Civitas Institute

Are you a concerned citizen frustrated with  how Common Core Standards impact your children? Do you wonder what you can do to make your voice heard and to help reverse these dangerous trends?

If so, you'll want to attend Common Core Standards: What's Next on Thursday, November 14th at the Sheraton-Greensboro (Koury Center).   Speakers include Heather Crossin and Erin Tuttle -- the two moms  who founded Hoosiers Against Common Core and helped to propel the battle against  Common Core Standards in Indiana.   We hope you can join us as we learn the best ways to educate and mobilize others in the fight against Common Core in North Carolina.  For additional information and to register see here.  To access Heather Crossin's presentation at the September 19th Heritage Foundation-Civitas Institute Common Core Forum, see here.

Have a question?  Call 919-834-2099.

Hope to see you on November 14th!

Bob Luebke

Senior Policy Analyst

Civitas Institute

919.834.2099  |  nccivitas.org
Facebook  |  Twitter: @nccivitas

‘Moral Mondays’ Getting Murkier

CIVITAS INSTITUTE

June 12, 2013

Let’s say you’re an ordinary citizen and you trespass on someone’s property. You come back the next day anyway. You get arrested again, and this time you’re charged with contempt. Wait – what’s that? You’re the Rev. William Barber? Never mind. Please, come inside.


The legal situation surrounding weekly protests at the Legislative Building in Raleigh is growing murkier. If you’ve been following the coverage of “Moral Mondays,” you may have heard the term “civil disobedience” being tossed around. It’s an evocative word: it hearkens to mind the courage of Henry David Thoreau, who willingly consigned himself to prison rather than support a war of aggression in Mexico. It summons images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., braving the fire hoses and police dogs in Alabama. You might think that the protesters arrested these past weeks at “Moral Mondays” have been braving some of the same hardships.

Nope.

Protesters who are arrested do not spend any time in incarceration. Most of them are cuffed with plastic flexi-cuffs instead of metal handcuffs. They get supportive hugs from General Assembly police officers. The NAACP provides free lawyers to anyone arrested, and the protesters are home by midnight. Oh, and they get souvenirs, too.

Apparently some people in the criminal justice system think that this is still too onerous a process. Colin Willoughby, the Wake County District Attorney, told Civitas that he suggested to police that it “might be appropriate to issue citations” to demonstrators instead of arresting them. In other words, protesters could get a ticket and a fine instead of being charged with a misdemeanor. And Sam Higdon, the assistant director of the Wake County detention center, told us that it was recently “agreed that the CCBI [City-County Bureau of Identification] would not process them.” This, despite the fact that the CCBI has processed all of the demonstrators previously arrested. According to General Assembly Police Chief Jeff Weaver: “The CCBI director, Sam Pennica, stated his budget would not allow him to have additional personnel on site for any more of these arrests.”

Now that the CCBI is out of the loop, arrest reports are no longer readily accessible to the public through the online Wake County Police to Citizen (P2C) portal. Farewell, transparency.

But hey, at least we can take comfort in the fact that the police and District Attorney’s Office are enforcing the law. Or are they?
CONTINUED:  http://www.nccivitas.org/2013/moral-mondays-getting-murkier/

Civitas Institute President Calls for Investigation of Lobbyist Bob Hall and State Board of Election Staff

June 4, 2013


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Francis De Luca (919) 834-2099

Francis.DeLuca@NCCivitas.org

RALEIGH – Today the President of the Civitas Institute, Francis De Luca, delivered letters and documentation to the North Carolina Attorney General, the State Auditor, the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the State Board of Elections calling for an investigation of the activities of lobbyist Bob Hall and past and present staff of the State Board of Elections (SBOE). (Links to the letters are below.)

Secretary of State Elaine Marshall
Attorney General Roy Cooper
Auditor Beth Wood
SBE Chair Josh Howard

While asking for each of these offices to investigate items under their respective jurisdictions in relation to the SBOE, De Luca also asked the new SBOE to conduct an internal review of its own staff’s actions. The particular areas that were highlighted in the letters for review are:

· SBOE staff in 2012 collaborated with registered lobbyist Bob Hall to use state resources, personnel and equipment to engage in partisan political activity in possible violation of general statutes prohibiting state employees from participating in partisan political activity on state time and using state resources. These efforts were in conjunction with lobbying for more Help America Vote Act funding from the NCGA and thus may have also violated state lobbying laws, as Mr. Hall is a registered lobbyist and this was a clear effort to influence legislation. (Supporting documents here.)

· SBOE staff allowed a registered lobbyist, Bob Hall, to produce and edit state documents in the form of the “non-partisan” voter guide that is mailed to every registered voting household in North Carolina. His level of participation in this activity exceeded that of the state employees actually tasked with producing the document and included suggesting edits to candidate statements and facilitating billing and payments from state government for vendors. (Supporting documents here.)

· SBOE staff took part in efforts to facilitate online voter registration in North Carolina before the 2012 election cycle with no notice to the appointed state board. This effort appears to violate state law that prohibits electronic voter-registration forms, apart from those offered by a state agency. This effort was in conjunction with a private for-profit company and may have also violated North Carolina General Statutes prohibiting paying per registration. In addition, the SBOE General Counsel falsely claimed, in emails to citizens, that DOJ attorneys had reviewed the legal opinion that said the online registration program complied with North Carolina General Statutes. (Supporting documents here.)

In delivering the letters, De Luca said, “It is important that so-called good government groups and self-proclaimed watchdogs play by the same rules they demand of everyone else.” De Luca continued, “The evidence in these complaints make it clear that Mr. Hall used state resources to carry out an agenda and did so in a way to hide it from the public and from appointed and elected officials.”

The complaints arise out of a series of investigations conducted by Civitas that can be found at the following links:

· NC SBE – Who is really in charge and who do they work for?
· Lobbyist Bob Hall and Gary Bartlett Planned Attack on Republican Legislature
· Guiding the NC Elections Board – to the Left
· Elections Bureaucrats Ran Amok

The Civitas Institute is a think tank based in Raleigh, NC. More information on the Civitas Institute is available at www.nccivitas.org, or contact Jim Tynen at james.tynen@nccivitas.org or (919) 834-2099.

Civitas Institute
100 S. Harrington St. Raleigh, NC 27603
919.834.2099
nccivitas.org