Heather McGhee, the Vice President of Policy and Outreach at Demos and a Public Campaign board member, joined The Nation's Ari Berman on Melissa Harris Parry Saturday to discuss the latest efforts by North Carolina lawmakers to make it harder to vote, which Ari wrote about last week.

On the show, Heather also mentioned the influence of Art Pope, a wealthy businessman who financed the Republican takeover of the state legislature and governor's mansion. When Gov. Pat McCrory was elected, he named Pope his budget director. And as Paul Blumenthal wrote at Huffington Post recently, Pope moved quickly to gut the state's popular and successful public financing program for judicial elections. He never liked the system--and now he's bought enough power to get rid of it.

If you want to stay on top of these democracy issues in North Carolina, check out our friends at North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections and the Institute for Southern Studies.