NC Chamber wants leader removed from brief that supports court-ordered school funding
The state’s leading business group says it has been falsely misrepresented as supporting the court-ordered transfer of $785 million to fund North Carolina’s Leandro education plan.
An amicus brief filed last week listed the current chair of the N.C. Chamber among more than 50 business and community leaders who say the N.C. Supreme Court should require the money transfer over the objections of Republican legislative leaders.
But in a letter sent Tuesday to the N.C. Supreme Court, the N.C. Chamber says Sepi Saidi did not authorize her name or her title as chamber chair to be included in the brief. Saidi is the president and CEO of Sepi Engineering & Construction but is listed in the brief under her previous last name of Asefnia.
“The inclusion of this title seems calculated to create confusion for the Court, if not outright misrepresentation,” Ray Starling, the Chamber’s general counsel, writes in the letter. “The NC Chamber had expressly stated to those organizing the amici effort that the NC Chamber would not appear in the case.”
Starling asks that the Court delete Saidi’s name from its records and eliminate any suggestion that the Chamber has taken a position on the case.
On Wednesday, John Wester, one of the attorneys representing the business leaders, sent the Court an amended brief that removes Saidi’s name. But Wester says the brief was always intended to be on behalf of individuals and not to any groups affiliated with them.
“Our brief neither states nor implies that the NC Chamber has taken any position on our brief,” Wester writes in the letter. “Mr. Starling identifies no indication that the NC Chamber has supported our brief, and the title of the addendum to our brief is ‘Business Leaders Who Submit the Brief.’”
Providing ‘a sound basic education’
The long-running Leandro school funding lawsuit was initially filed in 1994 by low-wealth school districts to get more state funding.
Over the years, the state Supreme Court has ruled that the state Constitution guarantees every child “an opportunity to receive a sound basic education” and that the state was failing to meet that obligation.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Aug. 31 over whether it should order the transfer of $785 million from the treasury to fund the Leandro education plan. The funding would pay for things such as expanded access to Pre-K, higher salaries for teachers and more funding for low-wealth districts.
The transfer is opposed by Republican legislative leaders who say only the General Assembly has the authority to appropriate state funds.
Multiple briefs have been filed by outside parties ahead of this month’s oral arguments.
“[Business leaders] refuse to accept that another generation of students should be denied the opportunity for a sound basic education,” according to last week’s brief from the business leaders. “All North Carolinians deserve the opportunity to collectively achieve the economic success that will come from fulfilling the constitutional guarantee of a quality education.”
The brief’s signees include Don Curtis, founder and CEO of Curtis Media Group; Jimmy Goodmon, chair and CEO of Capital Broadcasting Company; James and Ann Goodnight of SAS Institute; Hugh McColl, former chair and CEO of Bank of America; and Orage Quarles III, former president and publisher of The News & Observer.
The signees also include multiple past chairs of the N.C. Chamber, including former Raleigh Mayor Thomas Bradshaw Jr.
In Starling’s letter, he says Debra Derr, the NC Chamber’s education lead and lobbyist, told Bradshaw on July 11 that the group would not participate in the case. Starling includes a July 18 email that Derr sent to the N.C. Public School Forum that was copied to Bradshaw saying the Chamber was not signing onto the brief.
Differing accounts of conversation
Starling also includes a July 21 email that Gerry Hancock, an attorney for the business leaders, sent to Saidi saying he was delighted to hear from Bradshaw that they could add her to the brief. Hancock also mentioned in the email that Bradshaw said Saidi offered to contribute $1,000 to cover the legal fees for the brief.
But Starling says Saidi had a single, five-to-six-minute conversation with Bradshaw on June 29 about him looking for financial support of an initiative to support education.
“While I, along with the NC Chamber, am fully supportive of a continued dialogue on investment in education, it was never my intention to authorize my personal participation in this legal filing or the NC Chamber’s, especially when the primary issue is whether the N.C. Supreme Court has the authority to direct the appropriations process,” Saidi said in a statement Wednesday.
“The separation of powers clearly directs this discussion to take place on Jones Street, not Morgan Street. Our letter of clarification to the North Carolina Supreme Court Clerk speaks for itself.”
Bradshaw did not immediately return an email Wednesday from The News & Observer requesting comment. But Wester, an attorney for the business leaders, said Bradshaw was crystal clear after his conversation with Saidi that she was willing to sign onto the brief.
Wester said the first indication that they got that Saidi didn’t want to be involved was Starling’s letter on Tuesday.
“We don’t want her to be on there if she doesn’t want to be,” Wester said in an interview Wednesday.
This story was originally published August 3, 2022 at 1:10 PM.
