Meet republican asshole, Art Pope

Another shitty red state slipping further into obscurity.

During his last term as a state legislator in 2002, Art Pope led the fight against the bill that would go on to create the N.C. Public Campaign Fund. When Pope left the legislature that year, the voice of opposition to public judicial financing shifted to Pope's network of conservative advocacy groups, which receive more than 85 percent of their income from Pope's foundation. More than a decade after Pope lost his battle to defeat the N.C. Public Campaign Fund on the floor of the General Assembly, this year he found himself well-positioned to end the program once and for all. What will North Carolina's courts look like now that Pope has succeeded in his decade-long mission? During his visit to North Carolina in May, John F. McCuskey, the conservative former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice, had this to say about his state's experience: Money was having an inordinate influence in the selection of our highest judicial offices in our state Supreme Court. The perception of judges being bought, rather than acting impartially, had created a great distrust among the populace.