A critic of House Speaker Jim Black has filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections asking for an investigation of campaign contributions from the payday lending industry to dozens of state legislators.
Democratic consultant Joe Sinsheimer, who has organized a campaign to press for Black’s removal or resignation with his Web site www.jimblackmustgo.com, says 12 legislators have falsely reported at least one political contribution from the payday loan industry. In addition, 26 lawmakers failed to report payday loan industry contributors’ employment information, as required by law. Both Republicans and Democrats were cited by Sinsheimer, including Black, D-Mecklenburg.
“We have an industry that, for the last four years, the attorney general has tried to get out of this state,” Sinsheimer said in a press conference Monday. “They are trying to make a comeback.”
In his complaint, Sinsheimer asked elections board Chairman Larry Leake and Executive Director Gary Bartlett to investigate some out-of-state contributors, and their North Carolina-based lobbyists, to determine whether they engaged in a “focused effort” to conceal their ties to the payday lending industry. He also asked the board to look into whether members of the General Assembly intentionally hid information on campaign reports that would have revealed that sources of their contributions were payday lenders.
“I believe that somehow this was orchestrated,” Sinsheimer said, adding that he was also sending a copy of the complaint to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Sinsheimer alleged that Black failed to report employer information in 2003 of two contributors from the payday lending industry, and that he falsely reported another in 2004.
Sinsheimer also noted that in 2003 both Black and Republican Co-speaker Richard Morgan raised $70,000 from industry companies for Section 527 political committees that each represented. Payday lenders donated $50,000 in 2002 and $10,000 in 2004 to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, of which Black was national finance chairman. Morgan raised $10,000 in 2004 also, for his North Carolina Republican Main Street Committee. Sinsheimer questioned the corporate nature of the contributions, noting that some came in identical amounts to both Black’s and Morgan’s organizations, and wondered whether they were raised “in return for favorable legislative treatment.”
In addition, Sinsheimer said Morgan in 2003 failed to report employee information for seven contributions from payday lenders — the same ones that he identified a year later as donors to his Section 527 “Main Street” committee. IRS regulations allow unlimited “soft money” contributions from individuals to political committees set up under Section 527 of the IRS code.
“It is difficult to believe that the Morgan committee did not have the employer information for these contributions since months later Morgan was able to successfully solicit corporate contributions from these same companies to his 527 political committee,” Sinsheimer wrote in his complaint to the elections board.
In contrast to the 38 legislators whom Sinsheimer said filed false, misleading, or incomplete reports on payday lender contributions, he said Democrat Sen. R.C. Soles of Tabor City and Republican Sen. Richard Stevens of Cary accurately reported the identities of payday lending contributors. House members Marvin Lucas (D-Cumberland) and Joe Kiser (R-Lincoln) accurately recorded the information also, as did recently retired House member Bill Culpepper (D-Chowan), who left to take a post on the state Utilities Commission.
Sinsheimer said the few accurate reports proved that the employer information on the payday lending contributors “was easily available.”
Stevens, who had not heard about Sinsheimer’s complaint, said the $2,000 that came in for him from four out-of-state individuals in January 2005 was unsolicited. He said he didn’t recall ever meeting any of them, and said at the time another treasurer was handling his contributions. He is his own treasurer now.
Stevens said he has always tried to do his due diligence on his campaign reports.
“It’s not that hard,” he said. “That information is not hard to find on anybody.”
He wouldn’t comment on the specific complaint, but said, “I believe all of us have an obligation to accurately report all of our contributions.”
Paul Chesser ([email protected]) is associate editor of Carolina Journal.