See which Mecklenburg lawmakers responded to our request for a day of their emails
Just over one-fifth of state lawmakers turned over copies of emails in response to public records requests from The Charlotte Observer and News & Observer.
Mecklenburg County lawmakers were similarly unresponsive, with a total of six of the county’s 19 representatives in the North Carolina House and Senate providing emails.
The Observer and N&O made a request in mid-October for one day’s worth of legislative emails after GOP lawmakers moved to effectively exempt current and former legislators from having to comply with the state’s public records law. The change to the public records statute was buried inside the 625-page state budget that was revealed in September after months of intra-party negotiations.
The records requests asked all 170 lawmakers to provide all of their communications from Sept. 19, the day that Republican leaders reached an agreement on the budget.
Since receiving those requests in mid-October, a total of 38 lawmakers from both parties have provided The Observer and N&O with their records from that day. Some lawmakers provided hundreds of pages of emails, while others provided just a handful.
Others shared some emails but withheld communications with other lawmakers or staff, citing “legislative privilege.”
Mecklenburg County lawmakers who provided emails include Democratic Reps. Terry Brown, Laura Budd and Wesley Harris, Democratic Sens. Natasha Marcus and Rachel Hunt, and Republican Sen. Vickie Sawyer.
The Observer and N&O have published all of the emails we have received, redacting only personal identifying information of constituents who wrote to lawmakers.
