Research Reports: Policy Report

Executive Summary Donor privacy protects our expressive rights, especially with regard to matters of public policy. Unfortunately, entrenched political interests have often successfully undermined that protection by forcing policy…

Gov. Roy Cooper’s COVID-19 statewide shutdown order has pushed North Carolinians online for everything from family gatherings to shopping and education. But the COVID-19 pandemic has also showcased the power…

Executive Summary North Carolina’s Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System (TSERS) is widely recognized as being among the nation’s healthiest pension plan systems, currently almost 90 percent funded at a…

North Carolina has reduced tax rates in four of the last six years while building its savings to the highest level in history. We present seven traditions, institutions, and processes…

Abstract North Carolina is one of 18 states that do not have a telemedicine parity law, which forces insurance companies to pay health care providers for services treated via…

An increased use of the innovative health care delivery model called Direct Primary Care could lead to better outcomes for treatment of patients with chronic diseases, and that could mean…

“Green” school buildings in North Carolina fall far short of their promises to protect the environment through lower energy costs and increased efficiency.

In the last two years, academics and scholars of public policy have identified North Carolina as a state with an overly complex criminal code that can ensnare small businesses, farmers, and individuals who unknowingly fail to comply with regulatory rules. In 2014, Professor Jeff Welty of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government published an article in the North Carolina Law Review, “Overcriminalization in North Carolina”; and James Copland and Isaac Gorodetski, directors respectively of the Center for Legal Policy and the Center for State and Local Leadership at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, published a primer, “Overcriminalizing the Old North State.”

Model Resolution on Regulatory Overcriminalization

The John Locke Foundation has a long-standing interest in the Map Act, which we have criticized for being “inefficient, unfair, and unnecessary.” We have repeatedly urged the General Assembly to repeal or reform it. We have also taken a keen interest in Kirby v. NCDOT and in the legal and constitutional issues that it raises.