Civitas Review Online

Yesterday’s Chapel Hill News featured an article by Civitas intern Sarah Hardin, in which she makes the case why the town’s pilot program forcing taxpayers to finance the campaigns of candidates for local offices didn’t live up to promises.

Chapel Hill’s voter-owned elections program had its first run in 2009 and is already being heralded as a success. Supporters say the municipal elections achieved all of the aims that taxpayer-funded campaigns are meant to achieve.

The only thing that public financing really achieved, however, was victory for the candidates who used it.

There are many lofty benefits promised by supporters of voter-owned elections. Proponents argue that taxpayer-funded campaigns will level the playing field and allow for more candidates who are unable to finance their campaigns to run. Last fall’s municipal elections, however, suggest otherwise. The only candidates to use public financing were not newcomers to Chapel Hill politics. Mark Kleinschmidt was a member of the Town Council when he ran for mayor, and Penny Rich ran for the Town Council two years prior.

Hardin also notes that Chapel Hill didn’t experience a spike in candidate participation (as promised by advocates of taxpayer-funded campaigns) and exposes a double standard regarding the reporting requirements of third-party support for candidates.

Those invested in the collectivization of political campaign financing will tout any such experiment as a success because their ultimate aim is to extend the method to all local and state campaigns.

The News and Observer published an interesting editorial today voicing support for the Raleigh City Council’s decision to approve of a bill in the General Assembly that would give cities the option of using taxpayer money to fund local campaigns.

A public financing program had its first run in Chapel Hill in November.  The editorial says that two Chapel Hill candidates successfully used the public campaign financing last year—success meaning that both candidates won their elections.

The News and Observer argues that newcomers to elections have the most to gain by using public financing, although in Chapel Hill both candidates who used it had run before.

The N&O also tries to argue that taxpayer financed campaigns would ensure that “big-money interests” would not influence local campaigns in the same paragraph that they applaud Raleigh’s city government for being “well-connected to the people’s concerns.”  So, then, according to their logic, is public financing even necessary in Raleigh?

With filing now open and candidates announcements coming fast and furiously, it would be a good time to remind everyone out there about our NC Partisan Index, which rates every House and Senate district according to its partisan voting patterns.  If you’re familiar with Charlie Cook’s PVI for Congressional races, our NCPI is modeled similarly.

For the House seats, click here.

For the Senate seats, click here.

For the full explanation on how we come up with the formula, find all that here.

DATELINE NC – NOVEMBER 3, 2010: The GOP now holds 34 of the 50 seats in the NC Senate and 82 of the 120 seats in the NC House. Not a likely headline but read below how it could happen.

Does last nights win by Scott Brown in the Massachusetts US Senate race mean that the GOP will have a good year in 2010? Since the election is 9 months away a lot can happen. A human can be conceived and born in that time-frame – and the political landscape can change drastically.

If this was an isolated incident I would likely say that it might not be a good predictor, but it is not isolated coming after the elections in Virginia and New Jersey. What these show us is the GOP candidate performing over 10 points better (conservative estimate) than previous GOP performance. If we assume that this shows a trend in the electorate what does it mean in NC. At the national level it would probably mean Richard Burr is in a much better position than Elizabeth Dole. On the congressional level this probably means that Freshmen Larry Kissell – D ( 8th District) will have a tough reelection campaign and the three other Democrats representing conservative districts, Bob Ethridge (2) Mike McIntyre (7) and Heath Shuler (11) could have competitive races.

But what does this mean for the NC House & Senate. It could be a game changer. Civitas publishes a North Carolina Partisan Index (NCPI) which shows how districts vote compared to the state as a whole.

Using the State Senate NCPI numbers, without considering the recent elections, you would say there were 7 seats held by Democrats in which Republicans should be very competitive. If we assume that this minimum 10 point swing in the GOP favor continues, it expands competitive senate seats up to 14 with seats rated up to a D+7 having to be considered competitive.

Looking at the State House NCPI without considering the recent elections you would say there were at least 8 seats held by Democrats that should be considered competitive. Using a 10 point swing as we have seen in the past 3 elections that number increases to up to a possible 30 seats using the D+7 threshold as the cutoff.

It was always going to be an interesting year for General Assembly elections - I think it will be even much more interesting than I or anyone else thought.

Just posted on www.nccivitas.org and at Capitol Monitor is information on how the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now(ACORN) has ingrained itself into the “progressive” network in NC. It works hand in glove with a multitude of left wing organizations to advance the liberal agenda. Many of these organizations sound innocuous – like Project Vote – but are really advancing a liberal agenda. Many of the organizations that ACORN works with in NC are well funded and even receive tax dollars from NC.

Well you know what they say “Birds of a feather flock together” or perhaps a better saying would be “lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas”!

Here are the voter registration changes since November 14, 2009

Total      +3545
Dem        -2287
Rep          -320
Lib           +346
Una         +5806

Despite the lack of recent media coverage of the continuing scandal known as  ACORN, America’s leading “community Organizers” are still at work.  What you don’t hear from the so-called “mainstream” media are shouts from members of Congress like Rep. Steve King of Iowa who recently told the American Spectator,

“It’s thousands of times bigger than Watergate because Watergate was only a little break-in by a couple of guys,” said King. “By the time we pull ACORN out by its roots America’s going to understand just how big this is.”

By no means, is this story over, no matter how much the Left tries to ignore it.  This Daryl Cagle cartoon says it all:

ACORN in Action

Is it true that our legislature is becoming more liberal/progressive?  This article on the Progressive States Network website might help you with your answer. 

The article praises our state legislature for passing a bill that will allow 16 and 17 year olds to register to vote. 

The article states that “this effort will rebound to our benefit” and goes on to say,

          “What this means for progressives is that efforts to engage the
            youth electorate is one of the most effective way to bring progressive-
            minded voters to the polls.   It is in large part due to the 
            engagement of this population that President Obama was
            able to win last November.  And as progressive state legislators
            face a challenging mid-term election environment, keeping young
            people engaged will be key to cementing gains made in 2006 and
            2008.”

Only 6 legislators voted against this bill. 

My answer to the proposed question:  “True,” our legislature is definitely more liberal/progressive.

In this letter to the State Board of Elections, dated July 31, 2009, Bev Perdue’s campaign treasurer Oscar N. Harris refers to a letter the campaign wrote to the State Board of Elections dated January 25, 2008. 

The July 2009 letter states that the January 2008 letter explains that the campaign “planned to conduct an internal review of our campaign finances after the conclusion of the 2008 general election”.

The January letter is not among the rest of the Perdue campaign finance documents found on the State Board of Elections website.  I would expect that if such a letter exists the Board of Elections would have also issued a response – which also cannot be found on the Board’s website. 

Did the State Board of Elections really sign off on the Bev Perdue Campaign’s plans to wait until after the 2008 election for Governor to correct ongoing inaccuracies in their campaign finance reports?

Correspondence from the Perdue Campaign to the State Board of Elections revealed that there are 6 more flights that were previously unreported.  Four of the newly reported flights (2 in 2004, 1 in 2005 and 1 in 2006) were provided by Raleigh attorney Terence McEnally III.  McEnally bought the local newspaper La Conexion in 2008. 

What else did Beverly Perdue leave out of her reports?  We can add today’s group of Perdue travel providers to the ones that were belatedly reported in July 2009 (listed below).