Senator, Is That the Cookie Jar in Your Hand?

Ralph Hise

NC Senator Ralph Hise, who represents the neighboring 47th District (Mitchell, Yancey, McDowell, Madison, Rutherford, and Polk counties), was first elected to the General Assembly in the 2010 Tea Party steam bath. He has recently risen like the cream-of-corruption to the top of the tea kettle.

In March of this year, independent researcher and gadfly Greg Flynn filed complaints with the State Board of Elections about irregularities and apparent violations of elections law he found in Senator Hise's campaign finance reports:

Excess repayment of personal loans (Hise appears to have pocketed some $10,000 in extra cash)

Incomplete contributor information (missing addresses, names of employers, etc.)

Unitemized disbursements

"Irregular" entries (amendments to reports suggesting adjustments to "reconcile unrecorded payments"

Failure to report almost $10,000 in PAC contributions

The State Board of Elections opened an investigation on March 10 and informed Senator Hise that he should submit a response to the complaint by March 20 (see correspondence from SBOE to Hise at the link above). Hise replied that his treasurer (Shirley Hise) was "unable to assist at this time," and he asked for an additional 45 days to respond.

Those 45 days expired on May 4, and according to watchdogs DemocracyNC, Hise still had not responded as of May 8.

Senator Hise is chair of the Senate Select Committee on Elections and has had a hand in the attempted restructuring of the State Board of Elections (to deprive Gov. Roy Cooper of appointment and oversight power), and he now clearly has a huge personal interest in making sure that the people running the State Board of Elections are sufficiently partisan. DemocracyNC is calling for him to recuse himself from the Select Committee on Elections while he is under investigation.

The other thing to note: It took an independent citizen looking at public records to blow the whistle on Sen. Hise. Why? Because the SBOE doesn't have the staff to look at flagrant violations of reporting standards?

State Board of Elections Screwing With Wake County

Struggling this morning to get our heads around a late-night emergency teleconference last night at 10 p.m. -- on a Sunday night -- conducted by the State Board of Elections (SBOE) to appoint a vacancy on the Wake County Board of Elections. The SBOE notified the public 90 minutes before the meeting.

What did the SBOE do last night? It appointed Eddie Woodhouse to the vacancy (about whom, more below), ostensibly because the Wake BOE was under a judge's order "to rank the ease" of using four different district plans for electing the Wake School Board and County Commission this fall. Republican redistricting of the county has been ruled unconstitutional by the Fourth Circuit.

Mark Binker has the only press report we've seen on last night's surprise SBOE meeting. But Greg Flynn has come forward with the back story (in a Facebook post):

In 2000 President Bill Clinton made Judge Roger Gregory the first African American judge to serve on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, by recess appointment. Judge Gregory's nomination had been opposed and placed on hold by Jesse Helms. Eddie Woodhouse was a spokesman for Helms at the time.

Judge Gregory was one of two federal judges who decided that recent Wake redistricting plans were unconstitutional. Chafing under that decision which overturned his own, lower court judge James Dever has asked the Wake Board of Elections to rank 4 plans in order of preference, including the unconstitutional plan and two other unconstitutional plans.

Last night the State Board of Elections had an emergency meeting to appoint Eddie Woodhouse to a vacant seat on the Wake board. Now Woodhouse, protege of Jesse Helms, cousin of Dallas Woodhouse (executive director of the NC Republican Party) gets to prioritize a plan declared unconstitutional by a judge actively opposed by his former boss Jesse Helms.

The Lie in Speaker Tillis's Throat

Republican Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis, in justifying the Republican vendetta against the North Carolina Association of Educators, charged that the NCAE is an arm of the Democratic Party. An odd charge in light of Tillis's own account for the vendetta: the Republicans were targeting the NCAE because it had sent mailers against five Democrats. And then there's this proof, from Greg Flynn (via NC Policy Watch), that the NCAE has underwritten the campaigns of an awful lot (literally) of Republicans:

In 2008 the NCAE PAC gave money to Dale Folwell, Robert Grady, the Republican House Majority Committee, and the Committee to Elect Republican Women to name a few spotted at first glance.

Here’s more:
Fletcher Hartsell
Jerry Tillman
Larry Brown
Kenny Furr
Laura Wiley
Karen Ray
Larry Hale
Shirley Blackburn Randleman
Harry Brown
Bonner Stiller
Mitchell Setzer
Sidney M Sandy
Jean Preston
Pat B Hurley
Linda P Johnson
Richard Stevens

BREAKING TODAY: Writing Discrimination Into the State's Constitution

Changing the state's constitution for the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly turns out to be chaotic, the opposite of transparent, and almost impossible to follow. After Friday's shenanigans of trying to conceal the new text of the proposed anti-gay marriage, and to deny that it was even coming up for discussion today, they switched the start of the debate from the NC Senate committee to an NC House committee. They were going to put the hearing in a small room, then moved it to a big room, then announced they would not be taking any public comment today, and then said that they were moving the proposed state-wide referendum from next November's general election to May's primary election. All of which prompted this tweet from among the Raleigh press corps: "If you're keeping track, so far today marriage amendment has changed chambers, cmtes, bill #s, content, and ballot date. In 75 min."

Why?

Because they couldn't get the Dem votes (not to mention a few Rs?) to put it on the ballot in November? Or because the May primary is more likely to draw more Republican voters than Democrats?

If the Republicans who want to write their religiosity into the state constitution get their way and manage to pass this abomination, Greg Flynn is suggesting a revised marriage vow for heterosexuals: "Till death, job loss, violence, infidelity, divorce or someone else's same-sex union us do part."

Prevarication, noun

"Americans for Prosperity is a nonpartisan, issue-based policy organization and does not support or oppose candidates for public office."

--Dallas Woodhouse, NC State Dir., Americans for Prosperity

Hattip: Greg Flynn

For an outfit that had a fat finger in the effort to defeat both Sen. Steve Goss and Rep. Cullie Tarleton last year, that's a hell of a whopper.

Greg Flynn lays out the documentable $$. Both Jonathan Jordan and Dan Soucek are on that list ... twice.