Hi all. I am making a quick request for urgently needed help along the lines of last year’s SB 31, the bill that would have made felons out of some complementary and alternative medicine practitioners, which we successfully fought (see North Carolina CAM Practitioners Safe For Now - Thank You and How We Did It). This year’s issue crosses all concerns regardless of your political leanings. It involves the NC General Assembly’s prevention of citizen participation in legislative committee meetings. The antagonism toward citizens is incredibly frightening and signals the growing loss of citizen influence over our elected officials. If you find this concern worthy of action, please take action as suggested below and forward this email to others.
What is going on?
In the past year I have attempted to participate as a private citizen in a couple of NC legislative issues: the Constitutional Ban on Same Sex Marriage and the Fracking bill, which was passed by the House yesterday. In both cases, citizens were shut out of the process. My account, complaints and recommendations to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House are below.
North Carolinians deserve full access to their elected officials and government processes, and currently the majority of the legislature is not even remotely recognizing us as a factor in their proceedings. This is as un-American as it gets and can’t be allowed to stand.
How can you help stop this incredible erosion of citizen rights? Please send an email to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House and cc: Governor Bev Perdue telling them the following, tailored to fit your personality and concerns as needed.
Here are the email addresses you need:
Speaker of the House: Thom.Tillis@ncleg.net
President of the Senate: Phil.Berger@ncleg.net
Governor Bev Perdue governor.office@nc.gov
Here is a suggested email message to send:
Subject: Citizen Participation in the Legislative Process
Dear Senator Berger and Speaker Tillis:
The General Assembly as a whole has been repeatedly shutting average citizens out of the legislative process, as shown most recently by the exclusion of citizen participation in committee meetings discussing S860, the Fracking Bill, in both of your chambers. It is bad enough that citizen testimony is not taken and even worse that meeting rooms are chosen that are not large enough to accommodate the majority of the citizens who want to be present to learn what their legislators are deciding and why.
Citizen participation in government is the cornerstone of American freedom, and it appears that the North Carolina General Assembly no longer acknowledges the importance of this founding principle.
Please respond by explaining why citizens are purposefully prevented from participating in the government process due to quick changes of meeting location with no warning, downsizing of meeting rooms, and purposeful prevention of testimony from average citizens (specifically, those who do not represent corporations or other organizations) if they are allowed to enter meeting rooms.
Please require that committee chairs include citizen testimony in committee meetings for all citizens who sign in to speak. If you disagree with this requirement, please explain why.
I look forward to learning your plans regarding these recommendations and any other efforts you make to ensure that the North Carolina General Assembly is as friendly to the average citizen as it is to corporations and other organizations.
Sincerely,
[Insert Your Name]
Here is the email (and via U.S. mail) that I sent:
Dear Senator Berger and Speaker Tillis:
I am writing to express my exceptional disgust with the North Carolina General Assembly. In the past year the General Assembly has repeatedly rebuffed the average citizen’s attempts to participate in the legislative process via legislative committee meetings. The most recent and infuriating General Assembly snubbings occurred in both the House and Senate committee meetings where S860, the fracking bill, was discussed.
In the case of the Senate committee meeting, over 150 people, including my son and me, were prevented from listening to the meeting, let alone testifying to the committee, because we were prohibited from entering the meeting room. Just as frustrating, at the last minute the Senate committee meeting was moved to a smaller room, further decreasing the opportunity for citizen involvement because fewer citizens could actually fit into the room. I am grateful that my Senator tracked me and others down to let us know that the meeting was moved, but I was still unable to enter the room. It is exasperating that no public testimony was allowed during the House committee meeting on June 13, 2012, either.
The other instance in which my son and I attempted to participate in legislative matters involved the committee meetings where the proposed Constitutional Ban of Same Sex Marriage amendment was considered. That meeting day was even more absurd than the fracking committee meeting day, with a committee meeting canceled at the last minute and another repeatedly moved. My son and I, along with dozens of other people, hiked around the legislative buildings trying to find the right meeting room as the committee chair toyed with the citizens who came to voice their opinions. At last we made it into the room, we tried to sign up to speak, and no public testimony was taken.
These two efforts to participate were important for me, as I am trying to teach my son that we, as average citizens, have the right to and can interact with our legislators during their consideration of bills during committee meetings. As a former Florida resident I found that the average citizen could testify before legislative committees regularly. What gives in North Carolina? Why aren’t citizens treated with the same respect? The disregard for citizen involvement is so blatant that even the press has picked up on it.
In both the fracking and Constitutional Amendment cases it was clear that the Republican majority had made its collective determinations prior to the meetings. Even so, you, as leaders of your respective chambers, should at least strongly direct committee chairs to allow citizen participation in the legislative process regardless of their positions on bills. If committee chairs continue to reject citizen participation they should be removed from their leadership positions.
My son and I have been watching the HBO series John Adams, based on the excellent book by David McCollough. We talk in depth about the very difficult decisions and sacrifices that John Adams, his family and the other founders made on behalf of securing freedom for America. We talk about what that freedom is, the honor needed to uphold it, and how, as Americans, we must expect and require honor and fairness from our legislators. The North Carolina General Assembly as a whole has not exhibited any of these traits, as emphasized by its exclusion of citizen participation.
I asked my son what we should do about the General Assembly’s poor treatment of North Carolinians. He said that we should do what John Adams did and make our concerns known to you because you need to change the way you treat us. I told him it could be a long, drawn out effort, as it seems that the General Assembly is used to ignoring us and is not motivated to change, and he said that it didn’t matter. America’s Founders wouldn’t accept such treatment and neither should we.
I admire and believe in the brilliant government system that our Founders created, and it pains me deeply that we are now so far removed from it. My son is nine years old, and I hope that as he matures our General Assembly will encourage inclusion of citizens, as opposed to today’s practice of exclusion.
Please write us back with your responses to our questions, concerns and recommendations. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Laura Combs Colson Combs
cc: Governor Bev Perdue
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