Re: Durham General Assembly; Rep. Price and PACs 

Re: Durham, explain yourself

I would like Durham's delegation to the General Assembly to explain their votes to approve Senate Bill 138 last year. SB 138 criminalizes the possession or consumption of the plant Salvia divinorum, though growing it for aesthetic purposes remains legal, for now.

I can't vote for the reactionary Republican challengers, but I don't want to give support to so-called progressive Democrats who approved SB 138. They should explain why they felt the need to declare yet another plant an illegal "drug," when there is no evidence of a problem, and why the law is so mild if there is a problem, in their opinions. What constituency are they pandering to?

The General Assembly should stop discriminating against third parties so voters can have more choices, but that would be against the interests of the two-party monopoly.

Michael Pollock
Durham

Re: Price and PACs

Since taking office, Rep. David Price has taken $3.5 million from big-business PACs. This election cycle alone (as of last report), more than half of his campaign (54 percent) has been funded by PACs. This obviously means that less than half of his campaign is funded by individuals in the 4th Congressional District.

In what I consider to be the most egregious example of all, a sizeable chunk of his campaign is funded by several defense contractors. This is troubling because Rep. Price is the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. With that being said, how can he justify saying that a "Republican takeover in Washington would be a return to special interests writing the rules for Wall Street, environmental policy and consumer protections" when clearly he is not a Republican, and clearly he is in the back pocket of special interests? And how can he complain about the "corrupting influence" of special interests and then sit back and take $3.5 million from PACs since becoming a "public servant"?

I am NOT a fan of the Democrats OR Republicans, but I'm most angry that a big-business corporatist like David Price can get away with it unnoticed for 22 years.

Brady Nemeth
Raleigh

Editor's Note: For information about campaign contributions to both David Price and challenger B.J. Lawson, see www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2010&id=NC04.