Talk:John Locke Foundation

History
Current John Locke Foundation President John Hood helped open the foundation’s doors with founding president Marc Rotterman in 1990. The following year, Marilyn Avila signed on as bookkeeper and administrator, and the trio formed the “intellectual firepower and energy behind the state’s outspoken voice on behalf of conservative principles and free-market economics,” according to the official JLF history.

In 1991, JLF’s first alternative state budget addressed the state’s economic downturn and the state’s nearly $1 billion budget hole. Hood walked the halls of the North Carolina General Assembly, passing out the budget and explaining its components.

One of JLF’s earliest public fights over policy came with Republican Gov. Jim Martin, who championed the Global TransPark in Kinston, N.C. JLF criticized the project as a misguided use of public funds. Martin stood his ground and defended the TransPark before a JLF audience.

Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt stood before a Locke Foundation gathering shortly after Republicans won control of the N.C. House in 1994. Members of Hunt’s cabinet watched from the audience as the governor made front-page news by embracing tax cuts.

The Locke Foundation’s flagship publication, Carolina Journal, has developed a “reputation as a relentless government watchdog that invests time and resources into investigative journalism,” according to the JLF history. Executive Editor Don Carrington’s 1997 expose on a $21 million legislative slush fund used for pork-barrel projects was the first in a line of consequential stories about misuse of public funds and conflicts of interest.


 * Are there references for any of this that are not from the JLF web site? I will take a look around.  A13ean (talk) 22:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Notability
, since you removed the notability tag, can you point to reliable independent sources with significant coverage of the subject? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:02, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I think a $3MM+ budget (plus the mentions we see in the refs) are sufficient to establish notability. – S. Rich (talk) 07:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC) Also, SourceWatch has commentary, so that establishes N ipso facto! 07:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I follow WP:ORG so, to me, the budget is irrelevant--as is SourceWatch. I'm unconvinced that the cited sources meet the guideline. Note that what is claimed to cite the National Review actually doesn't. I recall doing a fair amount of research when I added the notability tag and concluded that there was no evidence the "Fisherman's Friend" article was ever actually published in the National Review. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, SourceWatch is certainly pounding on the table about the JLF. With that in mind I cannot fathom that we'd delete the WP article on the basis of notability, and thereby let CMD have the 'exclusive' say on what JLF is about. I am simply spiffing up these various articles so that their notability will become more self apparent. IMO the JLF meets notability guideline. – S. Rich (talk) 08:00, 8 February 2015 (UTC)