newsobserver.com projects - N.C. GOP calls for records inquiry - Comments

Re: N.C. GOP calls for records inquiry

FFC1304 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:14:00 -0400

Sunshine day my A**!

Re: N.C. GOP calls for records inquiry

Wuptdo — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:34:01 -0400

Ho-hum, just another day in the Banana Republic of North Carolina. Where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the politicians all get a beach houses.

Re: N.C. GOP calls for records inquiry

Isaac136 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:29:11 -0400

How about instead of calling for a records inquiry (which isn't going to yield anything because no one is going to admit anything), the brave GOP members and the brave Democratic members of both houses declare their moral outrage that *any* state employee should be pressured to bend the law for the benefit of any member of the House or Senate or resident of the Governor's mansion.

How about if such a hue and cry were raised that the General Assembly and the Governor wound up being intimidated for a change, instead of state employees?

We had testimony from Torval Wade to the effect that he was subject to such pressure, but I don't think we've heard members of the General Assembly righteously declaring that he/she wouldn't do that and that any member who would should be exposed for doing so.

We have Governor Easley thumbing his nose at all of us and cheekily declaring March 20th to be "Sunshine Day," but we haven't heard him deny that anyone from his office has ever pressured a state agency to destroy emails and we haven't heard him deny that he has every pressured a state agency to fire someone who displeased him. Instead, we get this gobbledy-gook from one of his attorneys saying "there is no evidence" that this occurred. Maybe, like George W. Bush looking for weapons of mass destruction, counsel looked under his desk and behind the window curtains before turning to us and shrugging, "oops, no evidence here!"

No, we won't hear Governor Easley stating under oath that Debbie Crane's allegations are false. Nor will we hear members of the General Assembly standing up to swear they would never abuse the state's public records and open meetings laws.

N.C. GOP calls for records inquiry

bkrueger — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:48:35 -0400

Linda Daves, chairwoman of the N.C. Republican Party, is calling on Attorney General Roy Cooper to investigate claims that the governor's office directed state officials to destroy public records.

Daves sent a letter to Cooper today asking that he investigate claims by Debbie Crane, who was fired recently as the chief spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, that she and her counterparts at other state agencies were instructed to destroy e-mails they sent to the governor's office.

Daves also cited the comments this week by Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, that he tossed away a letter he received from Carmen Hooker Odom, the former head of DHHS.

"The public records laws are a critical tool in making certain that a window into government is open so that we know our elected representatives are working judiciously on our behalf," Daves wrote in the letter.

Officials with Cooper's office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Update: Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for Cooper, said the attorney general's office "has been examining these issues" since The N&O first raised the issue. She said that "comments now would be premature" because of the possibility of litigation over the matter.

But Talley, who said Cooper has not yet received the letter, indicated she was not surprised that Daves turned to Cooper for help. "Of course they would turn to Attorney General Cooper, who wrote most of the state's public records laws and is a leader on open government," she said.