Watchdogs slam new GOP-led rule that lets NC lawmakers dodge transparency

In contrast to its deep red neighbor South Carolina, North Carolina is more of a swing state. North Carolina has a centrist Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, and President Joe Biden lost the state to Donald Trump by only about 1 percent in 2020.

Biden's reelection campaign is hoping that North Carolina will be in play next year. However, the North Carolina Supreme Court has moved hard-right and presently consists of five Republicans and only two Democrats.

Government watchdog groups are troubled by a development with the North Carolina State Legislature, which, according to WUNC-FM (an NPR affiliate in Chapel Hill), is "now exempt from the public records law that governs other branches of government."

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"North Carolina law allows the public to obtain a variety of documents from state government and its elected officials," WUNC's Colin Campbell explains. "Anyone can get copies of e-mails sent to an elected official or access their calendar to see when they met with lobbyists. That transparency law still applies to the governor, local mayors and agency leaders across the state. But a provision in (a) budget bill now cuts off that access for anyone seeking records from state legislators and their staff."

Campbell adds, "It says the lawmakers themselves can decide what to make public — and which documents to delete or toss in the shredder."

Brooks Fuller, executive director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition (a watchdog group), argues that state lawmakers shouldn't be able to dodge transparency.

Fuller told WUNC, "They have every incentive to leave you in the dark if there's a record of something unflattering or that might not be politically advantageous to them. And my belief is that that's probably what most legislators are going to do…. Just because it's inconvenient or time consuming or expensive, it's not a good enough public policy reason to not allow free flow of information."

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According to Fuller, state lawmakers in North Carolina "now have the ability to make public information laws, such as they exist, work for them" but have "stripped that power away from average folks."

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Read WUNC's full report at this link.