State senator files bill that would defund group that spent $200,000 against him last year

N.C. Policy Watch found yesterday that the second bill of the 2015 session of the North Carolina legislature, filed by Senator Ralph Hise (R-47), would reduce the funding of the State Employees Association (SEANC), a centrist trade association that, along with its political action committee (Employees PAC), spent money to unseat Hise in last year's Republican primary election.SEANC and its PAC combined for $110,667 to oppose Hise and $89,333 to support his challenger, Michael Lavender, via postcards, phonebanks, and radio, online, and newspaper ads. SEANC hoped Lavender would win the GOP nomination for the western Senate District 47, but Hise won with 62 percent of the vote and was unopposed in the general. 
 
Hise's bill, "An Act Repealing Public Employee Payroll Deduction for Payments to Employees' Associations," would defund SEANC by getting rid of these deductions.
 
According to Follow NC Money data, the race for District 47 was the state's 12th most expensive race in terms of outside money, with $201,550 spent, mostly by SEANC and Employees PAC and all in the primary. SEANC and its PAC's $200,000 spent on the District 47 race was by far the most the groups spent on a single race in 2014. In total, they combined for just over $245,000 in outside spending, also supporting Republican representatives Nelson Dollar and Nathan Ramsey and Democratic Senate challenger Erica Smith-Ingram, who bested incumbent Democrat Clark Jenkins and went on to win Senate District 3 unopposed.