alex kotch

December 10, 2015 - Twenty-two out of the South's 26 U.S. senators voted against two gun-safety measures the day after last week's massacre in San Bernardino, California. All but one Southern senator voting "nay" received direct campaign donations from the National Rifle Association, benefited from outside political spending by the NRA, or both.

November 12, 2015 - Nonprofits, presidential candidates, and others are engaging in legally questionable political fundraising and spending as the government agencies that are supposed to enforce the law do nothing. Good-government groups are pressing for action.

October 15, 2015 - A new Institute report finds that whites make up 95 percent of the state's largest political donors to high-profile contests and account for 97 percent of the big donations.

August 13, 2015 - After a stint as North Carolina's budget director, discount retail magnate and Republican kingmaker Art Pope is back to spending money on electoral politics.

August 12, 2015 - An N.C. State University professor has restored old reel-to-reel tapes from a public library in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, proving that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. first uttered his renowned "I Have A Dream" refrain in the eastern North Carolina city in 1962, nine months before his historic speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

August 4, 2015 - More than 100 companies have severed ties with the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council, but documents show 54 companies still sponsoring the conservative policy group's annual meeting this summer, including top energy companies and businesses in the South.

April 16, 2015 - This fall, North Carolina's $10 million private school voucher program could expand to four times its current size—the result of an aggressive campaign mounted by an influential trio of well-funded pro-voucher organizations.