Rick Henderson will be joined on the Hickory road trip by Joseph Coletti and John Locke Foundation Vice President for Outreach Becki Gray. Coletti will address budget and health-care issues for the Tea Party summit. Gray fills in for Mary Katharine Ham as the summit’s featured speaker Saturday morning. In other news, Gray, Coletti, Michael Sanera, and Daren Bakst, Director of Legal and Regulatory Studies, conducted a policy briefing and roundtable discussion this week for 15 candidates in this year’s N.C. House elections. The state Republican Party invited the John Locke Foundation to conduct the session. Coletti also hit the road this week for a presentation on ObamaCare to the Cleveland County Republican Party. The Shelby Star previewed Coletti’s presentation and quoted him in a follow-up article about a bizarre assault alleged to have occurred during his speech. In addition to his travels, Coletti also urged state lawmakers and others to sign up for the new TweetNCGA.org site. The site has a “good start,” Coletti said. “We’re up to 10 percent of legislators on Twitter, plus the House and Senate GOP caucuses.” In addition to his television appearance and policy presentation, Sanera also had his recent column on county jail overcrowding published in the Durham Herald-Sun. Bakst released a Spotlight report this week urging state bureaucrats to allow restaurant owners to make all decisions about pets’ access to restaurants in North Carolina. The Pet Source USA blog picked up Bakst’s recommendations. StateHouseCall.org also cited Bakst’s recommendation that N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper rethink his decision to leave North Carolina out of a multistate lawsuit challenging elements of the recent federal health-care reform legislation. In other news, Associate Director of Research Jon Sanders traveled to Charlotte Saturday to speak to the N.C. Federation of Young Republicans. Sanders explained how issues facing North Carolina affect young professionals. N.C. History Project Director Troy Kickler traveled to Surry County to explain to a local Freedom Works chapter that its members are following a North Carolina tradition of protesting increased taxation. The Pilot Mountain Pilot covered the presentation. The Nevada Policy Research Center picked up Kickler’s recent column debunking the notion of using the census to secure a community’s “fair share” of federal largesse. ThisIsReno.com followed suit.
