An Open Letter to North Carolina Leaders
It is now apparent that Mr. Art Pope, Tarheel retailer and robber baron, has figured out how to buy control of the North Carolina General Assembly using corporate money. His progress has been steady and it has been relentless.
Mr. Pope's field experiment took place in the Republican primaries for the NC House yesterday, where he picked off his three intraparty enemies - Richard Morgan, Rick Eddins and Steve LaRoque. Morgan had been the number two Republican in the NC House, but he crossed Art Pope one time to many and made himself an enemy for life.
Now Art Pope is refining his playbook and setting his sights on eight or nine other NC House races this fall. He poured two hundred thousand of corporate money from Variety Wholesale (his company) into unseating Richard Morgan, and he will pour hundreds of thousands more into seats he thinks he can win. His goal is to defeat incumbent Democrats and tip control of the House to Republicans he controls. It will cost him only $2 million.
It will cost us democracy.
We cannot let this happen. Art Pope does not want to invest in education. He doesn't believe in economic development. He wants to personally control curricula in our universities. Do you trust Art Pope to fix mental health? He is opposed to everything we care about.
You would expect the North Carolina governor, Mike Easley, to lead on this, but he probably won't. So who will?
We need to press the State Board of Elections and contest this in the courts. We may even need corrective legislation this summer. Because if Art Pope gets his way, it will be too late when the legislature returns in January. He will own it.
Art Pope has blended a secret sauce - and the key ingredient is corporate money - lots of it - in carefully targeted districts. It is nothing less than a coup.
You are a North Carolina leader. Will you lead?