Democrats Fail to Reform State Government

Business as Usual in the State Capital

From the Winston-Salem Journal:

Ethics reform shortfall

Students who don’t finish their work on time get marked down or are sent to detention. When legislators miss their deadlines, however, they face few consequences.

During the 2009 session, the state Senate never made its way to a set of government reform bills. The chairman whose committee didn’t get the work done said he simply ran out of time.

That’s a pretty brazen excuse considering that the legislature stayed in session for more than six months, wasting many of those days in indolence. But, then, lack of time is also a standard excuse when it comes to government reforms. On several occasions over the past decade, legislators delayed other reform packages with the same excuse.

Implementing state-government ethics reforms has been an arduous task in North Carolina; legislators have resisted at every turn. Reform advocates have widely viewed the “we-ran-out-of-time excuse” as a stalling maneuver, one loaded with wishful thinking by legislators that public concerns about corruption in government would fade away.

In the mid-2000s, legislators could no longer ignore ethics reform when events overtook them. As the speaker of the House and several other state officials headed to prison, the public demanded change.

The reforms in this year’s ethics package arise from abuses uncovered in the scandals surrounding former Gov. Mike Easley. There are three major reforms in the package: Appointees to 14 major state boards and commissions would be required to disclose their campaign fund-raising activities; vendors with state contracts larger than $25,000 would not be allowed to make campaign contributions; and high-level executive-branch employees could not work as lobbyists for six months after leaving their jobs. …

The General Assembly does get partial credit on ethics this session. Legislators had enough time to pass a much-needed bill that requires all local boards to have ethics codes and local officials to take ethics training.

Too bad legislators didn’t earn full credit by passing all of the needed ethics reforms.

Click here for the full editorial from the Winston-Salem Journal…

From the News & Observer:

Promise, now, on ethics

…The reform measures that were delayed included: requiring appointees to 14 major boards and commissions to disclose their political fundraising activities; specifying that attorneys’ fees will be paid to successful plaintiffs in public records disputes; prohibiting campaign contributions from vendors with state contracts worth more than $25,000; and forbidding high-level executive branch employees from registering as lobbyists for six months after they leave their government jobs.

Lawmakers who say they support such reforms, which obviously would be in the public’s interest with regard to maintaining open and clean government, pinky-swear they’ll get to the reforms just as soon as they can. OK, but the public needs to hold them to it. North Carolina has seen in recent years the influence brought to bear by big-money interests with friends in high places, or how those interests want to make friends in high places.

Click here for the full editorial from the News & Observer…

Tweet