Budd: Cooper partnering with far-left on door-to-door vaccine campaign

Congressman Ted Budd — the leading contender for the 2022 Republican nomination — says he believes there is more behind Roy Cooper’s door-to-door vaccination advocacy than a basic concern for public health.  (We wrote about this a few days back.)

Here is a recent letter from Budd to Cooper:

Governor Cooper,

I write with pressing questions about North Carolina’s ‘Doses to Doors’ program.

With nearly 70% of the United States population having received at least one vaccine dose, I agree that we must continue to provide North Carolinians access to vaccines, but I am concerned by reports about certain non-profit groups involved with the ‘Doses to Doors’ program. Any entity that receives or is involved in an outreach campaign financed by tax dollars should be carefully scrutinized to make sure those dollars are not put toward sending workers door-to-door under the guise of public health if they are, in fact, political activists with potentially compromised motives for obtaining contact information on thousands of people.

My specific concern centers on the group tasked with Mecklenburg County’s door-to-door campaign: Action NC. This organization has a history of liberal activism. For example, Action NC was originally ACORN in North Carolina and is run by the former head organizer for NC ACORN, Pat McCoy. In 2017, Action NC published a blog post entitled, “How Trump has trumped your rights.” They organized a rally outside of Sen. Thom Tillis’ office to advocate for a special prosecutor to investigate the debunked Russian collusion conspiracy theory. Action NC freely publicizes their support for amnesty for illegal aliens, abortion on demand, and gun control.

Most problematic is their consistent focus on community organizing and mobilizing “get out the vote” initiatives for far-left voters. It is unacceptable that this clearly partisan organization without any clear public health expertise is using taxpayer funds to go door-to-door. There is the very real potential that, under the auspices of a state-sponsored vaccination campaign, a liberal activist group will be able to advocate and organize for causes that are not shared by large swaths of North Carolina citizens.

In light of these concerns, please provide my office with answers to the following questions:

1. What criteria did the state use to select organizations to participate in the door-to-door campaign?

2. What information is being collected from North Carolina citizens?

3. Do organizations involved in the outreach get to keep any of this information? If not, how will the state ensure organizations purge any remaining data after the campaign ends?

4. Did the state or the organizations train workers participating in the outreach to ensure the sensitive and private health information of citizens is appropriately protected from being collected by government officials or any other entities involved in the campaign?

5. What information has the state provided to organizations involved in the campaign about the citizens or communities the outreach is being conducted on? 

6. Are organizations involved in the campaign expressly prohibited from engaging in political activities during their outreach? 

I look forward to your prompt reply. 

We do too.