Report offers peek at NC Senate GOP’s lobbyist / Berger -flavored fundraising scheme

There was a lotta special interest cash floating around the recently-completed party primaries.  A lot of it had connections to Phil Berger as well as interests with business before Berger’s chamber. (*Are we surprised?*)

According to super-sleuth Dan Kane, a lot of it ran through an obscure young senator from Randolph County being talked up as a possible successor to Berger in the president pro tem role:

For the 2024 election, North Carolina’s youngest Republican state senator pulled off a rare fundraising triumph for a lawmaker who had only served one full term.

Sen. Dave Craven, 36, represents Senate District 29, a rural expanse stretching south from Asheboro to the North Carolina border that includes Anson and Richmond counties. It is a solidly Republican district, and Craven has yet to face a primary. He beat his Democratic opponent by a 37-point margin in the general election.

Craven’s campaign that election cycle attracted more than $1.3 million in contributions, more than any other lawmaker save for Republican Senate leader Phil Berger. Craven gave away nearly two-thirds of it – $784,800 – to be spent on other Senate GOP candidates’ campaigns, helping to protect the Republicans’ supermajority.

A veteran campaign watchdog’s review of Craven’s campaign reports shows more than a fifth of the $1.3 million he raised has links to clients of one lobbyist – Kevin Wilkinson, a former congressional aide and state government official who began lobbying in 2020.

At the same time Craven’s campaign received those donations, his reports show he paid a business owned by Wilkinson’s wife nearly $59,000 in fees for campaign consulting. The Wilkinsons and another lobbyist, Jarret Burr, are a tight-knit group who attended UNC Charlotte while Craven was student body president.

There is no law barring lobbyists’ spouses from working as campaign consultants, but what makes this case unusual is there’s little indication Megan Wilkinson had done paid campaign work previously. She has been a licensed speech language pathologist since 2018, working for other providers and with her own therapy business, Five Points Speech Therapy, since 2021 that operates out of her home.

On Aug. 7, 2023, Megan Wilkinson formed Five Points Consulting, N.C. Secretary of State incorporation records show. Craven’s campaign made its first payment of just over $3,000 to that business later that month. In 17 months, his campaign made eight payments to the business.

Craven paid more to Megan Wilkinson than any other campaign consultant in his legislative elections, the records show. And Craven was Wilkinson’s only client for campaign work, a search of the State Board of Elections’ database of campaign reports shows. The secretary of state’s office dissolved her consulting business after she failed to file an annual report.

The Wilkinsons did not respond to phone or text messages asking about Craven’s payments or any work performed.

In a text and an email to The N&O, Craven described Wilkinson as a family friend. “Megan assisted my campaign by planning and managing events between 2023 and 2024,” he said in the text on Jan. 28.

The email response came Feb. 27 from Berger’s office. [….]

Wait. WHY was Phil Berger‘s office communicating with the media on behalf of this particular senator about this particular senator’s fundraising practices?

[…] Craven did not respond to an N&O reporter’s requests for documents such as invoices, bills or event materials that would support his explanation.

Bob Hall, the campaign finance watchdog, spotted the money paid to the consulting firm, and tracked down many of the donations from Kevin Wilkinson’s clients.

Hall, the retired executive director of Democracy North Carolina, said he is concerned that it could be some sort of quid pro quo: “There’s no other example where she’s doing political fundraising. It’s all about the relationship between the lobbyist and the legislator.”

State election laws allow lawmakers to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money to Senate and House leadership political committees that can then hand out well beyond the $6,800 campaign contribution limit to legislative candidates in tough races. Craven sent $740,000 of his campaign money to the Senate committees.

State Sen. Lisa Barnes, a Nash County Republican, for example, received individual contributions from the N.C. Senate Majority Fund as high as $600,000 in the last election. All told, she received just under $1.8 million from the fund.

The money going in and out of Craven’s campaign fund that’s tied to the Wilkinsons should be investigated by state and federal officials, Hall said. He plans to file a complaint with the State Board of Elections, he said. He suspects the flow of money “financially benefited the legislator, lobbyist and donor-clients.”

Craven, in his emailed comments, said such a complaint would be “frivolous.”

The Republicans’ strong majority in the state legislature in recent years has given them the power to shape legislation behind closed doors and move it through both chambers with little time for rank and file members to review before they vote. That’s a dynamic that gives insiders such as Wilkinson a stronger hand, Hall contends.

Clients make contributions

Hall took a deeper dive into Craven’s campaign reports after identifying $97,700 in donations from people connected to one Kevin Wilkinson client – the developer Mooresville BTR. The N&O in October revealed that the company quietly received $15 million from state lawmakers in 2023 to build a road, despite town officials announcing a year earlier that taxpayer dollars would not finance it. […]

 

[…] In an unusual arrangement, lawmakers channeled the money to a regional council of local governments, which had not requested to be involved. Some council members balked at accepting the money.

In a brief phone interview for that N&O report, Craven said “I’m not really sure” when asked if he had helped win the money for the development, which is outside of his legislative district.

Several other Wilkinson clients have ties to tens of thousands of dollars in donations to Craven’s campaign for reelection in 2024, Hall found after reviewing campaign records. Some, like Mooresville BTR, have benefited from legislation that rank-and-file lawmakers and the public had little time to review.

• Members of the N.C. Advocates for Justice, which represents trial lawyers, donated $45,000 to Craven’s campaign. Craven co-sponsored an omnibus bill in 2023 that increased the required minimum amount drivers have to be insured for in case of accidents, a change that could lead to higher cash settlements, resulting in bigger payouts to attorneys handling accident-related lawsuits.

• Members of the Associated Builders & Contractors of the Carolinas donated $46,500. Members who made the contributions work for companies that have won contracts for major state construction projects, including a new $400 million education campus in downtown Raleigh that includes headquarters for the UNC System, community college system and state Department of Public Instruction. The contractors also benefited from tens of millions of dollars lawmakers gave to local governments, nonprofits and private businesses for construction work in recent years.

• Contributors with ties to Starmount Healthcare Management in Charlotte donated $48,000. State lawmakers in the 2023 and 2024 budgets awarded a total of $17.5 million to help build the Katie Blessing Center, a nonprofit behavioral health care facility for children in East Charlotte launched by Starmount CEO Michael Estramonte.

Craven didn’t dispute raising tens of thousands of dollars from people connected with Wilkinson’s clients. But it was Craven’s experience serving on the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina’s board since 2016 that won him wide-ranging support, he said.

“Since being elected to the General Assembly, I’ve worked to improve North Carolina’s regulatory and business climate, which are issues that many individuals and groups are passionate about, including the ones you named,” Craven said in his emailed response. […]

[…] Many of those donors Hall found, Craven noted, also give to other state lawmakers.

A lack of transparency

Money raised from powerful interests and used to help win elections in swing districts can create an incentive for lawmakers to take care of the powerful at the expense of everyone else, Hall said.

“Even when there’s merit to a bill, the message is you’ve got to pay to play,” Hall said. “So poor people who need a rural hospital, whatever, folks without big money, they obey the law, pay their taxes but they lose.”

An expert on government ethics agreed with Hall that Craven should show how the campaign work his reports say he paid Megan Wilkinson for was delivered.

“Public service operates on trust, and when you have financial, professional and social relationships overlapping, leaders have the responsibility to tell, to demonstrate independence clearly. It shouldn’t be assumed,” said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

“Here, there’s no transparency about what these relationships are, or are not.”

Before the start of the 2025 legislative session, Berger chose Craven over longer-serving colleagues to be one of the chairs of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which decides who gets taxed and by how much. The Senate leader did not respond to requests for comment to his spokeswoman about Craven’s campaign activity and lobbyist connections.

Craven, a vice president for development at The Fidelity Bank, was chairman of the Randolph County Republican Party in 2020 when state Sen. Jerry Tillman decided to step down before the general election.

With support of Republican leaders in the district, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper appointed Craven to finish the term of Tillman, who never raised more than $245,000 for any of his nine campaigns. Craven went on to win the November election.

UNC Charlotte connections

Burr, Craven and Kevin Wilkinson graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2012, their LinkedIn pages report. Burr and Wilkinson worked as paid staff to help Robert Pittenger, a Charlotte Republican and former state senator, win election to Congress later that year. Wilkinson joined Pittenger’s staff while Burr joined newly elected Republican Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration.

Wilkinson first registered as a lobbyist in 2020 with one client. By 2021, his client list had grown to 25 as a lobbyist for the firm EQV Strategic. In April 2024, The Southern Group, a Florida-based lobbying firm, expanded into North Carolina and hired Wilkinson to lead the office here. Last year, he represented 42 clients, state lobbying records show.

Wilkinson was linked to an event in April 2024 now under investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation for possible lobbying and ethics violations. He invited people to a distillery tour in the Louisville, Kentucky, area that lawmakers and lobbyists attended, a text message The N&O obtained shows.

It became public after a worker at one of the distilleries complained on Reddit about the group’s behavior.

Craven confirmed attending the 2024 tour in his emailed response to The N&O. A “scholarship” paid for his attendance, which was limited to one day “because of commitments in my district,” he said. He did not identify who covered the scholarship.

“I attended in my capacity as the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee to get a better understanding of how other states handle liquor sales and any dangers that come with expanded access,” he said. “While on the trip, I did not see or experience any of the behavior that was alleged to have occurred. I know that Greater Carolina is being investigated, but I am not aware of any violations by the organization.”

Craven’s statement of economic interest for 2024 does not disclose the trip.

Greater Carolina, a nonprofit “social welfare” group, hosted that tour and another in 2022 that is also under investigation. Such organizations have been described by money-in-politics tracker Open Secrets as dark-money outfits.

David Coble, the local consultant for Mooresville BTR, is Greater Carolina’s director. In 2020, Craven reported he was the nonprofit’s secretary on his statement of economic interest. He said in his emailed response that he left the position that year.

A year later, Craven was among several Republican lawmakers the nonprofit advertised would be attending its fundraiser at a college football game in Charlotte. Those who contributed at least $10,000 each received two tickets to watch the game between East Carolina University and Appalachian State in a stadium suite with Craven and six other lawmakers, WRAL reported.

Spevco, a specialty vehicle manufacturer, was listed on the invitation as a sponsor. The company was one of Wilkinson’s clients that year.

Greater Carolina has strongly advocated for expanding casino gambling, now allowed only on Native American lands, to other North Carolina communities. It published a study completed in March 2023 that recommended three casinos, including one in Craven’s district in Anson County and Berger’s district in Rockingham County.

Before that study was released, the Cordish Companies of Baltimore had begun lining up casino sites in those counties, records and news reports show.

Craven and Berger were among 11 lawmakers who received a total of $39,900 in campaign money from people with ties to Cordish.

 

Burr became a lobbyist in 2017. His clients include the U.S. Performance Center, while Wilkinson lobbies for its companion nonprofit the N.C. Sports Legacy Foundation.

 

There, too, lawmakers opened the public purse, giving the for-profit performance center $25 million in the 2021 budget and the foundation $30 million in the 2023 budget to develop Olympic training facilities on the UNC Charlotte campus. Ike Belk of the prominent Belk department store family is a co-founder. He and his family have spent $35,000 on Craven’s campaigns since 2022, with his father William contributing the majority of it.

William Belk said Wilkinson and Burr had nothing to do with his contributions, which include holding fundraisers for Craven. Belk said he supports Craven for being the “point person” for UNC Charlotte.

From 2022 through last year, both lobbyists represented the nonprofit N.C. Troopers Association, which in 2022 received a $19 million state budget earmark for a museum and training facility that is being built in South Raleigh.

The museum was designed by SfL+a Architects, a Raleigh firm that is affiliated with Firstfloor, a real estate development firm. Both have Robbie Ferris as a top official. Wilkinson has been lobbying for Firstfloor since 2021. Ferris gave Craven’s campaign the maximum donation of $6,400 in 2023.

Metcon is building the museum and often partners with SfL+a Architects on construction projects. Metcon CEO Aaron Thomas and his wife Azalea have donated $12,900 to Craven since 2022.

Craven was one of several state lawmakers holding a shovel at the museum’s groundbreaking last April. […]