Ready or not election season is almost here!

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Hi there,

Ready or not election season is almost here!

We’ve been tracking changes to election laws for years, and one of the most significant changes is what kind of funding election administrations, like our State Board of Elections, county elections boards, and county commissions, can receive.

What has changed since 2020?
* The General Assembly joined a majority of states and banned direct private funding of election work

Why is private funding of election work a problem?
* Montesquieu once said that funding is the “most important point of legislation” (even 17th century French scholars can be right from time to time) In a democracy like ours, there’s a lot of power in funding the bureaucracy that administers elections
* And in a 2023 report ([link removed]) , the Congressional Research Service noted two major problems with private funding of election administration:
+ “The distribution of private funds being contingent upon the choices of private entities” - this takes the power of the purse from elected officials and places it in the hands of private individuals/groups (who may have an agenda)
+ That agenda could let donors (including foreign nationals) influence election outcomes, such as targeting their assistance to jurisdictions with a particular partisan lean

That doesn’t sound good… has this happened before?
* In fact, yes…
* In North Carolina, the largest source of private election funding in 2020 was $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg’s group, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), otherwise known as “Zuck Bucks”
* 31 counties received funding from CTCL. Most received less than $1 per registered voter, but the two most Democrat-leaning counties (Orange and Durham) received a lot more money ($2.60 and $5.49 per registered voter, respectively)
* Our research ([link removed]) found Zuck Bucks tripled turnout for Democrats vs. Republicans
* Mark Zuckerberg seems to have had a change of heart on this matter, and just yesterday announced ([link removed]) he and Meta wish to remain, "'neutral' so will not be 'making a similar contribution this cycle.'"

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What is North Carolina doing to fix this issue?
* In 2023, the General Assembly joined 28 other states in banning Zuck Bucks, and other private giving like it, prohibiting election administrators from accepting private donations
* Locke continues to provide the research necessary to ensure our elections have the utmost integrity and security. Continue to follow our Center for Public Integrity's work ([link removed]) .

With just 2 months to go until Election Day, it looks like there will be no attempt to inject large amounts of private money into election administration this year. But the Zuck Bucks incident confirms that election integrity advocates must remain vigilant.

You can read more about the importance of election integrity in North Carolina here ([link removed]) , here ([link removed]) and here ([link removed]) .

You can also join our upcoming quarterly conference call ([link removed]) on public safety, happening TONIGHT from 6-7 pm, HERE ([link removed]) .

Esse quam videri,

Brooke Medina


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** More from Locke
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1. 👩‍⚖️👩‍⚖️👩‍⚖️ Fourth Circuit continues to defy Supreme Court over Maryland’s assault weapons ban ([link removed])
* This shouldn’t be a problem anymore, but somehow….
+ After the Heller decision, avoiding so-called assault weapons bans shouldn’t be this hard…
+ But left-wing states keep pushing them
* Refresher: What was Heller?
+ In the Heller decision, SCOTUS found that Americans have a constitutional right to keep and bear weapons that are “in common use” and are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes”
* So now you’re wondering what’s happening
+ Well, Maryland created a “comprehensive” assault weapons ban, and it’s been upheld twice by the Fourth Circuit Court
+ The Fourth Circuit Court concluded that the AR-15 is a military weapon like the M-16 and thus falls outside of Second Amendment protections
o This ignores the fact that the AR-15 is most definitely not fully-automatic
# Which, may be why the AR-15 is not used by ANY military in the world
+ So what happens next?
o The Supreme Court needs to come in and establish a final ruling to stop this government overreach

Read the full story here ([link removed]) .

2. 👵🏻👵🏻👵🏻 Are state employee retirement benefits a promise or a pretense? ([link removed])
* Well, there’s a lot going on here, but the state has $44.3 BILLION in unfunded pension liabilities
* What is an unfunded pension liability?
+ It’s money the state has promised to spend but hasn’t saved. In this case, NC promised state government employees $44.3 billion they haven’t yet set aside
* Wait, what?
+ We’ve promised our cops, firefighters, teachers, and bureaucrats $44.3 billion to fund their retirement, but we haven’t saved that money yet
* That’s not good
+ It’s not. It threatens our state’s fiscal solvency and the retirements of thousands of government employees (including, cops, firefighters, and teachers)
* Okay, so what should we do?
+ First, the General Assembly needs to start saving more so we can honor our obligations (especially as prescription benefits get more expensive)
+ Then, North Carolina needs to repeal the Certificate of Need Law
+ Finally, the state should require nonprofit hospitals to act as nonprofits… that means matching their charity care with the tax benefits they receive

This is really important for NC’s future, and if you want to learn more about it, you should definitely read this article ([link removed]) .

3. 🍲🍲🍲 Grocery price controls are just a bad idea ([link removed])
* So you know how inflation has made your groceries way more expensive?
+ Well, VP Kamala Harris thinks that’s because your grocer is being particularly greedy, and she wants to BAN “price gouging” (she said gauging but we all know what she meant)
o To do that, Harris wants to set price caps for different items
* That doesn’t sound like a good idea.
+ It’s not, especially since grocery stores have famously poor margins (1% - 3%), meaning that they’re barely profitable businesses
+ And that means if we start capping prices all the time, a lot of grocery stores will go out of business leading to less competition and higher prices in the future
* Grocery store price caps will also hurt farmers
+ Those razor thin profit margins aren’t better for farmers
+ And if the grocery stores have to fix their costs at a cap, it’s going to hurt America’s food producers, potentially leading our farmers to shut down and hurting America’s ability to feed itself
* So what caused the food price hike?
+ Supply chain disruptions
+ Rising input costs (food got more expensive to produce when energy, housing, and labor costs go up)
+ Inflation
+ Climate impacts that have sometimes produced poor harvest
* What should we do?
+ We need to address the core problems
o Focus on decreasing energy costs to make food production and transportation cheaper
o Solve the labor market shortage we’re currently facing
o Improve supply chain resilience

If you're feeling the increasing grocery costs, read this article ([link removed]) to get the full story.


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