State Ethics Reform Champions

North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections is a new coalition of advocacy organizations including: AARP, Center for Voter Education, Common Cause North Carolina, Democracy North Carolina, League of Women Voters, NC Conference of Branches of the NAACP, NC Association of Educators, NC PIRG, NC Council of Churches, and the NC Justice Center. NCVCE aims to advocate for "Voter Owned" elections and public financing of campaigns. Some, but not all of these groups, are also members of the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying Reform.

In October NCVCE issued a legislative scorecard rating NC General Assembly members on their campaign finance and lobby reform votes in the 2005-2006 legislative session and summarized on a press release

Fourteen members in the N.C. House and eighteen members in the N.C. Senate received a perfect score of 100%. Thirty-nine House members and thirty-two Senate members received scores of 80% or above.

See high and low ratings below the fold............

The lowest score in the state House was given to Rep. George Holmes (R-Yadkin), who received a 0% rating and the lowest scores in the state Senate were given to Sen. Hugh Webster (R-Alamance) and Sen. Jerry Tillman (R-Randolph) who both received a 25% rating. The lowest score received by a Democrat in both chambers was Rep. Bill Faison (D-Orange) who received a 45% rating.

The scores are calculated from the number of times a legislator voted with the reform community divided by the total number of votes the legislator voted on. Absences and not voting were excluded from the percentage calculation.

Here's hoping that voters stand up for those standing up for ethics reform in the State Legislature:

Top of the House list:

Top of the Senate list:

Bottom of the House list:

Bottom of the Senate list