An editorial writer for the Raleigh News & Observer handed Art Pope a bevy of compliments for his “humanitarian” philanthropy, extolling the list of “charities and universities the Pope Foundation blessed with $1.2 million in grants last year.” Alliance Medical Ministries – $10,000; Barium Springs Home for Children – $10,000; Blessed Sacrament School – $10,000; etc. The writer, Burgetta Wheeler, managed this sweet story by cherry picking from the list of foundation recipients and committing the “one dimensional” journalism she ascribes to Pope’s detractors. Here’s a link to the complete list (pp. 20-23). A balanced story would have noted that the Pope Foundation gave a whopping $1.35 million to the strident rightwing group Americans for Prosperity in the same fiscal year, more than the combined total of Wheeler’s featured grantees. Or how does Pope’s giving to the goody-good list compare to one gift for college sports – $1,000,000 to UNC’s Rams Club, cleverly named The Educational Foundation Inc. Other unmentionables for the year: John Locke Foundation – $2.6 million; Civitas Institute – $1.2 million; NC Institute for Constitutional Law – $710,000; Pope Center for Higher Education – $542,800; NC Family Policy Council – $100,000; Job Creators Alliance – $100,000; NC Free Enterprise Foundation – $95,000; Heritage Foundation – $50,000. To shore up the foundation’s cash flow, Art and sister Amanda each donated $3.5 million, presumably from their share of earnings from Variety Wholesalers (Roses, Maxway, Super Dollar). An LOD account of previous foundation donations is here.
Media Feed & Press Releases Category
Are you a reporter, radio announcer or news anchor? Do you maintain a website that covers our core issues? If so, you may be interested in the following media alerts and press releases. If you want a comment from staff, please contact our Executive Director Bob Hall directly at (919) 489-1931. Or, you can click here to automatically subscribe to our Media Feed via email or many other delivery options.
You are welcome to submit comments to this moderated blog. Please treat others with respect, avoid partisan rhetoric, and help us provide a fact-based discussion of issues related to North Carolina’s political landscape. Thank you.
LOD: Justice at Stake
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
A trio of groups that analyze judicial elections today released a report documenting a national campaign “to intimidate America’s state judges into becoming accountable to money and ideologies instead of the Constitution and the law.” The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2010 examines the “hostile takeover” of judicial elections by special interests and the attacks on impartial courts by state legislatures. The report was written by the Justice at Stake Campaign, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
North Carolina is held up as a national model because it provides state judicial candidates with a viable public financing alternative to the private money chase. The pioneering program has earned acclaim from reformers, the American Bar Association, and NC judges across the political spectrum. A blog entry today by Mark Binker at the Greensboro News & Record notes that Republican leaders in the NC General Assembly plan to keep the program, but delete a rescue-funds provision that mirrors one struck down by the US Supreme Court. The public grants and a state voter guide are not funded from the NC General Fund. A similar program for some Council of State offices will be suspended because it only has money from the General Fund; efforts last year to provide an independent source of funding for that Voter-Owned Elections program were stymied.
LOD: NC Called “State for Sale”
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Following up Friday’s LOD, here’s the link to the in-depth profile of Art Pope, his mind, money and rise to power. The New Yorker is known for its long and comprehensive pieces, and this one lives up to the reputation. It’s titled “State for Sale.” See also links to the analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies of Pope’s crucial role in the Republican’s 2010 takeover of the NC General Assembly, and charts by Democracy North Carolina on his $40 million in political contributions and majority stake in a network of ultra-conservative think tanks and advocacy groups.
LOD: The 40 Million Dollar Man
Friday, September 30th, 2011
The Oct. 10 edition of The New Yorker magazine features an in-depth look at North Carolina’s most politically powerful unelected individual – J. Arthur “Art” Pope, chain-store retailer and Republican patron. One measure of Pope’s power comes from an accounting of his political spending in a set of two charts prepared by Democracy North Carolina for The New Yorker. The charts detail over $40 million that Pope has steered into his favorite causes from his family, his family’s foundation (John W. Pope Foundation), and his family’s business (Variety Wholesaler, owner of the Rose’s, Maxway, and Super Dollar retail merchandise chains that cater to lower-income consumers).
● In the past 10 years, Pope has pumped $3 million into state and national politics and $35 million in a network of North Carolina nonprofit think tanks and advocacy groups that push a libertarian and ultra-conservative agenda.
● In addition to these funds, he has invested millions in national conservative organizations that he helps lead as a board member, trustee or advisor (see second part of chart of foundation grants). At the top of this list is a $2.2 million investment over the past decade in Americans for Prosperity, where Pope is one of the four board members along with its founder, David Koch. AFP is credited with financing and nurturing the national Tea Party movement; one of AFP’s strongest chapters is in North Carolina.
● Pope’s biggest investment by far has been in the John Locke Foundation, which he co-founded and helps direct from his board position; his family foundation accounts for $19.7 million or 79% of JLF’s $25.0 million income for FY 2001-2010.
● Pope is also a board member and the source of over 90% of the funds for the Pope Civitas Institute, named for his father ($8.0 million over the past decade); the NC Institute for Constitutional Law ($3.3 million); and Pope Center for Higher Education ($3.0 million).
● Pope family members frequently bundle their campaign contributions together, beginning the practice when Art’s father (John W. Pope, now deceased) was a prominent Republican donor. In the landmark 2010 election, Art provided NC General Assembly candidates with bundled contributions (totaling up to $16,000 per candidate) from himself, his wife, his mother, and his sister; 21 GOP legislative candidates received a total of $252,000 from these bundles in 2010.
Another measure of Pope’s power comes from an analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies of his influence in the pivotal 2010 election. Along with his family’s donations to candidates, Pope helped lead and finance three organizations that spent money on mailers and attack ads in selected races; the combined investment totaled $2.2 million in 22 pivotal legislative contests. Republicans won 18 and took control of the General Assembly. Pope’s Variety Stores gave $470,000 to the three groups (Real Jobs NC, Civitas Action, and Americans for Prosperity), and Pope is an officer of each or its nonprofit, c-3 affiliate. The Institute is continuing its investigation of “Pope’s empire” on its special website, ArtPopeExposed.com.
Former State Senator Marc Basnight, backed by the money of oil baron Walter Davis, reigned for many years as the state’s top political heavyweight – but Davis is dead, Basnight has retired from politics, and the NC General Assembly is now controlled by Republicans. Some thought North Carolina would never see another person with Basnight’s clout, but Art Pope could have a bright future as kingmaker and behind-the-curtain Wizard of GOP.
You’re invited to sign a Democracy NC petition against the kind of corporate interference in public elections epitomized by Pope’s use of his corporation’s money.
LOD: Census Report on Voting
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
The US Census Bureau is out with its biennial post-election survey of who voted – and who didn’t. You can see breakdowns of voting in the 2010 election by race, gender, education level, occupation, and so forth, often by state. For example, nationally, people in families that earned $100,000 or more were twice as likely to vote in 2010 as those in families earning less than $20,000. Social science researchers take this series of reports very seriously, but they come with an important caveat. People like to say they vote even when they don’t, so beware: In North Carolina, for example, three million people said they voted in 2010, but the State Board of Elections figures show only 2.7 million ballots were actually casts – that’s a 10% overstatement by your friends and neighbors. On the other hand, many people don’t realize they are still registered to vote even though they haven’t done so in years; the Census poll shows 4.4 million North Carolinians said they are registered but there are about one million more in active registration status. Despite these problems, the dramatic differences in rates based on education, age and income are telling. Any way you cut the numbers, we have a long way to go to compete with the level of voter participation in states like Maine, Minnesota, Oregon and Iowa.
LOD: The Big Lie About Voter ID
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
People with only a hammer see everything as a nail. Three voters caught trying to vote twice in the 2008 presidential election are now being prosecuted by the Wake County district attorney; they were jailed with a felony charge and $10,000 bond. The NC Republican Party and other advocates for a photo ID requirement are delighted with this news, seeing it through their hammer-claw lens as stark evidence that Gov. Perdue was horribly wrong to veto House Bill 351, the photo ID bill. NC Republican chief Robin Hayes is especially happy to jab Perdue with a big lie that will no doubt be repeated over and over – perhaps with the media’s help. The lie buries this core truth: Requiring voters to show an ID would have done ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING to prevent the crime of attempting to vote twice. The alleged cheaters could show an ID when they voted at the Early Voting site, and show it again a few days later when they voted at their polling site on Election Day. They voted in their own names and did not attempt to impersonate somebody else; impersonation is the only fraud H-351 really addresses. Another truth: The current safeguards worked – none of the three successfully voted twice. Their ballots at the Early Voting sites were retrieved and not counted; the system worked, without an ID requirement! This case involves three black Democrats in the NC election Obama narrowly won; the outpouring of hostility is unfortunately predictable. More prosecutions of double voting are in the works. Voter fraud should be prosecuted – the integrity of the election system must be protected. That’s why House Bill 862 is actually a stronger, better bill than H-351. It requires voters to show an ID or attest under penalty of perjury that they are who they say they are AND it provides funds for the State Board of Elections to hire an investigator “to investigate, document, and prepare for prosecution possible evidence of voter fraud, including cases involving voter impersonation.” H-351 is not a serious hammer against fraud; it’s a political sham and those who point to this case as evidence of its value are misled or misleaders.
LOD: Closing Arguments Fall Short
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
Advocates for requiring voters to show a government photo ID are hitting a few more points in their closing arguments before a veto override vote expected this week. The arguments all fall short. First, they say, “Democrats in Rhode Island just adopted a photo ID law, why not do it here.” But the RI law is much different than the vetoed NC bill, H-351. Rhode Island’s photo requirement is phased in, becoming effective Jan. 1, 2014, and a photo ID from a private college is acceptable, not just from a public university as in H-351. Most important, a voter without an ID can fill out a provisional ballot and it will count if election officials later match the signature with the voter’s signature in the registration file. Unlike H-351, the voter need not return to the election office – a person’s signature at the polling place is enough.
Next ID advocates say, “The majority of states require voters to show an ID, and NC should, too.” Yes, 30 of the 50 states require some kind of ID, but even after the big push by GOP legislatures, only 7 states have a law as restrictive as H-351. Legislators in the other 43 states are just as concerned about fraud, but they recognize Big Government intimidation is not needed. Another argument goes, “The vast majority of North Carolinian favor requiring an ID.” Yes, it’s popular and makes common sense until you consider all the facts. In the same poll (page 14), 10% of respondents said it would “decrease their ability to vote.” If just 2% were pushed aside, that’s well over 100,000 people penalized at a huge expense for no real increase in voter security.
Finally, we’re told, “Voter turnout in Georgia was not hurt by its strict photo ID requirement.” It’s tough to isolate what factors influence changes in voter turnout, but look at this evidence: In the five presidential elections (1988-2004) before 2008, the voter turnout rate in North Carolina exceeded the rate in Georgia by 3 to 5 percentage points. But in 2008, after Georgia adopted its ID law, our turnout rate was 6.6% higher – 61.3% of voting-age adults cast ballots compared to 54.7% in Georgia. Georgia is now 30% African American, compared to 22% in North Carolina, so you’d think Georgia would have experienced a bigger surge than NC with the Obama factor in 2008. But that didn’t happen. There was an increase over 2004, but it was tamped down by something. No doubt, some people would like a big turnout tamped down in NC in 2012. A 1.5% decrease in turnout among the 7.2 million adults in NC means 100,000 voters who would not have their voices heard.
Voting Rights Protest Planned for July 13 at General Assembly
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Democracy North Carolina to Mount Rally at the General Assembly at
11:00 AM on Wednesday, July 13th to Protest GOP Attacks on Voting Rights
Americans for Prosperity Plan Counter Protest Nearby
The Durham-based good government group Democracy North Carolina is sponsoring a rally tomorrow, Wednesday July 13th, to protest GOP attempts to override Gov. Perdue’s veto of the voter photo ID bill plus several still-pending bills that would eliminate Same Day Registration, slice a week off Early Voting and cut NC’s successful youth voter pre-registration program. Partisan redistricting efforts will also be addressed at the rally. The rally begins at 11:00 AM in front of the General Assembly. A short speaker program will be followed by a 10-minute silent protest in the Senate Gallery.
The conservative group, Americans For Prosperity, have announced their own General Assembly rally at the same time to urge GOP leaders to override Governor Perdue’s recent vetos of GOP-sponsored legislation.
Protect & Respect Our Vote Rally
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 ● 11:00 AM
NC General Assembly Building
16 W. Jones St. ● Raleigh, NC
For more information on the rally, please contact Democracy North Carolina Organizing Director Adam Sotak at (704) 277-8340.
LOD: Photo ID Bill Stamped VETO
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
Governor Bev Perdue stepped up to defend the voters of North Carolina today by vetoing H-351; that’s the Republican bill to require voters to show a government-issued photo ID each time they vote. For decades, North Carolina has been in the bottom third of the 50 states for voter turnout, often among the worse 10 states in presidential election years. But with Early Voting, Same Day Registration and other changes, we’ve slowly increased our turnout rate in the past three presidential cycles, surpassing 50% of voting-age adults in 2004 and 60% in 2008. We obviously have plenty of room for improvement. Adding a new barrier that especially impacts historically disenfranchised groups is exactly the wrong policy for North Carolina. Thank you, Gov. Perdue.
LOD: NC Ranks 4th on Voting Index
Friday, June 10th, 2011
According to a new analysis by Rock the Vote, only three states (Washington, Iowa and Montana) have better policies to help young people participate in elections than North Carolina. We tie with Oregon in fourth place and 45 states rank below us, with neighbors South Carolina and Virginia tied for dead last! This Voting System Scorecard measures state laws and policies in three areas: voter registration, voting procedures and young voter preparation. The other states in the top four have longer histories of promoting civic participation and their voter turnout rates are typically among the best in the nation. Several features that helped North Carolina climb to fourth place are relatively new (e.g., Same Day Registration, pre-registration for teenagers), We have yet to fulfill our potential for sustaining a turnout rate among registered voters close to the 70% level we achieved in 2008. Rather than help, the new crowd at the General Assembly (especially those backed by funding from Art Pope) are promoting bills that will make voting more difficult and lower our score on the Voting System Scorecard from 12.8 to 6.8 points (see page 17 of the report highlights).
Merger Would Cripple Campaign Finance Disclosure
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
IMPORTANT UPDATE: We are pleased to confirm that the newest version of the Senate budget DOES NOT include a provision to combine the State Board of Elections, State Ethics Commission and the lobbying regulation division of the Secretary of State’s office as described below. We are hopeful that this bad idea will be permanently shelved in favor of preserving disclosure and transparency.
For Release Monday, May 30, 2011
Contact: Bob Hall, 919-489-1931
Shotgun Merger of Agencies Shields Officials from Scrutiny, Hundreds of Campaign Reports Are Already Not Audited
A nonpartisan watchdog group is sharply criticizing a proposal in the state Senate’s budget bill to merge and cut the funding for three agencies that now oversee the ethical conduct and campaign activities of state legislators, thousands of other public officials, and hundreds of lobbyists.
The proposal would combine the State Board of Elections, State Ethics Commission and the lobbying regulation division of the Secretary of State’s office into a new agency by January 1, 2012, and put it under the control of General Assembly leaders. The newly created State Board of Elections and Ethics would have a smaller staff, less money and a nine-member board with six members appointed by legislative leaders and three by the governor.
“These are the agencies that guard the public’s trust in government. They hold officials accountable for the honest performance of their duties, and they’re already straining to do their jobs right with limited resources,” said Bob Hall, executive director of the Democracy North Carolina. “The way this merger is being pushed so rapidly, crammed inside a budget bill without a thorough study, is completely irresponsible and highly suspicious. You have to wonder if the Republicans are trying to cripple these agencies and throw them into a state of confusion during the upcoming election.”
The new agency would have 20 fewer positions (15 currently filled) and $1.4 million less a year* to register voters, administer elections, oversee the conduct of public officials and political appointees, regulate lobbying and campaign financing, and enforce more than a thousand pages of state law.
Hall said his concern over the merger was heightened after discovering one area where funding cuts are already blocking public accountability and transparency. A review by Democracy North Carolina of files at the State Board of Elections found that hundreds of campaign finance reports for candidates to the General Assembly in 2010 have not yet been audited, in violation of state law.
“The public has a right to know how money is moving through our election system, who’s cheating and who wants to buy influence,” said Hall. “More cutbacks and this shotgun merger will just shield politicians from scrutiny and reduce transparency, just the opposite of what Republicans promised.”
NC General Statute 163-278.24 says campaign reports must be examined “within four months after the date of each election” to “determine whether the statement conforms to law and to the truth.” Candidates file up to six reports during an election cycle to disclose details about their contributions and campaign spending. But due to budget cutbacks, the State Board of Elections has been forced to lay off clerical and other staff, leading to a large backlog of reports to analyze.
Democracy North Carolina discovered that 651 (44%) of the 1,492 reports filed by the winning and losing legislative candidates in the 2010 general election have not even been entered into a database for preliminary analysis by the Board of Elections staff, much less been audited for errors, missing information, and possible criminal violations.
Paper copies can be viewed through the Board’s website, but some are illegible and it’s impossible to perform the required audit until the information is keyed into the Board’s database. Getting the information from the disclosure reports into the Board’s database is the first step of the auditing process and also makes campaign contributions accessible in a searchable format on the Board’s website.
Hall noted that the Board’s database still does not contain any of the campaign reports for 2009 or 2010 for 49 of the 170 General Assembly winners, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown and House Majority Leader Paul Stam. Paper copies of the reports were submitted but they remain unprocessed.
Altogether, 405 of the 960 reports filed by the 170 legislative winners in 2010, or 42% of the reports, have not been entered into the database for processing and have not been audited.
In addition, hundreds of reports for political action committees (PACs) and local and state political parties have also not been entered into the Board’s electronic files for processing.
(You can view a committee’s report at http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/webapps/cf_rpt_search/ and see if the report is only an Image of the paper report or if the Data has been entered into the Board’s data file.)
“There’s a perception that record amounts of money flooded the General Assembly elections in 2010, but we still don’t have a handle on where it all came from, who deserves kudos for reporting accurately, and who’s violating the law by withholding information,” said Hall.
“The 2012 election will be unbelievably expensive, with hot national and state contests and more spending by secretive groups, corporations and unions following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case,” he said. “Some politicians, but not all, are just as happy to keep us in the dark.”
Hall noted that many freshmen Republicans were elected on a promise to increase transparency in government, but they submitted their disclosures report in paper form only, rather than expedite the audit process by filing them electronically.
“Instead of crippling agencies charged with protecting honest government, more candidates should be required to file reports electronically to expedite the auditing process,” he said.
*The Senate’s proposed state budget would make the following cuts:
AGENCY FUNDS CUT STAFF POSITIONS CUT
State Board of Elections $1,002,408 14 positions (10 currently filled)
State Ethics Commission $ 219,519 2 positions (1 currently filled)
Sec. of State Lobbying Division $ 200,791 4 positions (4 currently filled)
Totals $1,422,718 20 positions (15 currently filled)
Consumer Finance Bill Linked to Campaign Donations
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
For Release Thursday, May 26, 2011
Contact: Bob Hall, 919-489-1931
Legislation to Increase Charges on Small Loans Follows Surge in Contributions from Consumer Finance Industry
A campaign finance watchdog organization is raising questions about whether an unusual pattern of contributions given by donors in the consumer loan business is connected to a bill now moving through the North Carolina General Assembly that will benefit their industry.
During the last election, donors with consumer finance companies gave most of their campaign contributions to Democratic legislators until late August 2010, when they suddenly switched and began pouring more than $100,000 into the campaigns of 15 Republican newcomers challenging Democrats in hot races, as well as the top three Republican leaders in the General Assembly.
“The industry made a substantial gamble in 2010 by shifting its money from incumbent Democrats to Republican challengers and now it appears to be reaping the benefits of that investment with a bill to enrich the industry,” said Bob Hall, director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan watchdog organization that has filed campaign finance complaints against both parties in the past.
Click here for the industry’s top donors and recipients. Click here to see all its 2010 donations.
Harry Melton, president of Amity Finance in Gastonia, told Hall that his industry’s trade group, the Resident Lenders of NC, gets recommendations from its lobbyists in Raleigh about who to support with donations. “We have lobbyists that make recommendations to us,” said Melton. “On an individual basis, they let us know who would be favorable to our industry.”
Melton has served on the Resident Lenders PAC committee, but like many industry leaders, he gave more personal donations to legislative candidates in the two months after August 15, 2010, than in the past decade – including to candidates far from his home – with the goal of electing “friendly” state legislators. He is now following progress on a bill in the state House to help his industry.
The bill, H-810, would allow consumer finance companies to raise interest rates to 36% on small loans and increase other fees. The companies say they need to earn more from their loans, but the head of the state North Carolina Banking Commission says the industry is profitable and the legislation is not needed. Representatives of military bases in North Carolina and a coalition of consumer groups also oppose the legislation.
Hall said Republican leaders have kept the bill moving forward despite the formidable opposition. In April, House Republican leaders changed plans and decided to skip routing the bill through the Finance Committee, where its fate seemed in question because of bipartisan opposition.
“It’s hard to explain what’s driving this legislation without following the money,” said Hall.
The new Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis and Majority Leader Paul Stam received $27,200 from consumer finance company donors, including $2,000 after the election was over from Security Finance Corporation PAC, the political action committee of a South Carolina loan business.
In the spring of 2010, Security Finance PAC gave 100% of its money to incumbents, with 75%
going to Democrats, but in late August it changed strategies and began giving all its money to Republicans, with 75% going to 14 challengers of incumbent Democrats.
“That’s very unusual,” said Hall. “More than 90 percent of PAC money goes to incumbents in North Carolina, because those officials are in a position to deliver benefits immediately and when they run for reelection, they have better than a four-to-one chance of winning.”
The Residents Lenders PAC, which represents commercial loan companies, also began giving to Republicans challenging Democrats in September 2010. Six Republican challengers received a total of $4,000 from the PAC, plus $3,500 from Security Finance PAC and more than $25,000 from individuals associated with finance companies in North and South Carolina.
Altogether, 19 Republican legislative candidates – and no Democrats – received five or more donations from finance company PACs and executives, many living hundreds of miles from the candidate’s district. Many donors had not given in a legislative contest in the previous 10 years.
According to the analysis by Democracy North Carolina:
● Consumer finance executives and their PACs donated $65,600 to 15 Republican legislative candidates in highly contested races, including 12 held by Democrats and three open seats. Only 3 of the 134 donations to these 15 candidates were made before the middle of August 2010.
● In addition, these donors made 47 contributions totaling $45,450 to the soon-to-be Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, House Speaker Thom Tillis and House Majority Leader Paul Stam. All but 2 of the contributions were made after mid-August.
● By contrast, incumbent Senate President Marc Basnight, Speaker Joe Hackney and Majority Leaders Martin Nesbitt and Hugh Holliman received a total of only $3,600 after mid-August – four donations from the Resident Lenders PAC and nothing from consumer loan executives.
● Before mid-August 2010, the consumer finance donors and their PACs gave more money to Democratic legislative candidates and committees than to Republicans – $15,550 versus $12,300.
● After August 15, the donors gave $126,670 to Republican legislative candidates – more than seven times the $17,400 they gave to Democratic candidates in the final months of 2010.
● Altogether, these consumer finance donors and their PACs gave $172,320 to legislative campaigns in the 2010 election cycle, compared to $30,250 in 2008 and $77,500 in 2006.
● House Speaker Thom Tillis and Republican Majority Leader Paul Stam received nothing from consumer finance donors for the 2010 election until late August. After that, they received nearly three dozen industry-related contributions – a total of $13,950 for Stam and $13,250 for Tillis.
● Of the 17 finance company executives who gave four or more donations to different legislative candidates in 2010, 8 had not made a reported donation to a legislative candidate in the past decade (L. Elmer Britt, David S. Hicks, R. A. “Pete” James, Harry R. Melton, Larry W. Shive, Thomas D. Payne, Daniel L. Thompson, and R. Wayne Smith ) and 6 gave at least 4 times as much as they had given to legislative candidates in any previous election cycle this decade (Gail N. Blanton, Priscilla D. Butler, Glen H. Hall, Royce E. Everette Jr., Al J. Pridgen Jr., and R. David Reese).
● In addition to 3 Republican candidates who won open Senate seats (Thom Goolsby, Brent Jackson, and Bill Rabon), 12 Republicans running against incumbents received multiple donations from finance company donors, often from individuals many miles away; all 12 won: For House – Jeff Collins, Ralph Hise, Stephen LaRoque, Tim Moffitt, Tom Murry, Norman Sanderson, and Mike Stone; for Senate – Jim Davis, Rick Gunn, Wesley Meredith, Louis Pate, and Dan Soucek.
Bill Sponsors Top Recipients of Blue Cross Contributions
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
NC House bill would give insurance companies and other special interests control over healthcare reform implementation
The NC House Insurance Committee has taken up a controversial bill (H-115) that gives insurance companies a large role in overseeing how consumers will be able to buy “affordable” insurance coverage through a state-level “health benefits exchange” to be created under the new national health reform law.
The bill’s biggest supporter is Blue Cross and Blue Shield, NC’s largest insurance company. It gets to help name at least one representative to the new exchange. Notably, sponsors of the Insurance Exchange Bill are top recipients of Blue Cross contributions. Other reserved seats on the Exchange are being earmarked for other special interests and big donors of the bill’s sponsors.
No consumer groups or public health or health-related organizations have been designated seats on the exchange.
Download the full report, including top donors of Blue Cross donations here:
http://www.democracy-nc.org/downloads/BlueCrossRecipients-4-2011.pdf
