Vigilance from a John Locke Foundation researcher might have helped kill an unconstitutional program. Daren Bakst, Director of Legal and Regulatory Studies, sent a letter (PDF link)
this week to the executive director of the State Board of Elections.
Bakst questioned whether Chapel Hill could move
forward with taxpayer-financed election campaigns in the wake of a U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that declared a key element of taxpayer-financed
campaign programs unconstitutional. Shortly after Bakst’s letter, the
elections board’s executive director informed Bakst that the board will
be advised to scrap the unconstitutional provision in Chapel Hill’s program. Meanwhile, Terry Stoops, Director of Education Studies, helped the Associated Press make sense of new statewide public school testing data. Stoops also spoke this week to the Stokes County Tea Party Patriots. WLTT Radio listeners heard Roy Cordato, John Locke Foundation Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar, discuss this week water pricing and the use of federal stimulus dollars for diesel engines in privately owned charter fishing boats. Participants in a Tea Party conference in Goldsboro heard from Michael Sanera, JLF Director of Research and Local Government Studies. Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation’s “Insider Online” promoted two recent JLF reports; Stoops explained how North Carolina’s teacher certification rules block good instructors from participating in virtual education, while Bakst called for state compensation of the living victims of North Carolina’s government-run forced-sterilization program.