Claim: "Sessions that clock in at 12:01 at night are not unusual in the General Assembly at all."
Speaker: State Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Cary in an interview with The News & Observer
Context: To defend the secretive midnight legislative session, state Rep. Nelson Dollar, a top Republican, said sessions that start after midnight are "not unusual ... at all." Or accounting for the double negative, he says they are usual.
Not so. A News & Observer analysis of House and Senate votes since 2001 shows votes in the early morning hours after midnight account for less than 1 percent of the total, making them rare.
Presented with the data and asked for more explanation, Dollar said he was trying to make the point that early morning votes are "not an unprecedented thing." On this point, he is correct. But Dollar's initial remark was not as precise.
Ruling: False
Comments
REALLY?
Mon, 09/03/2012 - 10:26 — lmsilverI like the fact checking but this one was silly.
I would add that 1% may seem small but it would be expected that most of the meetings are during normal hours. Say that the building is open 12 hours a day and for simplicity that meetings are one hour long. Then there is a 100/12 percent chance of a meeting at any one hour. This is about an 8% chance. The 1% finding means that there is 8 times more chance of meeting during a normal hour than during a midnight hour. The statement made was reasonable - true.
Your finding of false is incorrect.