Aug. 28, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Francis De Luca (919) 834-2099 Francis.deluca@nccivitas.org
RALEIGH – Civitas President Francis X. De Luca is urging Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis to withdraw from a U.S. Senate debate co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters, which has two active lawsuits against the state and is part of a left-wing organization known for its controversial call to “eviscerate” and “cripple” the state’s political leadership.
“It is outrageous that the Speaker of the North Carolina House and current candidate for the Senate is involved with a group which is also suing the state to block good legislation and which apparently condones undemocratic tactics,” De Luca said.
The League of Women Voters (LWV) joined with a nonprofit arm of the AFL-CIO, the NC NAACP and others in a federal lawsuit seeking to undo the Voter Identification and Verification Act (VIVA), a badly needed law which will make elections fairer and more secure. A federal judge this month rejected a request for an injunction against VIVA; the suit against the law itself is scheduled for hearing in July 2015.
The other lawsuit seeks to overturn the congressional redistricting completed by the General Assembly in 2011 – and it names Tillis personally as a defendant. The U.S. Justice Department and a state court have held the redistricting to be constitutional.
The League of Women Voters is a member of Blueprint NC, which in 2013 it distributed a memo outlining for a statewide attack on Republican and conservative politicians. The memo called for “crippling their leaders” – including Tillis – and using hardball tactics to “eviscerate the [GOP] leadership and weaken their ability to govern.”
“Speaker Tillis should not be lending his stature to the League of Women Voters while they are working with left-wing groups standing in the way of beneficial legislation,” De Luca said. “And if he is going to fight against entrenched liberal groups in Washington, he should show he’s no pawn of liberal groups here.”
The debates with Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, which are also sponsored by WECT-TV, are scheduled for Sept. 3 and Oct. 7.
The Civitas Institute – “North Carolina’s Conservative Voice” – is a policy institute based in Raleigh, N.C. More information is available at www.nccivitas.org, or contact Jim Tynen at (919) 834-2099 or james.tynen@nccivitas.org.
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