The Facts Behind the

John Locke Foundation

[July 19, 2007, Sylva, NC]

Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation is
stepping up its efforts to encourage continued
uncontrolled development in Western North
Carolina. The political organization has
established an office in the mountains and has
launched a “Wild West” blog devoted to
undermining any local leaders who address the
serious negative impacts of development on the
health and safety of local residents and the
environment.
under several names, including Rose's, Maxway
and Super 10. Privately held, the company
competes with the likes of Wal-Mart and Dollar
Stores in 14 states.
The vehicle for the family's giving is the Pope
Foundation, whose assets had a fair market
value of $53.6 million in June, according to tax
documents.

While its spokesmen frequently use terms like

“liberty” and “property rights”, the public
posturing of the John Locke Foundation
conceals the personal agenda and ambitions of
its founder, Art Pope. Former state legislator
Richard Morgan, Republican from Moore
County, calls Pope:

“an eccentric millionaire with gobs of

money….I feel compelled to stand up to Art and
the people Art influences with his money and try
to prevent our party from being turned back in
time and turning the state’s clock back 50
years.”

Other details on the Pope empire are found in a

2006 News and Observer article written by Rob
Christensen:
Pope, 49, a Raleigh retail executive, has
emerged as an important behind-the-scenes
figure in Tar Heel politics, spending millions of
dollars on a network whose purpose is to move
North Carolina to the political right.
You might call it Pope Political Inc.
Even as many conservatives cheer Pope's
patronage, he has created enemies who feel that
one man has gained too much power. They say
Pope is bankrolling half of a civil war in the
GOP to purge Republican moderates in the state
House of Representatives.
Among his critics is former state Rep. David
Miner, a Republican from Cary, whom Pope
helped drive from office.

Pope Political Inc. now has 50 people on its
payroll, including academics, journalists,
political operatives, lawyers and a former N.C.
Supreme Court judge.
The Pope fortune was made in hundreds of small
towns across the South. Started in the 1930s in
Fuquay-Varina, Variety Wholesalers grew over
the years to more than 500 discount stores and
10,000 employees. The company operates stores
"What is scary about Art Pope is that it is one
person," Miner said. "There is not any
committee. There is no oversight. There is no
elected official involved to face the voters every
two years or every six years. It's him and his
own personal agenda, and he is throwing his
money around big time. Art Pope wants to
control North Carolina politics."
Beyond its attacks on moderate Republicans and
on regulations that would hold developers
accountable for negative impacts on local
communities, Pope’s John Locke Foundation
uses corporate funding to advance its message
that “global warming is a myth.” In a 2005
article for the Independent Weekly, investigative
journalist Sue Sturgis exposed how the fossil-
fuel industry backs the Pope political
machine:
While Locke does not take money directly from
Exxon, it does receive funding from other fossil
fuel interests and from organizations that are
themselves funded by ExxonMobil. But it does
not openly disclose that fact.
According to one of Pope’s assistants at the John
Locke Foundation:
…his organization did not receive money from
utilities or other fossil fuel concerns in recent
years. However, complete returns for the past
three years obtained through the New York-
based Foundation Center show Locke received
at least $81,500 from organizations with fossil
fuel ties during that period. (http://fdncenter.org)
In fiscal year 2003, the most recent year for
which a return was publicly available, Locke's
second-largest contributor was the Claude R.
Lambe Charitable Foundation.
One of the Koch Family funds,
(www.mediatransparency.org/funders/koch_fami
ly_foundations.htm) the foundation is operated
by David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries,
the largest privately held oil conglomerate in the
United States and a leading contributor among
gas and oil companies in the 2004 federal
election cycle, according to a recent report by
the Washington-based Center for Public
Integrity (CPI).
(www.publicintegrity.org/oil/report.aspx?aid=34
7)
"Although it is both a top campaign contributor
and spends millions on direct lobbying, Koch's
chief political influence tool is a web of
interconnected, right-wing think tanks and
advocacy groups funded by foundations
controlled and supported by the two Koch
brothers," the CPI report states
.
In 2001, the John Locke Foundation received
$6,500 from the Center for Energy and
Economic Development (CEED), an Amarillo,
Texas-based nonprofit whose Web site says it is
"dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-
based electricity."
(www.ceednet.org/ceed/index.cfm?cid=7504)
Locke has also taken money from groups funded
by ExxonMobil, according to
www.exxonsecrets.org, a database sponsored by
Greenpeace USA. In 2002, for example, Locke
got $5,000 from The DCI Group of Phoenix, a
Republican lobbying firm whose Tech Central
Station Web site is sponsored by ExxonMobil,
and in 2001 it received $10,000 from the Atlas
Economic Research Foundation (AERF) of
Fairfax, Va., which in turn has received more
than $500,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
In addition…Art Pope has served on the boards
of AERF and Citizens for a Sound Economy, a
Washington-based organization founded by the
Kochs that has received more than $380,000
from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to
www.exxonsecrets.org.
The political operatives in Pope’s employ
relentlessly crank out opinion pieces,
editorials and quasi-academic policy papers
aimed at undermined anyone working for clean
energy or prudent controls on development.
When you read between the lines, the consistent
message of the John Locke Foundation is that the
protection of local communities and the
environment can be, indeed MUST be, sacrificed
in the cause of “freedom.”
But make no mistake. The “freedom” that the
Art Pope juggernaut desires is for corporate
interests like utility companies and big
developers to continue plundering North
Carolina for their own enrichment and
without regard for the working people of the
state. For the most part, the people of Jackson
County are too smart to fall for Pope’s John
Locke Foundation propaganda.
Sources –
“The Knight of the Right”, Rob Christensen,
News and Observer, January 29, 2006.
“Turning the Warming Tide,” Sue Sturgis,
Independent Weekly, May 11, 2005.