Moyers' documentary slaps at Art Pope, N.C.

Let's get ready to rummmbbbllleeeee!

A Jan. 3 broadcast documentary by Bill Moyers on North Carolina's political landscape is sparking a lot of conversation, as well as heated consternation from one prominent focus of the piece.

Moyers' "North Carolina: Battleground State" is a smackdown of the influence of big money on political changes in the state as it moved "hard right" politically.

Said Moyers in the lead in to the piece on his public TV show, Bill Moyers and Company, "On this first weekend of the year, we’re looking at one state that embodies the conflicts roiling the whole country. On one side: a government controlled by the most right-wing conservatives of the Republican Party, who are remaking their state in their image, fueled by the wealth and power of one very rich man. On the other side: a very vocal mix of citizens whose resistance turned the first day of every week into a 'Moral Monday.'”

That very rich man Moyers refers to is Art Pope, N.C. GOP Gov. Pat McCrory's deputy budget director. Notes a column on Moyers' website explaining the broadcast:

“State of Conflict: North Carolina” offers a documentary report from a state that votes both blue and red and sometimes purple (Romney carried it by a whisker in 2012, Obama by an eyelash in 2008). Now, however, Republicans hold the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature and they are steering North Carolina far to the right: slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, providing vouchers to private schools, cutting unemployment benefits, refusing to expand Medicaid and rolling back electoral reforms, including voting rights.

At the heart of this conservative onslaught sits a businessman who is so wealthy and powerful that he is frequently described as the state’s own “Koch brother.” Art Pope, whose family fortune was made via a chain of discount stores, has poured tens of millions of dollars into a network of foundations and think tanks that advocate a wide range of conservative causes. Pope is also a major funder of conservative political candidates in the state."

The column goes on to describe the leader of that "very vocal mix of citizens" opposed to the changes by Pope, McCrory and the Republican-dominated legislature.

"Pope’s most ardent opponent is the Reverend William Barber, head of the state chapter of the NAACP, who says the right-wing state government has produced “an avalanche of extremist policies that threaten health care, that threaten education [and] that threaten the poor.” Barber’s opposition to the legislature as well as the Pope alliance became a catalyst for the protest movement that became known around the country as 'Moral Mondays.'”

The Pope Foundation that Art Pope chairs punched back in a response that is on its website. The response written by David W. Riggs, the Pope Foundation's executive vice president, reads in part: 

"The one-hour program falsely portrayed the charitable work of the John William Pope Foundation and of our Chairman and President, Art Pope.

"'State of Conflict: North Carolina' repeated the false claim that Art Pope and the Pope Foundation 'bought' the state of North Carolina, mostly through giving to public policy nonprofits that advocate for common sense free-market reforms...  Many left-wing operatives have hurled similar accusations for years. The claims have never stuck because they are entirely false.

"But Mr. Moyers doesn’t merely repeat a falsehood. Worse, he conceals the fact that the Pope Foundation is not the largest grantor to public policy groups in North Carolina. While the Pope Foundation gives around $5 million to conservative, free-market organizations in North Carolina each year, that number pales in comparison to the $10 million to $11 million given annually by left-wing foundations to progressive groups in the Tar Heel State.

"In 2011 alone, three progressive foundations gave generously to left-of-center, liberal groups in North Carolina: The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation ($9.2 million in grants), the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation ($614,000 in grants), and the A.J. Fletcher Foundation ($588,000 in grants)."

Whether Moral Mondays will affect any of the legislative changes made in North Carolina last year isn't known. Barber, the NAACP and other groups and individuals have filed lawsuits to stop some of the changes. But Moral Mondays have caught fire elsewhere with groups in other states planning their own.

Moyers though contends that the N.C. story about money and influence on political changes is more than a local story. "It offers a case study of what may be the direction of American politics for years, perhaps decades, to come," he says.

We'll see.