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SB 125: Putting Teeth into Public Records and Open Meeting Laws

SB 125: Putting Teeth into Public Records and Open Meeting Laws

Let’s give three cheers for two North Carolina Senators. Last week state Sens. Thom Goolsby (R-New Hanover) and Tom Apodaca (R-Buncombe) sponsored legislation (SB 125) to make it a class 3 misdemeanor to violate public records and open meetings laws, which would at long last give those laws some teeth. North Carolina’s Public Records law [...]

Missing Connection: WRAL and Blueprint NC, $1.7 million in support

Missing Connection: WRAL and Blueprint NC, $1.7 million in support

When reporting on Blueprint NC’s leaked documents, WRAL was all over the story, with one exception: It somehow failed to mention in any of its stories that the owners of the station are deeply entangled with the left-wing group and some of its allies. A strategy memo  from liberal policy group Blueprint North Carolina details [...]

  • Famed Economist: NC Can Get Ahead of the Curve

    Posted in Budget & Taxes, Legislative Activity by Jim Tynen on January 31, 2013

    Famed economist Arthur Laffer provided real-world economic solutions at the Civitas Institute’s legislative training session recently in Raleigh. First, though he is best known for “the Laffer Curve” showing how tax cuts can bring in more revenue, and for advising President Reagan, he’s not about party or ideology, he said. “It’s economics.”  And it’s the [...]

  • Make Your Representative Work for You

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Rhett Forman on December 11, 2012

    What would the ideal job look like for you? Would it be one in which you had free rein to do whatever your heart desired and were paid regardless of your productivity? Or would you prefer a position in which you created value for yourself and others but were also held to a high standard? [...]

  • Will Republicans Become a Lasting Majority in North Carolina?

    Posted in Elections & Voting, Legislative Activity by Francis De Luca on November 8, 2012

    As the rest of the South moved solidly Republican in recent decades, North Carolina held out, remaining reliably Democratic at the state and local level except for brief fits and starts. Election 2012 may have changed that — but Republican leaders will have to work hard to make the change a lasting one, rather than [...]

  • 2012 Short Session: Short, But How Sweet?

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Karen Duquette on July 23, 2012

    The 2012 short session has come to a close, marking a dramatic shift from legislative bienniums of the past, both in length and accomplishments.  When legislators returned in 2011, it was the first time in over 100 years that Republicans controlled both chambers. New leadership inherited a massive $2.5 billion budget deficit, faced plummeting school [...]

  • Tea Parties Move to Next Step: Solutions

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Jim Tynen on April 23, 2012

    Tea Party gatherings April 14 in North Carolina showed that the movement is undergoing the necessary if sometimes difficult process of growing to meet further challenges. The “tax day” rally in Greensboro drew about five hundred people; a similar event in Raleigh attracted a sparser crowd. But it would be a mistake to draw too [...]

  • Civitas Action Scores Show Much More Conservative Legislature

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Francis De Luca on November 21, 2011

    The 2011 Civitas Action Conservative Effectiveness Scores and Rankings are in and they reveal a legislature much more conservative than in past years. Civitas Action compiles a list of votes that can clearly be defined as conservative or liberal and scores legislators accordingly. Legislators with the highest scores are considered to be the most conservative [...]

  • What Do Statements of Economic Interest Reveal About Your Legislator?

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Clark Riemer on November 9, 2011

    The 2011 Statements of Economic Interest (SEIs) for North Carolina legislators are now available on the Civitas Institute’s website, Carolina Transparency. According to the North Carolina Commission on Ethics, “The State Government Ethics Act requires the disclosure of financial and personal interests” by state legislators and other covered persons. All SEIs are public records and [...]

  • Basnight’s Reign Underscores Need for Term Limits

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Andrew Henson on September 12, 2011

    After the 2010 election, North Carolina witnessed the end of the longest political regime in the state’s history: the 17 year reign of Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight (D – Dare). The event serves as a sobering reminder of how skilled politicians can wield enduring power, and underscores the need for limits on the [...]

  • Constitutional Amendments in the September Session

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Karen Duquette on September 6, 2011

    The legislature has already had a successful session, overriding several of Gov. Perdue’s vetoes and approving redistricting maps for both U.S. Congress and the state legislature.  On September 12, the legislature will meet again in a special session lasting an estimated three days to discuss potential constitutional amendments.  These amendments require a three-fifths majority in [...]

  • Guilford County Redistricting Draws Unfair Criticism

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Charles Davenport on August 17, 2011

    This article originally appeared in the Greensboro News & Record “Counterpoint,” on 8/10/11 Recently the state legislature crafted a redistricting plan for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. Unfortunately, most of the awareness has been created by the plan’s opponents, whose shrieking, hyperbolic letters are much ado about nothing. The fact that the new lines [...]

  • New Maps Rankle Old Majority

    Posted in Elections & Voting, Issues, Legislative Activity by Andrew Henson on July 19, 2011

    So the maps are out, and not surprisingly, so are the hecklers. The General Assembly recently released the legislative redistricting maps that will be in place for the next decade.  These maps have been met with  an understandable fury of protest by Democrats who will soon face Republican-drawn districts for the first time in modern [...]

  • Tourists Tamed by Precarious Pumps

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Andrew Blackburn on July 19, 2011

    Last spring, several of my friends and I drove to Florida for vacation. I had no idea the drive would turn out to be a highly calculated pilgrimage from gas station to gas station, plotting every stop with the precision of a paranoid mapmaker. Oh how naïve I was. Imagine my shock when it was [...]

  • Government Size on the Rise? Lobbying a Telltale Sign

    Posted in Legislative Activity by Will Garvey on July 14, 2011

    Here in North Carolina, lobbying is becoming a microcosm of our state’s government.  The number of lobbyists located in the state has steadily grown over the past fifteen years.  The question is why? North Carolina defines lobbying as “influencing or attempting to influence legislative or executive action through direct communication or activities with a designated [...]

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