(The Center Square) – Saying it created “more opportunity for dark money in our politics,” North Carolina first-term Democratic Gov. Josh Stein on Wednesday vetoed legislation tied to decisions on the First Amendment, transparency and privacy in donations to nonprofits.
The Personal Privacy Protection Act, known also as Senate Bill 416, was joined on the rejection list by Firearm Law Revisions (House Bill 193) and Expedited Removal of Unauthorized Persons (House Bill 96, Senate Bill 71). Stein has 14 vetoes in the last 20 days, third-most in state history and just 21 shy of the total of all governors prior to former Gov. Roy Cooper taking office in 2017.
Cooper stamped 104 in his eight years, with Republican majorities leading overturn on 52 of them. Override rules in the state require both chambers of the General Assembly – Republican majorities are 30-20 in the Senate, 71-49 in the House of Representatives – to have three-fifths majority of those voting.
Stein also signed nine bills into law.
The Personal Privacy Protection Act, says it “prohibits public agencies from collecting, disclosing, or releasing personal information about members, volunteers and financial and nonfinancial donors to 501(c) nonprofit organizations, except as permitted by state or federal law or regulation.”
There is no change to campaign-finance disclosure requirements at both the state and federal level. Responses to the IRS and the North Carolina State Board of Elections are also not changed.
Impact on political donations is forefront of the critics. Supporters discount dark money concealment attempts potentially enabled by the proposal. Rather, they say political intimidation is thwarted and civil liberties prevail.
Democrats in the chambers for it included Sens. Gale Adcock of Wake County and Julie Mayfield of Buncombe County, and Reps. Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County, Charles Smith of Cumberland County and Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County.
Stein said, “Our democracy works best when people are well-informed. This bill reduces transparency and creates more opportunity for dark money in our politics, especially relating to candidates’ legal funds. Furthermore, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the Department of Revenue to identify and crack down on certain types of fraud.”
Dark money is a reference to money for influence in elections that is anonymous.
The conservative-leaning John Locke Foundation in Raleigh pointed out the U.S. Supreme Court in 1958, half a decade before the Civil Rights Act, sided with the NAACP against the state of Alabama. The high court – all white, all men in a time of societal unrest in America – said revealing membership lists would violate the First Amendment and risk threats, harassment and retaliation to members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Donald Bryson, CEO at Locke, said in a statement, “Vetoing the Personal Privacy Protection Act leaves North Carolinians vulnerable to activist state employees and regulators who could pry into private nonprofit donor lists. The bill retained every existing nonprofit reporting requirement but erected a critical firewall forbidding any public agency or staffer from demanding or disclosing personal donor information – safeguards that are essential to a free democracy because they secure free association, free speech, and limited government.”
