and the need for candidates to be rich (or beg […]
The man behind the demise of publicly-financed judicial campaigns
In case you missed it, Billy Corriher, a native North Carolinian and current Associate Director of Research at Legal Progress— a branch of the Washington, DC-based Center for American Progress — has an excellent “For the record” essay in the Charlotte Observer. “How Art Pope killed a popular judicial financing program This is the story of […]
Art Pope: right-wing funder, state budget director and…lobbyist?
Chris Kromm has a must-read post today over at Facing South, the blog of the Institute for Southern Studies entitled “How Art Pope killed clean elections for judges in North Carolina.” “On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 11, as the North Carolina House jousted over details of the state budget, Rep. Jonathan Jordan, a Republican […]
Expert pans NC plan to ditch judicial public financing
In case you missed it in today’s edition of Raleigh’s News & Observer, lawyer Alicia Bannon of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University authored a powerful plea for state lawmakers to keep our state’s excellent public fundingsystem for judicial candidates: “Voters and judges in North Carolina agree that justice should not be […]
New video details growing movement to repeal Citizens United
The good folks at North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections have a great new video out on the corrosive influence of big money in North Carolina politics and the growing movement to fight back. It’s worth your time to watch it and spread the word.
A new and distressing development in pay-to-play politics
Leaders in both major political parties in North Carolina have been guilty through the years of engaging in “pay-to-play” politics. Former Democratic House Speaker Jim Black was, of course, the poster child for this kind of corruption and wound up in prison as a result. Now, this week, comes word of another disturbing pay-to-play incident in the state […]
Excellent write-up of today’s Crucial Conversation
Reporter Mark Binker has a very thorough write-up of this morning’s N.C. Policy Watch/Common Cause Crucial Conversation breakfast on the subject of fighting big money in politics with Professor Lawrence Lessig. For those who couldn’t make the event, please check it out. We hope to have a video of the entire speech (which was really a very entertaining, fast-paced, multi-media program) […]