Director's Note

Reclaiming Our State’s Good Name

Recently an out-of-state consultant asked the question, “How did North Carolina get the nickname ‘The Good Government State?’” His question was met with some shame and head-hanging, before some in the audience tried to explain “the way it was.”

North Carolina, which for so long has enjoyed a very good reputation of clean and ethical government, now has a black eye and even casual observers chuckle about our former nickname. We may have had more problems in the last five years than in the previous fifty.

This fuels public cynicism about government and politics, and makes voters wonder why they should even care. Why should they vote if the system, they think, is rigged?

We are in a dangerous spiral, not common in our history.

While people have always had a love-hate relationship with their elected officials, confidence in our government as an institution has never been threatened to the degree it has been recently.

Media reaction to scandal and corruption -- and attacks that exploit these stories as a political issue -- sensationalize the problems, but often do little to help solve them. People see their government as flawed, but are given no hope or motivation to fix it.

Prior to the Watergate scandal, public faith in government was routinely measured at about 75 percent. Today, only about 30 percent of the public has faith and confidence in government to listen to their concerns and work to solve problems in their community.

The betrayal of the public trust by elected officials is not something to dismiss or treat lightly. But it is

just as important not to damage citizens’ faith and confidence in their government, for it is crucial to the functioning of our democracy and the rule of law.

Please join us in working together to find constructive solutions to our recent problems in state government. Neither pointing fingers nor hiding our heads in the sand is a responsible option.

Chris Heagarty
Executive Director, N.C. Center for Voter Education

A New Addition to NCCVE

The N.C. Center for Voter Education welcomes Damon Circosta, as the Center’s senior research fellow. Damon is a 2003 graduate of the University of Arizona School of Law, and a former extern with the U.S. Senate where he focused on campaign reform issues, including the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Prior to his employment with the Center, Damon worked at a public policy think tank as well as in electoral politics, including as the manager of a successful, publicly funded judicial campaign.