Democracy North Carolina has been referred to as “non-partisan” and an “elections watchdog“, but the media rarely reminds us of the group’s lean to the left. However, last night Bob Hall, Democracy NC’s director, was caught in an embarrassing bit of hypocrisy. His group was part of a protest at the site of a fundraiser for Republican state House members. Fundraisers cannot be held while the legislature is in session, but the gap between the long session and when the legislators return to Raleigh to work on redistricting presents a perfectly legal opportunity for legislators raise money. When asked by the News and Observer’s Under the Dome if his group intended to protest at a similar event held by state Democrats, Hall gave a revealing answer:
One of those critics, Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, said he was not thrilled about the Senate Democrats either, but he was not very critical either.
“I am not blaming legislators for raising money when they have the opportunity,” Hall said. “They are corrupting system that makes them focus on fund raising too much and too often.”
He said both Nesbitt and Stein supported public financing of elections, but were forced to play by the rules that exist.
“I criticized the Republican House leaders because of their claim that they were going to provide strong leadership to change what they termed pay to play culture,” Hall said. “That didn’t get done.”
WRAL’s Laura Leslie encountered similar evasions from Democracy NC protesters regarding the Democratic fundraisers.
Apparently, North Carolina Democrats are held to a much lower standard. This is almost understandable, considering the convictions of NC Democrats Mike Easley, Jim Black, Ruffin Poole, Thomas Wright, and Meg Scott Phipps, the trial of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and the on-going investigation of Gov. Perdue.
Civitas’ Susan Myrick has shown the group’s ties to a large number of left-leaning organizations, so it comes as no surprise that Democracy NC is trying to score cheap political points against Republicans while giving Democrats a free pass.
You are way off base about Bob Hall. If you check you will see that he did tons of research and reports about contributions to Democrats, including Jim Black and Mike Easley.