One of the most interesting aspects of the Uptown paper of record sliding into the McClatchy fold is potential for more political reportage from the N&O to make its way to a Queen City audience. Note potential.
Today the Observer runs a version of Rob Christensen’s coverage of the State Election Board tilt between former Speaker Richard Morgan and Raleigh businessman, and John Locke Foundation fountainhead, Art Pope. Good, important stuff. Yet Charlotte readers didn’t quite get the whole story.
Here’s the Christensen piece with the parts the Observer left out in italics:
RALEIGH – Former House Speaker Richard Morgan underwent tough questioning Tuesday during a state hearing into his allegation that hundreds of thousands of dollars of corporate money were used illegally to defeat Morgan and other legislative candidates in recent GOP primaries.
Morgan is seeking to convince the State Board of Elections that Raleigh businessman Art Pope violated campaign contribution limits by having his company plow more than $500,000 into advertising to defeat Morgan and his GOP allies who formed a power-sharing agreement with House Democrats.
But it was Morgan who was on the defensive Tuesday, the first day of the hearing.
Morgan said the thrust of his allegations was true, but under questioning by one of Pope’s lawyers, he found it difficult to provide evidence for many of the specifics.
“I think it’s a matter of credibility,” Camden Webb, one of Pope’s lawyers, told Morgan.
Morgan will continue to testify this morning.
The first day of the hearing pitted two of the best known N.C. Republicans — Morgan and Pope — against each other in a courtroom-type setting. The two seemed not to acknowledge each other’s presence even though they sat only a few feet from each other.
Morgan, a Moore County insurance agent and cattle farmer, became a marked man in 2003 when the state House was deadlocked 60-60 between Democrats and Republicans. Morgan and four GOP allies joined forces with House Democrats to form a governing coalition.
Since then, Pope has funded through his companies and nonprofit groups a campaign to criticize Morgan and his allies. Morgan was defeated in May.
In the closing weeks of the May primary, Pope-connected groups sent 132,000 mailings to voters in the districts of Morgan and four other House Republicans.
Morgan filed a complaint with the elections board, saying Pope violated state campaign laws that prohibit direct corporate contributions and individual contributions of more than $4,000.
Pope’s attorneys said the effort did not fall under normal campaign restrictions because it was an issue-oriented campaign designed to educate voters, not defeat Morgan.
Two consultants, testifying on behalf of Morgan, said the Pope-connected mailings looked like classic political advertising to them.
“I suggest the goal wasn’t eduction,” said Harvey Harlowe Hukari, a political consultant from San Francisco. “It was going after five incumbents.”
Morgan’s attorneys also sought to show a pattern of coordination between the Pope-backed groups, the state Republican Party, and the candidates who opposed Morgan and his allies.
Morgan said he was not, in filing his complaint, trying to overturn the May primary. He said the use of nonprofit committees — known as 527s after a tax code provision — threatened to make North Carolina’s campaign contribution laws ineffective, and opened the door to unlimited corporate contributions.
Pope’s lawyers noted that Morgan had his own 527 group, which collected corporate contributions from cigarette and beer companies during the 2004 election.
Pope’s attorneys said issue advertising is a constitutionally protected right to inform constituents.
“It is a perfectly fine, all-American way to conduct the democratic process,” said Steven Long, an attorney for the Pope-connected companies.
Morgan struggled when asked to provide evidence to back up his allegations.
Morgan couldn’t provide evidence that the Pope-backed committees had purchased TV time, that Pope had caused the transfer of funds to one committee in 2004, or that Pope had tried to conceal his activities.
Now maybe you could argue that a space crunch mandated those cuts of 90 or so words. But then you have to look at four freakishly huge, campaign size photos of the $150 million Wachovia arts tower complex in the same local section and say that as news coverage makes sense.
Charlotte — we get the news we deserve.
