Civitas boss: Tillis 2010 record rating removal not political
We recently posted about how the conservative Raleigh-based Civitas Action rated Thom Tillis’s 2010 record in the NC with a grade of ‘F.’ We noted that we had to really dig to find that 2010 information — suggesting the possibility that it may have been scrubbed from the Civitas web site for the benefit of the 2014 Tillis for Senate campaign. Well, we heard from the boss at NC Civitas, Francis DeLuca, about this matter:
Brant,I am not sure what happened to our old CA scores/ranks.It gives the impression that we intentionally scrubbed our site of past rankings. The reality is that he had to take down previous years because the coding was incompatible and our web guy needed to update it. So he had to take down prior years in order to post the 2013 rankings. When (if) he gets time he can re-code the prior year’s rankings and post them back up, but there is no telling when he can do that with the other work in line to do– such as our regular daily web work, and www.ncteacherfreedom.com.Francis
Good to hear that it was a mistake. As it was only a mistake, then I am sure it will be put back up immediately. And I am sure that they will read the riot act to their web guy that he is not allowed to make decisions such as this.
Whether something looks the same as a newer version is irrelevant. That the info is availible is what is important.
Their Web guy wants an all expense paid 8 week vacation to Hawaii or those embarrassing pages go back online. HHhaha.
Raphael & Bink,
Unfortunately it is not as easy as “putting it back up” The original coding and databases do not operate with the new formatting. It would just display as gibberish. As we are able we will re-code the old data and display. Unfortunately time and money are limited, if they weren’t – anything would be possible – and we would be the federal government!
Francis
Why could you not have web boy put Tillis’ past scores as one of the eight or so articles you have posted on the Civitas website? Surely a cacandidate running as a “conservative” that received bad scores from CI is newsworthy.
Never thought Civitas could be compared to the IRS. Both can’t find important documents lost on someone’s hard drive. You just can’t make this up.
If it would’ve been a conservative it would be inscribed in stone tablets and no one would let you forget!
Obviously some of the conspiracy theorists commenting on De Luca’s statement have no idea what is involved with publishing data on a website. It’s not like writing blog posts!
Want the Tillis ratings back? Send a big donation to Civitas to help pay for it! They do great work for conservatism in NC.
I cannot imagine that DeLuca would have knowingly done that. A web guy through either stupidity or intent might be more likely.
This past data is extremely valuable for oppo (opposition research) by GOP challengers against Democrat legislative incumbents, who always would want to look at their opponent’s entire history not just the last session. Taking away this resource just to protect Tillis is not something I would expect the Civitas leadership to do.
If a tech did that on his own accord without permission, I would expect him to replace it on his own time if I ran an organization. And why in the world write new code for something when you already have code that works?
Since the original material seems to exist via the Way Back Machine, I would think a link to that on the Civitas website would restore easy access to the data in the interim.