NC House race - Who is REALLY the "sellout" - Kidwell or Armstrong? | Eastern NC Now

A series of postcards has recently hit mailboxes from a dark money PAC dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into District 79 against incumbent conservative legislator Keith Kidwell.  They urge voters to :Kick Out" Kidwell who they call a "Sell Out".

What they leave very murky is what this is about and who they accuse Kidwell of "selling out".

The whole kerfluffle revolves around language inserted by RINO Jimmy Dixon into the proposed farm bill that would have prevented North Carolina citizens from suing a big out of state chemical company for selling a product containing a known cancer causing chemical.  This was tried in Congress and many states, but supporters of the chemical company only passed such a bill in two states.

This language would have "sold out" North Carolinians who got cancer from this chemical company's product.  Ironically, they could have still sued local famers who used the chemical but not the big out of state chemical company that produced it.

In the NC House, the Republican caucus overwhelmingly rejected protecting this chemical company from injured NC citizens.  Kidwell was directed to take action in committee to strip this provision from the farm bill, and GOP members backed him up to do so.

Dixon recruited Armstrong to challenge Kidwell.  Armstrong has made it clear on very little of where he stands but has said he supports protecting this chemical company.  Thus, it is Armstrong, not Kidwell, who would be "selling out" actual North Carolina citizens.  Who is Kidwell accused of selling out? That out of state chemical company?

The dark money PAC goes on to accuse Kidwell of being in league with the trial lawyers, presumably on the theory that anyone suing the chemical company would need a lawyer to do so.  But the reality is shown in campaign reports which reveal that Kidwell has never received a dime in contributions from the trial lawyers' PAC.  His reports also show that he is hardly a contribution favorite of individual trial lawyers, either.  This claim is totally bogus.

If one is going to bat for local citizens, they would want any local people who get cancer from a chemical company knowingly putting out a product containing cancer causing substances to have recourse against that company to cover their medical bills and other losses.  Kidwell was standing up for local people in helping block this sellout to the chemical company, while Armstrong supports the sellout to that company.

If Dixon and Armstrong, and, yes, liberal RINO Steve Troxler, had their way, an employee or neighbor of a farmer who got cancer from this chemical, they could sue the farmer who applied it but not the chemical company which made it.  That is a total sellout of local people.

But the conflict of interest problem for Armstrong gets even worse.  Armstrong's seed business grows genetically modified seeds for Monsanto, the very same chemical company that would be protected from lawsuits by the legislation that Armstrong supports.

Kidwell did not "sell out" local people.  He stood up for them and their rights.  It is Armstrong whose position would sell local people out, in favor of an out of state company that he himself has deep business ties to.

And the dark money group behind the postcards?  Nobody knows where their money comes from, but given their obsession with this issue, common sense says it is likely they are being funded at least in part by this very same out of state chemical company.