NCDP Memo - Friday, November 20

Thank you for your continuing efforts on behalf of the Party and the input, advice, and assistance you have all offered over the past few months. Chairman David Young and I both greatly appreciate your on-going work for the betterment of our Party. To that end, David has implemented several significant steps to accomplish our goals that we wanted to communicate to you as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday.

Campaign Finance: Being cleared by the State Board of Elections and the dismissal of all complaints filed against the Party was a confirmation of our ethics, standards, and practices in campaign finance. But exoneration is not enough – we need to take the lead. The NCDP has a long history of working closely with our elected officials and our candidates – and they with us – to win elections and work for the ideals for which we all stand. To ensure that we continue to lead by example and encourage open government and transparency, we are taking the following steps to ensure compliance with both the letter and the spirit of campaign finance law and policy:

1. We will send a memo out to all Democratic elected officials reiterating our relationship with them and reminding them of the laws within which that relationship much remain.

2. We will require that all elected officials/candidates, their campaign staff, and NCDP Finance staff and consultants sign a declaration that they will not solicit funds for the Party by either explicitly or implicitly telling a donor that funds will be used for a specific candidate or candidate committee.

3. We will be adding language to all our invitation and finance correspondence stating that no contribution may or will be earmarked for a candidate.

We have attached all the documents discussed above to this email.

Winter SEC Meeting: The date of the Winter SEC meeting will be February 6th. We are holding it on this date to meet a request of the Governor. She very much wants to be a part of the event and was unavailable throughout the month of January. She will also be graciously hosting members of the Executive Council and others at a reception at the Mansion later that evening. We are still finalizing the details of this event, so please do not advertise it yet. Governor Perdue is dedicated to working closely with all of you, the leaders of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

2010 Budget: As a part of our campaign for transparency, we are preparing a proposed budget for 2010 to be presented to you one month prior to the SEC meeting.

Executive Council Meeting: Official notices will be going out from the Goodwin House in the near future, but we wanted to give you a “Save the Date” heads up on the next Executive Council Meeting which will be Saturday, January 9th. The Congressional District Chairs had requested the meeting be held in December, however due to the holidays, the travel that accompanies them, and DNC meetings in Miami on December 10-13, there was no Saturday in December that worked logistically for a Council meeting. The Council will also meet the morning of the SEC meeting in February.

Finance Reporting: One of the Council agenda items requested by the Congressional District Chairs to discuss at the next Council meeting is the relationship between the NCDP and Nexus Strategies, which is led by former NCDP staffers Scott Falmlen and Morgan Jackson. We have heard the same rumors that you are hearing that Nexus and/or Scott Falmlen received payments from the Party of more than $1 million in the 2008.

We have carefully scrutinized the disbursements made by the Party and have determined that the rumors are totally false.

As the compliance consultant for the NCDP – an area where Mr. Falmlen is a recognized as an expert both in North Carolina and nationally – Nexus Strategies was paid a total of $38,500. A listing of the payments in 2008 follows:

All contributions received and disbursements made by the Party are fully disclosed to the body which it is required to report – either the NC SBOE or FEC. These reports are available to anyone at anytime online at http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?id=22 or www.fec.gov. Additionally, all invoices and check stubs are available to any member of the Party who wishes to review them.

Campaign Reports Hyperlink: As many of you know, you can access Campaign Reports on-line. We have taken the step in this email of providing a link to each of the FEC reports filed by the Party in 2008. The FEC Reports are listed below by month and/or reporting period. The first link will take you to the reports “home page.” From there you can click on either “Schedule B,” which lists all federal disbursements made by the Party for that month, or “Schedule H4,” which lists all federal-state shared disbursements made by the Party for that month.

We have also provided a notation for any disbursement, if any disbursement was made, to Nexus Strategies for that report. If a disbursement was made, we have also provided a direct to the page that shows the disbursement.

To search for any disbursement, including Nexus Strategies for that report, type the “Control-F” command to bring up a search box, type in Nexus (or any other entity) and hit enter. This way you can search for any disbursement of interest to you.

Additionally, we have attached a spreadsheet that shows all non-federal disbursements made by the Party in 2008. These disbursements were reported to the NC SBOE.

If you have any questions about the information discussed, please do not hesitate to contact Andrew at 919-821-2777 ext. 218.

While addressing these rumors is a distraction from our primary focus of winning elections for North Carolina Democrats in 2010, we believe that providing transparency is the best way to put out fires while they are small.

We are hopeful, and confident that each of you shares our hope, that the individual or individuals responsible for spreading these false rumors will cease their destructive actions.

Thanks you again for your work on behalf of our Party. You are making a difference in North Carolina.