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Working America North Carolina Statement on Rules Announcement Attacking Free Speech, Moral Mondays Movement
05/19/2014
Days before the first Moral Mondays protest of the legislative session, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis and his allies in the legislature announced new rules designed to severely restrict the public from assembling at the Legislative Building and the General Assembly.
Today, as crowds take to the state capitol for the first Moral Monday of the session, Working America launched a petition calling on Tillis to end his attacks on free speech.
“If these ‘rules’ weren’t so shameful, they would be laughable,” said Working America State Director Carolyn Smith. “They are yet another attack on the very communities this out-of control legislature has had in its crosshairs for the last two years—working people, the elderly, students, people of color, faith and LGBTQ communities.”
Extremists in the North Carolina legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory have gutted voting rights, unemployment insurance, public school funding and more. Gov. McCrory also has refused to provide health care that would benefit hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians through Medicaid expansion.
“This parade of insults will have the opposite effect on the people of North Carolina,” Smith said. “It will make this movement stronger.”