State Employees Ass'n of North Carolina, Inc. v. North Carolina Department of State Treasurer

BRADY, Justice.

One of the earliest historians to comment on the “great experiment” that is America noted that our nation’s political structure rests on the fundamental “principle of the sovereignty of the people.” 1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 9, 40 (Henry Reeve trans., Arlington House 1966) (1835). In harmony with this principle, the North Carolina General Assembly recognized in the Public Records Act that “[t]he public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people.” N.C.G.S. § 132-l(b)…