Durham Dems OK Use of Public Facilities for Partisan Events | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's note: The author of this fine report, Dan Way, is an associate editor of the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Republicans say electioneering should not be allowed on government property

    DURHAM     Durham County Democrats say Republican complaints about hosting partisan Democratic events at government facilities are off-base because nothing prevents Republicans from using public meeting space for their own partisan activities.

    The Durham County Republican Party has crossed swords -- and prevailed -- when city and county governments have allowed organizations favorable to Democratic causes to use public property for thinly veiled campaign purposes.

    "It seems to be a pattern of Durham County government and government officials electioneering," said Theodore Hicks, chairman of the Durham GOP.

    "We have to stand up and say we won't tolerate shenanigans," Hicks said.

    In the past two weeks, two events on county-owned property drew further Republican condemnation.

    Doctors for America, "which was formerly known as Doctors for Obama," held a supportive rally for President Obama's signature health care reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, at Lincoln Community Health Center, Hicks said.

    And Organizing for America, a spinoff of the Democratic National Committee that supports Obama's legislative agenda, held a voter registration drive at Durham Regional Hospital.

    "How is that nonpartisan?" Hicks said of the voter registration drive at a county-owned facility by a "group that is dedicated to getting Barack Obama re-elected." He said he received several emails from people objecting to the event.

    Among Hicks' concerns is if a Democratic organization would try to persuade people to register as Democrats or if it might fail to turn in voter registration forms from Republican applicants.

    He's been contacted by some Duke medical students who filled out voter registration cards at other sites operated by liberal groups whose registrations have not shown up at the local elections board, he said.

    "Durham County Republicans are outnumbered in Durham 4-to-1," and "those on the left in Durham have had, let's face it, kind of a free rein," Hicks said.

    There are 117,438 registered Democrats in Durham County, 50,132 independents and 29,215 Republicans.

    "The deck is being stacked against conservatives by shenanigans like this," he said of the recent events, which the Republicans are now examining for possible action, Hicks said. "I do think it is coming from a culture that is not used to being challenged."

    Republicans also complained last fall when the City of Durham put a video on its public access television station advocating passage of a half-cent transit tax. After the John Locke Foundation pointed out a state statute bars using public resources to make a partisan presentation on a political issue, the city took down the video.

    Later that fall, county commissioners scheduled a hearing at which all the speakers favored the transit tax and a separate education tax on the November ballot. Republicans again objected that the commission failed to provide opposing views. The commissioners canceled the hearing.

    This spring the commissioners canceled a hearing and vote on a resolution opposing the state constitutional amendment on marriage after Republicans objected.

    "I don't see them as much different," Hicks said of the earlier misuses of public resources and the events of the past two weeks. "It is effectively the county endorsing a partisan issue."

    "Somebody within these organizations are indeed signing off on them," Hicks said. "They don't believe it's illegal, or they know it's illegal but it doesn't really matter because nobody's going to complain."

    "It does seem sticky," Durham County Commission chairman Michael Page said of the lack of a clearly written policy on use of government buildings.

    "I do think there needs to be a fair process," Page said. "What that fair practice would be I'm not sure."

    However, he sees no legal problem with "who is registering them to vote," despite the Republicans' objections.

    "Until they can find justifiable reasons to say that should not happen there is really not a lot we can do," Page said. If Republicans don't feel like they are being fairly represented at public events, "they can build a case for that."

    Durham County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow sees nothing wrong with the recent events.

    "We do allow political groups to use our space. The Democratic Party has held meetings in our chambers," Reckhow said. "We would allow the Republicans" the same access.

    Asked whether she thought an opposing point of view should have been offered at the health care rally given that the law is a pivotal issue in the current presidential election and Republicans want to repeal it, Reckhow said, "I think I've commented on it about as much as I can."

    "To our knowledge, there are no election laws barring partisan political activities on taxpayer property," said Deborah Craig-Ray, Durham assistant county manger.

    "The event at Lincoln Community Health Center was not a county function, and the property is not under the control of the county, therefore the county has no authority to interfere with the use of the property by the tenant other than enforcing the rights and obligations under the lease," Craig-Ray said.

    The same would hold true at Durham Regional, which is leased to a non-county board, Duke County Hospital Corporation, which subleases to Duke University Health System, she said.

    "Doctors for America is a nonpartisan organization. We have both Republicans and Democrats ... people of all stripes," said Dr. Alice Chen, executive director of the group and an internal medicine physician.

    "The people who started the organization had also started the organization called Doctors for Obama," she acknowledged, but likened them to simply "a bunch of individuals who got on a petition," while Doctors for America is a 501©3 nonpartisan, nonprofit group.

    "There's a lot of misinformation [about the health care law], so we're here to present the facts," Chen said.

    When asked about the Republicans' concerns that opposing viewpoints were not offered at the rally, Chen replied: "It's exactly this kind of political maneuvering that is keeping us from ... talking about the solutions."

    Michael Perry, Durham County Board of Elections director, said he has heard complaints from citizens about partisan organizations conducting voter registration drives, but none about the Durham Regional event.

    "We don't really have much jurisdiction whatsoever as far as where things are done," Perry said.

    Johnnie McLean, deputy director for administration at the State Board of Elections, said her office has received no complaints about the voter registration drive.

    "Voter registration can be conducted by any group wherever they choose to conduct it," so long as it has permission for facility use and does not refuse to accept voter registration applications from anyone because of party affiliation, McLean said.

    If a governing body of an entity on public property does not make the facility open for everybody, it must pay fair market value of the costs associated with having such an event on their grounds, according to Gary Bartlett, State Board of Elections director.

    That expense would have to be documented in federal or state campaign finance political action committee reports, Bartlett said.

    Durham City Councilman Mike Woodard rejected the notion that there is a pattern of abuse by Democratic elected officials in misusing public resources for political purposes. And he defended the city posting of the transit tax video on its public access TV channel.

    "There was no admission that it was partisan or that any of the information was in error or violated the statute," Woodard said.

    The tax referendum was nonpartisan and had bipartisan support, he said.

    "Rather than have the issue with the Republican Party become more important than the [transit tax] issue itself, we just decided to pull it down," Woodard said.