The Koch agenda in North Carolina includes fighting efforts to reduce the influence of wealthy outside donors like themselves. In 2010, a North Carolina ethics bill contained a proposal for public funding of certain statewide elections in an effort to do just that.

How did the Kochs respond? Their Americans for Prosperity group immediately launched an onslaught of robocalls across the state targeting the proposal, which then was quickly pulled.

AFP claimed victory, thanking the “thousands of people” who contacted their state senators – even though these calls were bought and paid for by the Kochs, and the path was cleared for these secretive billionaires to continue pouring money into statewide elections in an effort to rebuild the North Carolina legislature in their extreme conservative mold.

Americans For Prosperity-North Carolina Teamed Up With Pat McCrory In 2010 To Defeat Public Funding Of Elections, Which AFP Called “Welfare For Politicians.” According to a press release from Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina, “Taxpayers will save millions of dollars that would have been spent on political campaigns after a grassroots uprising lead [sic] by Americans for Prosperity along with Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory caused state senate democratic leaders to pull the controversial ‘welfare for politicians’ section out of the ethics bill. North Carolina State Director of Americans for Prosperity, Dallas Woodhouse, today praised the grassroots effort of its members and taxpayers across North Carolina for burning up the phone lines at the General Assembly in a successful effort to stop the tax increases and taxpayer funding of political campaigns that was in the bill. ‘I want to thank the thousands of people from across North Carolina that have contacted their state senators to oppose the expansion of taxpayer funding of elections and the tax increases that would have funded the scheme,’ said Woodhouse. ‘This is clearly a victory for taxpayers all across North Carolina and it would not have happened without the efforts of our grassroots members and the leadership of Mayor Pat McCrory.’” [Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina Press Release via Archive.org, 6/24/10]