As ethics and lobbying reform ideas fly around the House and Senate, Gov. Mike Easley announced his own proposals Wednesday on how to hold elected and appointed officials in state government more accountable to the public.
Among the governor’s recommendations:
• Ban all gifts from lobbyists to legislators, legislative employees, and executive branch officers
• Extend the jurisdiction of the N.C. Board of Ethics to include not only the executive branch but also the legislative branch and judiciary branch employees, excluding judges, who are covered by the Judicial Standards Commission
• Expand the size of the Ethics Board staff from three to seven employees
• Streamline the Statements of Economic Interest forms so that outside financial investments and incomes of officials are disclosed annually
• Make lying on the Statements of Economic Interest forms a crime of perjury, punishable as a felony
“These measures, I think, will help ensure the public trust,” Easley said.
The governor based his proposal on recommendations from Judge Robert Farmer, whom Easley appointed chairman of the Ethics Board in March. State Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, said the new standards would be contained in legislation he intended to introduce in the General Assembly.
Farmer said at a press conference that members of all branches of government should welcome being under the same ethical standards. Some members of the Assembly have expressed concern about granting to another branch of government oversight over the legislature. Farmer said the Ethics Board, if addressing a problem with the legislative branch, would limit its actions to making recommendations to ethics committees in the House or Senate, which in turn would exercise discipline if necessary.
“I don’t think they should have a concern in the legislature,” Farmer said.
Easley said the bill would include “meaningful penalties” for those who betray the public trust. In the past the Ethics Board has had no effective means to enforce compliance with requirements to file truthful economic interest statements. Last year Kevin Geddings, an appointee of House Speaker Jim Black to the N.C. Lottery Commission, failed to disclose prior work he had done to promote the passage of the state lottery.
Easley also included two lobbying law changes: lifting an exemption for lawyers who lobby the executive branch, and eliminating all gifts to public officials from lobbyists.
“I just want to do it cold turkey,” Easley said. “Let’s stop taking gifts from lobbyists.”
The governor called Rand’s bill “simple and direct,” and said it would not likely be susceptible to court challenges.
“I think it’s very important that we recognize we have to pass something that we can implement immediately,” he said.
A leader of the state Republican Party approved of the measures, while at the same time taking a swipe at Democrats over the problems afflicting them, which have inspired the current wave of ethics proposals.
“We are pleased that the governor has been motivated by the scandals plaguing his party to pursue ethics reform, measures for which Republican legislators have been calling for some time,” said N.C. GOP Chief of Staff Bill Peaslee. “But additional laws alone will not end corruption.
“Until the Democrat Party cleans its own house of corrupt individuals they will not be able to gird themselves in a cloak of ethics.”
Paul Chesser ([email protected]) is associate editor of Carolina Journal.