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Aug. 6, 2007

Holding Candidates to a Higher Standard

By Chris Heagarty

RALEIGH - Before North Carolina’s state legislature adjourned, it enacted some far-reaching campaign and ethics reforms. But not every legislator supported changing the status quo.

Legislators that I spoke with displayed a full range of responses. Some were enthusiastic and worked hard to enact reform. Others were sympathetic but thought problems in the past were isolated incidents or they didn’t really like the proposed changes, but supported them because of calls from their constituents.

Other lawmakers voted against the reforms, saying that they were unnecessary, a partisan “trick” or that the real answer was simply to vote out the bad guys, while not admitting that anything was wrong with a system that let bad guys do bad things. Some hostilely claimed that any restrictions on their behavior violated their constitutional rights.

On the one hand, many honest and hardworking legislators have had their reputations tarnished by recent scandals involving money in politics and questionable lobbying tactics. However, these scandals have demonstrated flaws in our campaign and ethics laws that needed to be fixed.  Even if a legislator can swear that his actions are beyond reproach, can he truly say that about his colleague next to him?

Though some legislators are reluctant to admit it -- and some will angrily protest it -- our system of campaigns, ethics and elections does need fixing.  A system that has shown itself vulnerable to abuse must be strengthened. And the argument that since some people have been caught that “the system works then, doesn’t it?” is valid only if you believe that the only wrongdoing that has ever gone on is what has been detected and punished.  That belief, with all due respect, is incredibly naive.

No less than former Speaker of the House Jim Black said to the judge during his state trial last week, “You and I know there are all kinds of shenanigans that go on in money and politics.”

And how few of those shenanigans are actually detected? Tried? Brought to justice? The former speaker mentioned several off the top of his head that have gone uninvestigated, let alone unpunished.

While some legislators may not admit it to the public, privately they agree that there are problems.  An article in Popular Government magazine revealed that out of more than 50 past and present North Carolina legislators surveyed, almost all of them painted a bleak future about the state of our state.

Anonymously, our lawmakers said that the legislature was “more divided, more partisan, more driven by campaign finance needs and more vulnerable to special interest influence” than it was in the past.

Luckily, at least a majority of legislators were willing to vote for key reforms, including a pilot project for a public campaign funding option for some Council of State races. Candidates who raise small contributions from lots of voters and say no to PAC and special interest money can now qualify for matching funds that don’t have any strings attached that lead back to big donors.  This eliminates the potential for conflicts of interest and corruption that occurs when candidates need to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and can get it only from those interests regulated by their office.

Candidates who do get into trouble can no longer maintain secret “legal defense funds” without any disclosure of who gave them money and how much.  Ethics hearings involving lawmakers will now be opened up to the public, eliminating secrecy surrounding potential wrongdoing.  And any lawmaker convicted of wrongdoing will now lose their state pension and retirement.

All of these reforms are good ways to address problems that have surfaced over the last few years. But no law will be as effective as the one tool already available to voters, but often neglected: the right to vote.

Regardless of whether they are incumbents or challengers, Democrats or Republicans, we must hold candidates to a higher ethical standard. It beats getting held up by special interests.

Chris Heagarty is the executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, a Raleigh-based nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving elections in North Carolina.