art pope

October 17, 2014 - The tidal wave of money flooding into our elections is carrying us further and further from the ideal of "one person, one vote." But outrage over the growing influence of Big Money is sparking innovative efforts for reform.

October 16, 2014 - The conservative advocacy group acknowledges mailing bad voter registration information to North Carolinians but says it was an error by staff who lifted material from a similar document sent in Arkansas but who failed to fact-check it. AFP also accuses the N.C. Democratic Party of filing a formal complaint over the mailer for fundraising purposes.

October 15, 2014 - Baker Mitchell is a politically connected North Carolina businessman who celebrates the power of the free market. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell's chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.

October 3, 2014 - North Carolina election officials are investigating a mailer sent by a conservative advocacy group funded by Art Pope and the Koch brothers that contained misinformation about voter registration. Facing South has identified at least three other states where people also received inaccurate mailings from the group -- and one of those efforts involved an attempt to strike people from voter rolls.

September 5, 2014 - Two election cycles after the landmark Supreme Court decision loosening restrictions on corporate money in politics, research is emerging that assesses its impact on our political system -- and it finds that the decision has disproportionately benefited Republicans, especially in North Carolina and Tennessee.

September 5, 2014 - Now that he's stepping down as North Carolina's budget director, conservative kingmaker Art Pope will have more time to devote to his discount retail company, which recently announced controversial plans to open a grocery in a historic black Raleigh neighborhood that's also a food desert. But Pope may face competition from a food cooperative offering a dramatically different business model.

August 7, 2014 - This week Gov. Pat McCrory announced that his budget director, conservative mega-donor and businessman Art Pope, will resign. The move frees Pope to resume leadership in the political influence machine he's built just in time for the fall elections.