North Carolina Republican state Rep. Stephen LaRoque is in hot water over allegations that he used $8 million in federal small business startup grants as a slush fund for himself, his family, and other GOP legislators. But LaRoque’s “defense” is that back in May, he launched a vitriolic rant against the state NAACP, calling it “a racist organization,” and that that’s the only reason watchdog groups are highlighting his shady business dealings today.

Here’s what NC Policy Watch, a non-partisan policy watchdog group, reported following a two-month investigation into LaRoque:

A two-month N.C. Policy Watch investigation uncovered questionable management and financial dealings over the last decade at LaRoque’s federally-funded public charities. Both of the non-profits are now housed and run under a for-profit company, the LaRoque Management Group in Kinston, that LaRoque and his brother Walter run, according to the website of the company.

Among the investigation’s findings are:

• LaRoque received $100,000 to $195,000 a year in compensation as the sole employee of the small non-profit—much more than what others running similar organizations made.
• He stacked the board of directors for his non-profits with immediate family members, a move that runs afoul of both IRS and USDA guidelines.
• He used the non-profits to loan federal money to close associates, including loans of $100,000 to $300,000 to a board member, the private law firm he uses for political lawsuits, his wife and two fellow GOP legislators.

LaRoque’s six-figure salary is three-to-six times what he promised to pay himself in his 1997 application for the federal grants, according to the report. One former board member of LaRoque’s organizations said she “was not aware that he was compensated at all.”

All told, more than $8 million in federal tax dollars have flowed through LaRoque’s operation since 1997. Half of that sum - $4 million – was loaned out improperly, according to a 2010 USDA Inspector General report.

But LaRoque is one Republican who clearly doesn’t heed his own calls for personal responsibility. Rather than offering any explanation for the flood of tax dollars allegedly flowing into his and his cronies’ pockets, LaRoque lashed out at NC Policy Watch.

LaRoque claims that NC Policy Watch is targeting him because in May (and this is true) he’d sent an email to the state NAACP calling it and its chairman “racists.” Yes, that really happened, and no, that’s not all he said:

"I have no interest in receiving anything from a Racist such as William Barber," LaRoque wrote in his reply, referring to the state president for the NAACP. "He and the NC NAACP represent everything that is wrong with race relations in our state and country. You should be ashamed of yourself for continuing to promote racism but that is the modern day legacy of the NAACP as a racist organization led by Racist individuals who are Cowards."

Barber said Friday that he was shocked by the comments, but LaRoque said he has no intention on backing off.

"I'm sick of getting these race-baiting, racist-type action alerts, e-mails, whatever you want to call them," LaRoque said in an interview at his Kinston office. "The modern-day NAACP promotes racism. That's what they're doing.” (…)

"It's time for North Carolinians to shun this type of individual."

It seems to us that it’s time for the USDA to shun Stephen LaRoque - and we're not the only ones who think so.

Former President Bill Clinton addressed one of the most pressing issues facing the electorate in a speech on Wednesday. 

The issue is the very ability of that electorate to cast ballots. 

From Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn: 

“I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time,” Clinton said at Campus Progress’s annual conference in Washington. 

“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” Clinton added. 

President Clinton’s assertions regarding new restrictive voting measures in states across the country are bold, even jarring, but succeed in spotlighting this critical issue. 

He specifically called out Republican proposals in Florida, Ohio, and New Hampshire that restrict ballot box access in various ways. 

In Florida, the new voting restrictions cover both casting and registering to cast ballots. Not only will all organizations that wish to conduct voter registration drives (such as the League of Women Voters) be required to register with the state elections board, but also each person who registers voters will be required to sign and file an oath with the board. Additionally, the early voting period is reduced from 12 days to eight. Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post makes an interesting observation about that part of the law:

On line 2409 of the legislation, the part that establishes the time period of early voting, it had been law that in elections with federal races, the early voting period was to end on the "2nd day before an election."

The new law changes that to the third day before the election.

What possible difference could that one day make?

Well, the second day before an election is a Sunday. And those who have been combing over the Florida results during the last presidential election discovered that nearly a third of all the early voters on that final Sunday were black.

In Ohio, legislation passed just last week by the GOP-controlled legislature will effectively reduce voters’ access to the ballot box. As we previously noted, restrictive provisions of this bill include:

• Cuts the early voting period by more than half: instead of 35 days, voters will only be able to cast ballots on 12 of the 17 days prior to the election
• Eliminates early voting on Sundays
• Permits early voting on Saturdays from only 8 a.m. to noon
• Cuts early voting by mail from 35 days to 21
• Eliminates the weeklong period during which voters could register and cast ballots at the same time (“Golden Week”)
• Prohibits boards of elections from mailing absentee ballot forms without receiving specific requests (forms are currently mailed to all registered voters)
• Prohibits boards of elections from paying return postage to encourage completion of absentee voter forms
• Eliminates local control, preventing boards of elections from adjusting poll hours and taking other previously permissible measures to prevent long lines and other issues seen in the 2004 elections 

The New Hampshire bill, which was vetoed by the Governor but may still be overridden by the heavily GOP-controlled legislature, requires voters to present state or federal government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot.

President Clinton surely faced time constraints, but his list of states with GOP legislatures pushing regressive voting legislation could have extended far beyond those three.

Maine’s Republican-controlled statehouse revoked the state’s long-standing policy to allow eligible voters to register at the polls on Election Day before casting ballots.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker and the state GOP slammed a voter ID bill through the legislature this spring in a desperate attempt to move the goalposts for the upcoming recall elections.

In North Carolina, the Governor vetoed a voter ID bill that would have cost state taxpayers $1.4 million and could have disenfranchised the 147,100 active black voters in the state who do not have photo ID.

In Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled House has passed legislation requiring presentation of government-issued photo ID to vote. If it passes the Republican Senate, the Republican Governor is almost certain to sign it.

In Missouri, the Governor vetoed the voter ID bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. So the state GOP bypassed her by approving an amendment to the state constitution that would have the same effect. The amendment is slated to appear on the ballot for Missouri voters’ approval this fall.

The Brennan Center for Justice found in a 2006 study that 11% of U.S. citizens do not possess any form of government-issued photo ID. Civil rights groups assert that minority and low-income voters constitute an outsized portion of that group and would inevitably be disenfranchised by these voter ID laws.

Add that to the reduction of the time available to cast ballots states like Florida and Ohio, and we could be looking at a presidential electorate in 2012 that’s missing large chunks of what made Barack Obama’s victory possible in 2008—not to mention the inevitable effects of voter suppression all the way down the ballot.

President Clinton has sounded the alarm on a critical issue. Republicans’ only defense seems to be raising the specter of virtually nonexistent voter fraud and “illegal voting.”

Actually, until recently it was illegal to make voting more difficult for eligible citizens.

It doesn’t matter what grade you’re in.

If you’re a student, whether an 8-year-old third grader or a college student government leader, Republicans have one message for you: your voice doesn’t matter, so shut up.

That was the thrust of Iowa state Senator Shawn Hamerlinck’s remarks to five student government leaders from state universities who came to speak at a budget hearing and advocate for fully funding higher education:

"I do not like it when students actually come here and lobby me for funds. That's just my opinion. I want to wish you guys the best. I want you to go home and graduate. But this political fear, leave the circus to us, OK?" he said.

Hamerlinck then proceeded to thank the student leaders for coming, and he said it was a good thing that they had carefully prepared their remarks. "But actually spending your time worrying about what we're doing up here, I don't want you to do that. Go back home. Thanks, guys," he said.

As dismissive and condescending as Hamerlinck’s remarks look in print, they’re an order of magnitude worse in audio. Take a listen below, if you can stand to hear the contempt dripping from his Hamerlinck’s voice (h/t Iowa Senate Democrats):

But Hamerlinck is hardly alone in his contempt for people who would be directly impacted by his education cuts. North Carolina GOP state Rep. Mike Stone called it “unconscionable” and said “anger completely shot through me” when he learned that elementary school students – including his own daughter – had written letters to state legislators as part of a school writing assignment. And who could forget New Hampshire GOP House Speaker Bill O’Brien’s stunning admission that his party’s discriminatory voter ID bill was intended specifically to disenfranchise students, because “they are kids voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience”?

Other Iowa Republicans also joined the student-bashing bandwagon, including some in the GOP Senate leadership:

Sen. Steve Kettering, R-Lake View, ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said it was “plane asinine” that students “would be paraded in front of a politically driven show” set up by people who want the state to spend more money. “No one was invited today to speak for the taxpayers,” he noted.

Nevertheless, Hamerlinck’s remarks may be the most infuriating yet. Reps. Stone and O’Brien and Sens. Hamerlinck and Kettering all appear to take the view that students are just too naive to discuss policy. But only Sen. Hamerlinck was personally addressing five specific students who'd been invited to share their views, all of them student government leaders (elected in their own right, perhaps?) whose experience clearly makes them more qualified than the average student voter of any age to discuss the impact of higher education budget cuts.

But that obviously made no difference to Sen. Hamerlinck, who’s also the only legislator from these incidents who lists his occupation as an “Adjunct Professor" at Augustana and Black Hawk Colleges.

Maybe Senator Hamerlinck is just following the lead of Professor Hamerlinck in teaching students that there's no point thinking for themselves. But in politics, anyone with a point of view has a right to express it, and if the people don't think their elected officials are listening, they have a remedy that Shawn Hamerlinck clearly understands.

They can tell him to take his own advice and "go home."

Republicans in state legislatures around the country are rewriting voting laws to make exercising one’s right to cast a ballot more difficult. 

After examining the plethora of bills introduced in statehouses this year that, among other things, would reduce poll hours and require voters to show photo ID, it seems clear that Republicans are trying to make it harder for certain groups to vote. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights attorneys, called the push “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Republican legislators have introduced bills that would diminish access to the voting booth in over 40 states.* All of these Republican proposals focus on one apparent goal: restrict ballot access and shrink the electorate—often in ways that would decrease Democratic votes.

Many of the proposals are in the form of voter ID legislation, which would require potential voters to present specified forms of identification in order to cast a ballot. Republicans supporting these measures claim they’re necessary to prevent “voter fraud.”

Too bad that “voter fraud” isn’t a problem that actually exists. In New Hampshire, investigations conducted since 2004 revealed no cases of voter fraud. In South Carolina, where a voter ID bill that would become among the most stringent in the country is currently under consideration, the state Elections Commission knows of no confirmed cases of voter fraud. An elections supervisor in Florida says “there’s no evidence of a problem, none whatever.” Voter impersonation is the only type of voter fraud addressed by laws requiring presentation of a photo ID to vote, and repeated studies have confirmed this crime to be extremely rare.

Speaking of study results, here are some fun facts about groups included in the 11 percent of Americans without a current government-issued photo ID: 

• 25 percentof African American voting age citizens

• 15 percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year

• 18 percent of those age 65 and above

• 20 percent of young voters 18-29

In sum, GOP legislators may be using baseless allegations of fraud to make voting more difficult for constituencies not known for their reliable GOP vote.

The broad GOP voter discouragement push goes beyond voter ID bills.  Florida provides an example of one of the most restrictive proposals in the country.

Florida House Bill 1355 (and companion Senate Bill 2086) recently passed both GOP-controlled chambers and includes the following provisions: 

• Forces anyone updating his or her name or address on election day to fill out a provisional ballot (which often go uncounted). Since 1973, Florida voters have been able to update name or address without major issues.
• Forces any group running a registration drive to fill out paperwork for every volunteer and paid worker with the state.
• Halves the time that citizens would have to collect signatures to get an initiative on a ballot.
• The senate version of the bill (SB 2086) also reduces the early voting period from two weeks to just one week.

Indeed, reducing the length of early voting periods is a restrictive voting measure Republicans are advocating in several states. In North Carolina, for example, a GOP-sponsored bill would cut the 16-day early voting period by an entire week. 

In both Florida and North Carolina (as well as in almost every other state with early voting) the majority of early voters in 2008 voted for President Obama.  

Another strain of restrictive measures popping up in several states involves hobbling voter registration and mobilization efforts. The North Carolina bill would prevent anyone from engaging in get-out-the-vote efforts outside of his or her own voting precinct. Legislation in Maine would end the long-standing practice of election day voter registration. The Florida bill mentioned above will prompt the League of Women Voters to end their registration efforts in that state.

This apparently concerted effort on the part of Republicans in state legislatures nationwide to effectively suppress voting is as disturbing as it is un-democratic. Additionally, these restrictive measures often are costly and do nothing to balance state budgets and create jobs, which are the top priorities for voters across the country right now.

To be fair, Republican legislators in some states are working to promote voting rights among some groups: hunters and fishers.

*Research compiled by DLCC.

What a difference a Democratic majority (or even a tie) makes.

Unlike North Carolina (R House, R Senate), Tennessee (RHouse, R Senate), Wisconsin (R House, R Senate), Arizona (R House, R Senate), Michigan (R House, R Senate), and Missouri (R House, R Senate), which have all voted to cut unemployment benefits, the Oregon legislature (Tied House, D Senate) voted to extend them. Last week marked the start of the Oregon Emergency Benefits program, which provides the unemployed with an additional six weeks of benefits.

Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney has the details: 

People laid off through no fault of their own are eligible for up to 99 weeks of aid in 25 states. But last month, Oregon lawmakers gave the long-term unemployed an additional six weeks of benefits. That means that in Oregon, where the unemployment rate stands tall at 10 percent, so-called "99ers" -- people who've burned through all 99 weeks without finding work -- can now theoretically become "105ers."

…For those who receive maximum aid, the benefits cycle like this: The state initially provides up to 26 weeks and the federal government provides the rest through two programs. The first is Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which provides up to 53 weeks of benefits broken into four "tiers," and the other is the Extended Benefits program, which provides the final 20 weeks. (Recent efforts to provide more weeks of federal benefits have stalled.) The programs can combine to provide fewer than 99 weeks depending on a state's unemployment rate.

Compare this to the cuts Republican-controlled legislatures have been making to unemployment benefits:

At the same time Oregon is taking steps to increase aid, other states are effectively cutting it. Several are allowing the federal Extended Benefits program to expire by choosing not to update the arcane "trigger" used to determine a state's EB eligibility. A high unemployment rate is one condition; the other is that the rate must be 10 percent higher than in either of the two previous years. When it reauthorized the federal unemployment benefit programs in December, Congress invited states to modify their triggers to encompass an additional previous year, since unemployment rates in most states have risen dramatically from what they were three years ago but have held relatively steady over the past two years.

North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin let the program die on April 16, and the Arizona State Legislature has adjourned for the year without taking up the issue. Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. are expected to "trigger off" EB come May.

Lawmakers in Michigan and Missouri acted to preserve EB, but at the same time they cut state benefits to 20 weeks, making them the only states that provide fewer than 26 weeks for newly unemployed people. Twenty weeks will be all that remain once the federal programs expire in January, unless Congress decides to reauthorize them, which is an open question.

So while Republican-controlled state legislatures are busy union busting, pushing birther bills, fighting the nonexistent threat of sharia law, or authorizing the use of gold as legal tender, Democratic state legislatures are actually helping people.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 13, 2010

Contact: Carolyn Fiddler
202.449.6754
fiddler@dlcc.org

Today Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee Executive Director Michael Sargeant unveiled the list of state legislative campaigns that received the most votes from grassroots supporters across the country.

“While we originally planned to release a list of 10 Grassroots Essential Races, the sheer volume of votes we received prompted us to expand this roster of winning campaigns to 15,” said Sargeant. “This level of excitement among our supporters is great news for us as we enter the home stretch of this crucial election cycle.”

The DLCC revealed its list of 40 Essential Races last week. Some of the selected races are those expected to be the most competitive in their states. Others are bellwethers for similar districts elsewhere. Still others are examples of key races in critical redistricting battlegrounds.

With over 6,000 state legislative races on ballots across the country this November, state legislative races seldom get the attention even of sophisticated political observers. Individual districts are rarely polled publicly. The Essential Races program helps identify the races that will be most significant in 2010. At just 55 contests, the full Essential Races list constitutes only a fraction of the competitive state legislative campaigns this year. In 2008, more than 160 state legislative races were decided by 200 votes or fewer. A complete list of races to watch this fall would run into the hundreds.

"The Essential Races selected by our grassroots supporters represent only a few of the races deserving special attention,” explained Sargeant. “Thousands of Democrats are running professionalized, localized campaigns for state legislature in competitive races across the country, and the thousands of nominations we received demonstrate that our base is energized and engaged in this election.”

The list of Grassroots Essential Races contains contests from the states of Iowa, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas, to name only a few.

Mother Jones featured a post today on the importance of this fall’s governors’ races.

Congressional campaigns have dominated 2010 election coverage, given the Democrats' precarious grip on majorities in both Houses. But the New York Times explains how much is at stake beyond Capitol Hill. Both parties have poured millions of dollars into governors' races across the country, given the redrawing of congressional and state legislative districts that will happen in every state next year.

True, both parties are devoting significant resources to gubernatorial races. True, redistricting will occur in every state next year.

Governors typically play a key role in overseeing the redistricting process, along with state legislatures...

Actually, state legislatures are the ones playing the “key role.”

Thirty-six states give their legislatures control over congressional redistricting (some states employ independent commissions or other measures). These 36 legislatures will draw the maps for 384 (most likely, pending final Census results) of the 435 congressional seats.

Governors generally have an important role to play (except where they have no veto authority over redistricting, like in Connecticut and North Carolina). In many states, congressional district maps must be approved by the governor before they can go into effect. In other states, governors appoint or are members of redistricting commissions or boards. (You can find a state-by-state breakdown of who does what when it comes to redistricting here.)

A governor may accept or reject a map based on its benefit to his or her party, but governors are not subject to district boundaries, so they have little stake in the new legislative or congressional districts beyond the general welfare of their party. Redistricting often just becomes part of the regular legislative bargaining that takes place between the governor and the legislature.

State legislators, however, not only have greater control over the drawing of congressional district boundaries, but they also have greater interest in the result. Congressional district maps are often a part of a legislative package that includes the new maps of state legislative districts. Additionally, state legislators are generally more likely to run for congressional seats they create than are statewide officeholders.

The lines these state legislators draw will affect the partisan makeup of Congress for the next 10 years. If the Republicans boast success on the state legislative level this fall, they’ll have the chance to gerrymander their way into an artificial congressional majority for the next decade. Progressive policies will stall in the House as a Republican Speaker refuses to allow Democratic legislation to come up for votes.

So, yes, congressional races are significant this year, just like they are in every even-numbered year. And gubernatorial contests are important and exciting.

But, while state legislative races may be the least conspicuous on many ballots this fall, these elections could be more significant than all the rest combined.

In North Carolina, both political parties are paying particularly close attention to this year's state legislative elections:

That is because the legislature, as required by the U.S. Constitution, will draw new district maps for the legislature and for Congress in 2011 based on the census that will be conducted this year. Whether those maps are drawn by Democrats or Republicans - or jointly by both parties - could go a long way in deciding who holds power in Raleigh and who goes to Washington.

Democrats currently control both houses of the legislature, and leaders like Speaker Joe Hackney aren't downplaying the stakes for 2010:

"The conventional wisdom is that the election preceding redistricting is the most important one of the decade. I would not quarrel with that. We have seen redistricting make a big difference in legislative bodies."

For their part, Republicans are telling reporters that they are optimistic about their chances in this year's legislative races. But Democrats aren't taking the threat lightly. They're already hard at work recruiting strong candidates and laying the groundwork for victories this fall.

Democratic State Senator Josh Stein-- a 43 year old freshman legislator in North Carolina -- is being honored for his work as a consumer advocate. AARP North Carolina has presented Shapiro with its 2009 Outstanding Legislator Award:

Bill Wilson, associate state director for advocacy, said Stein is “a strong voice on behalf of consumers, particularly for older adults in this state because they are frequently the targets of people who want to scam or take advantage of them.”

Though just a first year member, Stein was the primary sponsor of 10 different pieces of legislation to become law. Because of his efforts, consumers will find it easier to place a security freeze on their credit report, and the state will launch a financial literacy council to oversee financial education for students.

Managing a state budget during this recession is not easy. Falling tax revenue can open huge budget deficits, and closing those gaps is almost always a painful process. But North Carolina’s Democratic legislators have gotten it right, and they have the ratings to prove it:

The three financial rating agencies have given North Carolina a AAA rating in the wake of a budget crisis.

The rating is the highest possible and the three rating agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings affirmed the top score, which like an individual credit score is a measure of credit-worthiness and financial security. North Carolina is one of only seven states to have the top score.

The high ratings can also be seen as a vote of confidence that the Democratically-controlled legislature is making the tough decisions now that will put North Carolina on solid financial footing for years to come.

But it’s more than just a feather in lawmakers’ caps. High credit ratings will save North Carolina taxpayers millions of dollars by allowing the state to sell bonds for major projects at lower interest rates.