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GOP Hall of Fame Inductees Have Earned Their Place In Infamy

Jeremy Sprinkle
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NC State AFL-CIO, PO Box 10805, Raleigh, NC 27605

For Immediate Release

Contact: Jeremy Sprinkle, Communications Director, 919-833-6678, [email protected];

GOP HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES HAVE EARNED THEIR PLACE IN INFAMY

Six reasons the North Carolina GOP should be ashamed to celebrate on November 19th

Raleigh, N.C. – Acolytes and luminaries of the North Carolina Republican Party will gather in Cary on Saturday, November 19 to heap praise and honor on themselves and rake in lots of corporate cash at the 15th biennial GOP Hall of Fame ceremony.  The list of nominees for induction this year includes Ron Margiotta, who led Wake County Schools into becoming the object of national ridicule and scorn until being rejected by voters in local elections last month.

Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry is also up for an award, perhaps nominated by the very employers who have financed her election campaigns in exchange for drastically reduced fines despite repeat OSHA violations.

For many of North Carolina’s working families, there has been little to celebrate since Republicans took control of the General Assembly in January of this year, and here are six reasons why:

#6 – Put polluters before public health by crippling regulators’ ability to protect the environment.

#5 – Undermined North Carolina’s constitutional mandate to provide quality public education by slashing essential funding and lifting the cap on privately operated charter schools.

#4 – Jeopardized jobless workers’ lives by withholding unemployment benefits for weeks to extort budget concessions from the Governor and later by dismantling the independent agency charged with distributing these benefits.

#3 – Attempted to disenfranchise poor, elderly, and minority voters by imposing specious Voter ID requirements, limiting early voting, and eliminating same-day registration.

#2 – Legalized corporate tax evasion and cost North Carolina hundreds of millions of dollars by preventing the Department of Revenue from going after tax deadbeats in the future and proposing amnesty for past violators.

#1 – Enacted a slash-and-burn state budget that puts preserving the interests of the top 1% ahead of the other 99% while rolling back decades of progress in North Carolina.

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