We at Civitas have always believed DemocracyNC is just a front for partisan and political activity and recent blog postings makes that clear. They are portrayed in the press, when even characterized, as “a campaign finance watchdog group” or “a non-partisan watchdog group”, never as a “liberal leaning group” or as a “liberal advocacy group.” This despite constant lobbying against issues like voter ID, for taxpayer financed campaigns and other liberal pet projects. They even did GOTV efforts in the 2010 election. Yet the press and many legislators continue to regard them as an “above the fray” organization with no ideological or political leanings.
In a post election post on the loony left site bluenc.com, a volunteer with DemocracyNC takes credit for the October 11 Board of Education election outcome in Wake County. He explicitly says “…it was satisfying to see the results…”. As a 501(c)3 organization they are prohibited from working for the election or defeat of candidates or conducting partisan activity. He also uses the post to recruit more workers. Below you can read for yourself (emphasis added):
You don’t have to live in Wake to help
Submitted by heiderose1 on Wed, 10/12/2011 – 1:46pm.
Even though I do not live in Wake County, I spent Monday evening calling folks in District 8 to go to the polls, so it was satisfying to see the results. If you want to make sure the board shifts into better hands, please help with the GOTV efforts in the run-off in District 3 between incumbent Kevin Hill, a Democrat representing north Raleigh, and Republican challenger Heather Losurdo. Margiotta supporters are gearing up to pour their frustration into that race to keep the board under Republican control, so we need to step it up ourselves.
To sign up, please contact Bob Hall at Democracy North Carolina: 919-489-1931
Resistance is Fertile
It took about 9 hours for the DemocracyNC board chairman to try and do damage control but his response raises more questions than answers. While he uses the right words, the rest of his post shows his true allegiances in this case. His blogging name “TrueMeckDem” by using the capitalized “D” in Dem shows that he is not refering to the political structure of government but to the other “D” as in Democratic party. He also is the Treasurer for the Mecklenburg Democratic Party – hardly a non-partisan position. The other little indicator is the quote from Barack Obama at the end of his post (which was removed after the original posting) touting one of the two major parties…
Democracy NC does not support either candidate
Submitted by TrueMeckDem on Wed, 10/12/2011 – 10:30pm.
Democracy NC does not support either candidate, we are a non partisan organization that is only interested in GOTV in this race. Our GOTV efforts should in no way imply that we support either party or their candidates.
Gray Newman
Chair of the Board
Democracy North Carolina
“We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe.” ~ Barack Obama
DemocracyNC is welcome to do everything within the law that any (c)3 is lawfully allowed to do. If they want to go beyond those activities they should start a (c)4 like Civitas Action. But even Civitas Action does not advocate for the election or defeat of candidates as they are clearly doing in this case.
DEMOCRACYNC IS A LIBERAL ADVOCACY GROUP. They are not going to like me calling them that but they are, just like Civitas is unabashedly conservative. The only difference is we are proud of it and they run and hide from what they are.
Actually they might rather I say DEMOCRACYNC IS A PROGRESSIVE ADVOCACY GROUP!
As someone who has worked for Ddemocracy NC, you are truly barking up the wrong tree if you think they would ever endanger their mission by engaging in illegal activities. They are too smart for that and that’s why they have wiped the floor with Civitas over the past few years. As you well now, nonpartisan does not mean a group can’t take stances on the issues. They do, and they do it well. Trust me, they follow the rules and you can waste all the time you want trying to bust, but they’re clean. You won’t have any more success than the last few times you tried.
By the way, the reason they are relied on as above the fray is because they don’t skew their research and use push polls and do all the ridiculous things Civitas does with its research. Bob Hall would rather cut off his right arm than compromise the integrity of his research and he provides solid, meaningful research whether it benefits his end of the political spectrum or not. You might want to take a page from his book and clean up your own methods, although it will take about a hundred years to regain any sort of credibility after the crap you’ve been putting out.
Why is it that the chair of Forsyth County’s BOE can be a staff member of DemocracyNC, a lobbying/”elections rights” group, and that not impact her ability to be on the elections board, much less head of it? Is that not a conflict of interest at the very least?