Glad to see this guy go:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Budget Director Art Pope, a prominent conservative donor with broad influence and loud critics, is leaving the top post in Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration.
The Republican governor announced the move Wednesday at the Executive Mansion and named Lee Roberts, a Raleigh bank executive and campaign donor with limited state government experience, to the position.
McCrory said Roberts, a member of the N.C. Banking Commission who is the son of journalist and political analyst Cokie Roberts and grandson of the late Democratic Rep. Lindy Boggs of Louisiana, brings extensive financial management skills and “a neat perspective, and a new outside perspective, to this office.”
Pope’s departure came as no surprise. He took the job at the start of McCrory’s tenure in 2013 with the understanding that he would serve one year but the governor asked him to stay for another budget cycle.
McCrory credited Pope for his outsized role in the administration, describing how he offered legal guidance to his chief attorney, lobbied lawmakers and helped craft policy decisions in addition to his role guiding the state’s spending. - Charlotte Observer, 8/7/14
Here's a little more info about this Koch Brother from another mother:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Pope for decades has been a lightening rod for Democratic ire. His roots in conservative advocacy go back to the 1970s, when he co-founded the Libertarian Party of North Carolina. He was a founding board member of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative nonprofit network funded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and helped found the state's chapter of the group. In North Carolina, he has invested approximately $55 million through his family's foundation into a constellation of think tanks and advocacy groups.
As a pro bono legal adviser during North Carolina's 2010 redistricting of the electoral map, Pope helped contribute to a shift in the state's U.S. House delegation from a majority of Democratic representatives to a majority of Republicans, and donated large sums to the successful effort that gave Republicans control of both the state legislature and governor's mansion.
Pope's priorities were reflected in McCrory's policy decisions: The governor took up one of Pope's favorite causes when he eliminated public financing of judicial elections.
North Carolina General Assembly Speaker Thom Tillis, the Republican nominee challenging Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) for her seat in Congress, had hoped for a short legislative session as the midterm campaign season gets underway. But budget negotiations devolved into an extended struggle between McCrory's faction and the state Senate's Republican leadership, who threatened to subpoena Pope to get him to explain his projections.
The general assembly ultimately passed a $21.2 billion state budget that includes raises for most public school teachers, but adopted changes that amount to what critics are calling "backdoor cuts" to public education.
Democrats in the state indicated they thought Pope was resigning because he'd accomplished everything he had set out to do as a member of McCrory's administration.
"If I'd just signed off on all the backdoor cuts to public education [in] that budget, I'd resign too," Ben Ray, communications director for progressive advocacy group Forward NC, told The Huffington Post in an email. "Only difference is I'd do it in shame and Art Pope is doing it because he's gotten every last budget-busting tax break for the wealthy and cut to middle class priorities he wanted." - Huffington Post, 8/6/14
Not only was Pope's McCrory's sugar daddy, he was also a close ally of Speaker Thom Tillis (R. NC) who is currently running for U.S. Senate:
http://www.newsobserver.com/...
House Democratic leader Larry Hall said Pope had “an undue influence” with state lawmakers and his presence at the legislature shifted votes. “I don’t know if he was the shadow governor or if he overshadowed the governor, but I do think he had more influence in what happened in the legislature and you could see it in the votes,” he said.
Pope, a former four-term state lawmaker, enjoyed a good relationship with the House and drew praise from Speaker Thom Tillis.
“I want to personally thank Art for his public service and years of dedication to the state of North Carolina,” Tillis said in a statement. “I appreciate his leadership working closely with the General Assembly to improve the state’s economy, create balanced budgets and promote jobs in our state.”
His relationship with the Senate proved more difficult and the chamber’s leaders threatened to subpoena him earlier this year to testify about the administration’s budget numbers. Still, Senate leader Phil Berger offered praise in a statement.
“My Senate colleagues and I are grateful that Art Pope continued his service to North Carolina by agreeing to serve as budget director – one of the most difficult and thankless jobs in state government – for a salary of only one dollar,” Berger said. “Thanks to his countless volunteer hours, our state is moving in a far more fiscally sound and sustainable direction.”
In announcing his resignation, McCrory rejected the “caricature” of Pope among critics of Republicans and praised Pope for his dedication to state government.
The governor choked up when he recounted how Pope delivered the administration’s budget proposal in May and then stayed up late at his ailing mother’s bedside before she died later that day.
“That is a true human being and public servant,” McCrory said. - News Observer, 8/6/14
Pope's influence sparked the main focus of the Moral Monday protests:
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
The “Moral Monday” protests began last year as demonstrators marched on the statehouse grounds over Republican policies. The legislature and McCrory cut unemployment benefits, rejected expanding the Medicaid health insurance program under the Affordable Care Act, lowered taxes and education spending, passed new restrictions on abortion, and changed voting laws to reduce early voting and same-day registration and require voters to show identification at the polls.
Hundreds were arrested during the demonstrations, where protesters sometimes carried posters depicting Pope with horns on his head.
The protests were less about Pope’s job as budget director than his role in creating the Republican majority through his campaign giving and support of new legislative districts that favored his party, said Chris Fitzsimon, director of NC Policy Watch and a Pope critic.
“It was because he funded the campaigns and drew the legislative districts that made all of it possible,” he said. “We also had two years of very damaging budgets in North Carolina. He helped build that.”
Ryan Tronovich, a spokesman for McCrory, said Pope’s resignation is not a surprise and that he had always said he would not serve for McCrory’s entire term. After weeks of fighting, the state legislature approved the state’s budget on Saturday.
Fitzsimon said he’ll be watching what Pope does next.
“I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that he is leaving in time to raise money for the 2014 elections,” he said. - Bloomberg, 8/6/14
And the Moral Monday protestors are now focused on this year's elections:
http://www.citizen-times.com/...
The leader of the state NAACP is making the right move in turning his Moral Monday protest movement into a get-out-the-vote effort though political observers say he's facing a daunting task.
Rev. William Barber, in a sermon-like speech before a crowd of about 3,500, called on each person to register up to 15 new voters.
"This is no mere hyperventilation — know this is a fight for the future and soul of our state," he said.
The Republican Party — which Barber and his supporters say is harming the poor by failing to expand Medicaid, cutting education funding and giving the rich and corporations big tax breaks — controls both the state House and Senate along with the Governor's Office.
Barber's plan is get people on his side and then get them to the polls in a non-presidential election year
That pushes against two trends, said political scientist Chris Cooper at Western Carolina University. Barber first has to get people on his side in an increasingly conservative electorate and then get them to vote in a non-presidential year when turnout is typically lowest and skewed Republican.
"It's really hard to move the needle on this." he said. "People spend millions of dollars to move the needle a few points."
He said the turnout in Asheville on Monday, while lower than last year, was still a success for Barber and the NAACP.
For the past 67 weeks, Barber has led the civil disobedience campaign called Moral Mondays at the North Carolina General Assembly. - Citizen-Times, 8/5/14
Voters have plenty of reasons to go to the polls and defeat Pope foot soldiers like Tillis:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/...
Thom Tillis, the Republican candidate for Senate in North Carolina, has long been a reliable supporter of business efforts to cut back on environmental regulations. As speaker of the North Carolina House, he helped lead efforts to reduce regulation of toxic chemicals like ammonia and sulfuric acid that industries wanted to release into the air. He opposed the state’s renewable energy mandates. And he helped lift the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the state — the House even voted to make it a crime to disclose the chemicals used in the fracking liquid.
Then, in February, a power plant owned by the state’s largest utility, Duke Energy, spilled 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River, in the north-central section of North Carolina. It was the third largest such spill on record, coating the river with lead and arsenic for 70 miles, and threatening drinking water and aquatic life.
The spill was a disaster for the state, and suddenly Mr. Tillis was as furious as voters were. He accused his Democratic opponent, Senator Kay Hagan, of having a “cozy relationship” with Duke and of sabotaging environmental regulations. And he sponsored a bill that would supposedly increase regulation of coal ash pits. “Thom Tillis showed leadership and took action to make sure future spills don’t happen again,” his campaign announced.
While it’s true that both Ms. Hagan and Mr. Tillis have accepted contributions from Duke, Mr. Tillis’s conversion is a bad joke to environmental groups in the state. The North Carolina League of Conservation Voters said the bill by Mr. Tillis — who has a 26 percent lifetime environmental score from the group — would allow ash pits to be capped without a liner preventing seepage into water supplies, and failed to penalize Duke Energy or its shareholders. It significantly weakened deadlines imposed by the Senate bill for cleaning up and closing the ash pits. - New York Times, 8/5/14
And it looks like Hagan is reaching out to another key group that could help her win:
http://theonefeather.com/...
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) visited Cherokee on Wednesday, Aug. 6 and met with tribal leaders while touring sites around the reservation.
She met with Tribal Council representatives, Principal Chief Michell Hicks, Vice Chief Larry Blythe, several tribal program directors, and she ended her day by meeting with children at the Birdtown Recreation Center.
“I took a tour of the Casino which was impressive, had an incredible lunch and met a lot of people, a lot of workers,” said Sen. Hagan. “We had a lot of discussion about the new casino going up in Murphy and just about the economic opportunities that it affords, not just with jobs, but also with the investment back into the community.”
Sen. Hagan praised the Tribe for putting money into education, child care, and other essential programs. “That is what’s building the Cherokee nation. It is very important. To me, it’s all about education and that early education to ensure that the children learn and are in a safe environment and are able to be very productive Cherokees.”
She added, “We’ve also been talking about the school and the Big Cove Road issue as well as the National Park Service and the ruling that will come out soon about the ramp gathering.”
Chief Hicks commented, “We’re obviously very glad that she’s here, but I think that the thing we wanted to show today was the progress that the Tribe has made especially with the services that we’re providing.”
He said it was nice to be able to show Sen. Hagan the new school, the Kituwah Academy, and the progress being made on the construction of the new hospital. “It’s easy to talk about something, but it’s more meaningful if you can talk and see it at the same time. We can make a lot more progress that way.”
“She’s aware of a lot of the major initiatives now, and as she goes back to D.C. she can think about some of the things that we’re doing and maybe help us in more ways than even we thought about. I definitely think the visit has helped our relationship.” - Cherokee One Feather, 8/7/14
Every vote counts. Click here to get involved and donate to Hagan's campaign:
http://www.kayhagan.com/...