RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Democratic lawmakers on a secretive legislative committee are questioning why they are being blocked on trying to investigate crisis pregnancy centers and private schools receiving money from the tuition voucher program.

Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue, who serves on the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, known as Gov Ops, told reporters Wednesday that Democratic members and staff on the committee, which is chaired by the two most powerful Republicans in the state, are having their requests denied by a lawyer.

Sen. Gladys Robinson, a Guilford County Democrat on Gov Ops, sent letters to several pregnancy centers that are part of the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, also known as Life Link Carolina, requesting records on behalf of Gov Ops. She asked for information about contracts, expenditures, medical equipment, services, marketing materials and job applications.

However, the request came from her as a member of Gov Ops, not Gov Ops staff, leadership or the commission as a whole.

Republican leaders gave Gov Ops more power in the 2023 budget, which was criticized by Democrats in both chambers during floor debate. Robinson’s letter tests one of the new powers, citing in her request that anyone who “conceals, falsifies, or refuses to provide” information requested by Gov Ops with the intent to “mislead, impede or interfere” is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.

Lawyers deny request because not from entire Gov Ops

Robinson received a letter from Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship’s lawyer, Paul “Skip” Stam, a former Republican House member, denying the request based on it coming from members of the commission rather than Gov Ops as a whole. Stam wrote that he advised his clients not to respond to Robinson because “no individual member of the Commission has the right to demand anything from anyone, before or after the 2023 amendments to the statute.”

He also took the opportunity to criticize Robinson’s “threat of criminal penalties for those not responding,” saying that while she has some immunity as a senator, “I object to it.”

Separately, an attorney for another pregnancy center group, Human Coalition, responded to Robinson with a similar argument. Attorney Barry Moerschell wrote that “because the commission has not issued this request, Human Coalition respectfully declines to provide the requested records.”

Democratic Sen. Michael Garrett of Guilford County sent letters to private schools asking for records about the Opportunity Scholarship program, which gives taxpayer-funded vouchers to private schools. Stam, also an attorney for 16 private schools, sent a similar letter back to Garrett that he did to Robinson. And an attorney for another private school, Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville, wrote that they would only comply with requests “that the commission, acting through its co-chairs or subcommittees jointly appointed by the co-chairs is entitled to receive documents and information” according to state law.

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