Two and a half months before the D.C. group Women's Voices Women Vote began making illegal, anonymous robo-calls to voters in North Carolina, they had promised to stop the practice nationally, after being investigated by state police in Virginia.

As The Virginian-Pilot reported:

State Police, working with the State Board of Elections, began an investigation after more than a dozen reports from residents across the state saying they had received unsolicited phone calls Wednesday and Thursday about registering to vote. [...]

"The messages did not specify who or where the packets were coming from," [police spokeswoman Corrinne] Geller said. [...]

By Friday, however, investigators obtained some of the packets and tracked them to the source.

Women's Voices Women Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, made the calls and sent the mailings, Geller said.

The group said it is part of an "unprecedented" effort to register women. Trouble was, it was largely unheard of. The calls to potential voters started even before the effort was announced. [...]

Sarah Johnson, communications director for the organization , said Friday that not including information about the source of the voter registration effort was "absolutely an accidental omission."

She said the group was changing its nationwide phone alerts to make clear who is coordinating the effort.

It was 11 weeks later -- over two and a half months -- that Women's Voices began blanketing North Carolina with anonymous robo-calls from a fictitious caller named "Lamont Williams." As a tape recording of the North Carolina calls show, the calls in no way identify their source. Recipients of the calls tell Facing South that the phone number of the caller was also blocked.

Yesterday, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper confirmed that the Women's Voices robo-calls were illegal because of the lack of identifying information, and left open the possibility of criminal sanctions against the group.

Did Women's Voices lie to the Virginia State Police when they promised to stop making anonymous robo-calls? Or were the illegal, anonymous calls in North Carolina just another "accidental omission?"

Labels: facing south, north carolina, robo-calls, roy cooper, sarah johnson, virginia, voting rights, women's voices women vote

Women's Voices Women Vote has responded in several forums to the issues we raised in yesterday's investigation about their illegal and deceptive voter outreach activities. The main response came from group founder and president Page Gardner, in a statement titled: "Confusion Surrounding Robo-Calls in North Carolina."

First, it's important to note that Gardner's statement in no ways refutes, or even addresses, any of the basic facts put forward by our investigation:

* In North Carolina, Women's Voices has been conducting a robo-call and mailing campaign that the state Attorney General has confirmed is illegal, that has been secretive and deceptive, and will likely have the effect of confusing and discouraging North Carolina voters.

* Our report documents that, in at least 10 other states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin -- Women's Voices has drawn condemnation from election officials and voters. The group has been accused of misrepresenting election law, using secretive and dishonest tactics and generating widespread confusion among voters -- again, threatening to dampen voter participation.

* The role Women's Voices has played in the Virginia and North Carolina primaries has been especially disruptive. In both cases, they launched deceptive robo-calls -- some apparently targeting African-American zip codes -- just before major primaries, leading residents to think they weren't registered to vote.

* Women's Voices has a number of ties to Sen. Hillary Clinton; we provide additional examples here. We don't suggest, and have no evidence to suggest, that Women's Voices is formally connected to the Clinton campaign. However, we do believe such close ties deserve scrutiny.

Ms. Gardner's statement addresses none of these documented issues. Confronted with evidence of repeated deceptive and even illegal actions, Gardner says only, "We apologize for any confusion our calls may have caused."

Unfortunately, this is typical: As we found in our investigation spanning 10 states, every time problems have emerged, Women's Voices responds by "apologizing for confusion." A Google search of "Women's Voices Women Vote" and "confusion" brings up 412 hits. A newspaper in Michigan quipped that Women's Voices media staffer Sarah Johnson seemed "confused by the confusion."

But chalking up serious election law violations and misleading practices to "mistakes" and "confusion" doesn't answer the questions; it just raises more of them. Women's Voices is doing itself no favors by refusing to directly address the facts and issues at hand.

For example, does "confusion" explain Women's Voices' illegal and deceptive robo-calls in multiple states? Does it pardon the group's misleading and legally inaccurate mailings to hundreds of thousands of voters?

Does "confusion" account for their disruption of the primaries in North Carolina and Virginia? I asked Johnson why the group launched its confusing voter registration campaign in Virginia when they did -- two weeks before the big primary, but two weeks too late for anyone to actually register. She stumbled through several explanations before landing on, "We wanted to make sure they were registered for the general [election] in November." Really? The first week in February, probably the worst time to be dropping a misleading robo-call and mailing campaign in Virginia, was the only week available?

Also: Is it really a "mistake" or "confusion" when you get the same complaints in 10 or more states across the country over the course of at least five months? After a while, the "confusion" defense runs out of steam.

But in this case, it's never been a strong defense. Women's Voices is made up of some of the most seasoned and sophisticated political operatives in Washington. Their staff bios show decades of experience at the highest levels, all the way up to presidential campaigns for Bill Clinton.

Does such a well-connected, deeply-funded and All-Star cast of high-level operatives really make "mistakes" like carrying out illegal robo-calls and forgetting the presidential primary calendar?

At some point, that explanation is no longer plausible, and Women's Voices Women Vote owes voters a real explanation.

Labels: facing south, hillary clinton, north carolina, north carolina primary, Page Gardner, robo-calls, sarah johnson, virginia, voting rights, women's voices women vote

Two weeks after the arrest of eight people protesting Duke Energy's plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in western North Carolina, another group of activists was detained following a similar action in Virginia.

Three people were arrested yesterday morning while blocking the entrance to Dominion Power's headquarters in Richmond. They were part of a larger group of activists with Blue Ridge Earth First! who were protesting the company's plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia's Wise County.

"Climate change is jeopardizing my future and I'm not going to just sit by and let Dominion lock us into another generation of dirty coal," said Barbie Spitz, a student who participated in the roadblock.

Dominion's Wise County plant would release 5.4 million tons of carbon dioxide annually as well as 49 pounds of mercury and other hazardous pollutants. The plant's demand for coal would also accelerate the rate of mountaintop removal mining, which has already destroyed 25 percent of Wise County's mountains.

Earth First! also recently blockaded the construction site for FPL's planned gas-fired power plant in Palm Beach County, Fla. That February protest, which was organized by Everglades Earth First!, resulted in the arrest of 27 people. FPL's facility would release 12 millions tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year.

(Photo courtesy of Blue Ridge Earth First!; to see more photos from the action, click here.)

Labels: climate, coal, Earth First, global warming, protests, virginia

We learned Friday that the still-unnamed individuals who improperly accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were not actually State Department employees but worked for two private contractors -- The Analysis Corp.* and Stanley Associates. Both companies are based in Virginia.

Earlier this week, Arlington-based Stanley won a five-year, $570 million contract from the State Department to provide passport services. Stanley also runs immigration document processing centers and recently cut wages for some of those employees despite a surge in applications. Employees protested the pay cut, picketing in front of a federal office building in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Stanley's chairman, president and CEO, Phil Nolan, is a Hillary Clinton supporter, having donated $1,000 to her campaign on Feb. 20, according to OpenSecrets.org.

The Analysis Corp. of McLean was founded in 1990 and acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary of SFA Inc. of Crofton, Md. in 2003. The company is headed by John O. Brennan, a former CIA agent who is an adviser to Obama's presidential campaign on intelligence and foreign policy. OpenSecrets.org reports that Brennan donated $2,300 to Obama's campaign on Jan. 28.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, which oversees the State Department, announced Friday that it would investigate the security breaches. The State Department's Inspector General is also looking into the incidents.

* I originally reported that the company involved was The Analysis Group; I apologize for the error.

Labels: barack obama, hillary clinton, john mccain, passport snooping scandal, stanley associates, state department, the analysis group, virginia

Virginia lawmakers are giving prosecutors a powerful new tool to crack down on the brutal practice of dogfighting. Earlier this month, they passed a bill adding the crime to others covered under the state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which has been used in the past against criminal enterprises involving drugs, gambling and child pornography.

Making dogfighting a RICO crime gives Virginia prosecutors enhanced investigatory powers as well as more generous statute limitations, tougher sentences, bigger fines, the ability to "seize and freeze" a defendant's assets before conviction, and forfeiture of any gains. Written by the national nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund, the legislation was shepherded through the assembly by state Sen. W. Roscoe Reynolds. ALDF Executive Director Stephen Wells says the new law "sends a very strong message to the dogfighting community."

The move comes after authorities busted a Virginia dogfighting operation last year involving former Atlanta Falcons football star Michael Vick, who's now serving a 23-month sentence in federal prison. Vick's co-defendant Tony Taylor was released from prison this week after completing his two-month sentence, the lightest of the four due to his cooperation with federal officials.

Virginia is not the only state that's getting tougher on dogfighting: Georgia lawmakers recently passed a bill that stiffens penalties for dogfighting and that makes it illegal to be a spectator at a dogfight. The measure also outlaws owning, breeding, purchasing, or transporting a dog for the purpose of fighting or baiting. And at the federal level, Congress last year passed the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act, which makes it a felony to organize a dog fight.

(Photo of a fight-scarred pit bull courtesy of the Louisiana SPCA)

Labels: dogfighting, friday dogblogging, Georgia, Michael Vick, pit bulls, virginia

The business news is awash with panic today, what with financial stalwart Bear Stearns avoiding bankruptcy only by being gobbled up by J.P Morgan.

The five-alarm headlines may be a bit much: as Houston blogger Bonddad notes, "the markets are actually holding up pretty well." But there are other signs that fundamental problems in the economy are hurting the very ability of states to govern.

Today, the New York Times picks up on something we reported almost a month ago -- increasingly gloomy economic forecasts facing governors and state legislators. Thanks largely to plunging tax revenues, 25 states are anticipating shortfalls for fiscal year 2009 -- putting key programs and projects at risk:

Florida has seen its sales tax revenue decline for two straight fiscal years, the first time officials there recall that happening, the result of a collapsing housing market that has homeowners spending less. The state, which has no income tax, relies heavily on sales taxes for its state programs. [...]

Kentucky has its largest budget crisis in state history, sparked by the movement of manufacturing jobs overseas. [...]

To help close a $600 million budget gap in Virginia, the state made hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts at universities, including dorm cleaning staff, library budgets and graduate assistantships. (The governor [Democrat Tim Kaine] wrote the state a check, giving back 5 percent of his salary, to help balance the books.)

The broader economic downturn may be out of the control of state lawmakers -- but it thrusts them into the difficult position of having to slash programs or raise taxes, both especially hard in an election year.

Labels: bear stearns, economy, financial markets, Florida, kentucky, state politics, virginia

Global warming skeptic Patrick J. Michaels has left the climatologist’s office at the University of Virginia -- a big relief to university faculty who lamented Michaels’ industry funding and contrarian views on global warming. (See past Facing South coverage here and here)

Though the state of Virginia funds the climatologist’s office at the university, the state has repudiated Michaels' oft-repeated claims that he was the official “state climatologist,” and the governor’s office made clear that Michael’s views on global warming do not represent those of the state.

Where is Michaels going? The corporate-funded libertarian Cato Institute, of course -- a staunch opponent critic of global warming theories. Michaels reports that he relishes the ability to “speak more freely” in his work at Cato.

NOTE: Michaels isn't new to the Cato Institute. As his profile at their website shows, he's been publishing studies with them since the 1990s.

(H/T to the Center for Science in the Public Interest)

Labels: global warming, virginia