RALEIGH – In one sense, the debate in North Carolina state government concerning ethics and lobbying reform is one of particular bills and bill particulars. It’s about details. It’s about ensuring that reports get filed, expenditures disclosed, conflicts of interest detected, and misbehavior punished.
But in another sense, the debate is not about details. It’s about what’s fundamentally wrong with a political culture that elevates style over substance. It’s about, for example, the fact that a group of state legislators and other government officials took a cruise on a state-funded ferryboat to see the Tall Ships festival last week in Beaufort.
Representatives of the North Carolina Ports Authority, a state agency, thought it appropriate to set up the event to bring “awareness of the value of the ports to the state,” a spokeswoman told the Raleigh News & Observer. They thought it appropriate to use public funds to serve “a catered meal of shrimp, scallops, sandwich wraps, fruit, pasta salad and desserts while a steel drum band performed.” They thought it appropriate to ask other government-funded entities to pay for alcoholic beverages to be served to the politicians on the boat.
Well, they thought it appropriate. Since the N&O’s report came out on Wednesday, former NC House Speaker Carl Stewart, who heads the ports authority, now says he thinks it “wasn’t a good idea to have such a lavish event as this. One attendee, Rep. Pricey Harrison, called the event a “state-financed boondoggle.” Another lawmaker who was invited but did not attend, Rep. Pryor Gibson, said it was an example of “things that might smell a little.”
I’m not sure what to add to language that critical, from lawmakers and participants themselves, other than to say what’s wrong isn’t just the invitation-only and ritzy nature of the event, or the fact that it occurred at the same time that regular Joes and Janes sweated in line to see the tall ships (and in some cases waited to find that they couldn’t see the ships at all, due to numbers). The bigger problem is the assumption that holding such an event, even at a lower cost and exclusivity level, would be a legitimate way to sway the funding and policy decisions of state lawmakers.
That is what officials from the ports authority should admit they were doing. Why else does one invite the politicians who control your purse strings, so they can increase their “awareness of the value of the ports to the state,” if not in the hopes that the increased awareness will result in more consideration or cash? It’s a vicious circle – using taxpayer dollars to lobby elected officials to procure more taxpayer dollars. (The ports authority does spend user-fee money for operations, but it is not correct to suggest, as some do, that this exonerates the agency from the charge of misusing taxpayer funds. The ports routinely get appropriations of tax funds their significant capital costs, and also benefit from a tax credit for companies that ship products through the state ports.)
Let me put this in blunt terms: anyone who believes that taking a party cruise on a ferryboat is a useful way to learn about the “value of the ports to the state” is unqualified to make decisions with my money or any other taxpayer’s money. Such decisions should be based on statistics, reports, and careful thought. They have absolutely nothing to do with shrimp and steel bands. Similarly, pretty much all the silly wine and cheese parties state and local politicians attend are the constituent elements in a culture of profligacy and special-interest pleading that does not serve the public interest.
Yes, it is a certain kind of problem when trade associations with issues before the General Assembly pay for wine and cheese receptions for the lawmakers they seek to influence. It is another kind of problem, arguably an even-worse one, when taxpayer-funded agencies pay for receptions for the lawmakers they seek to influence. But what is most galling is the assumption that lawmakers should spend their time attending, and base any significant decisions on what happens at, said wine and cheese parties regardless of who is paying for them.
Here’s a modest proposal. Cut ‘em all out. Come to Raleigh, serve on committees, meet with constituents, read reports and statistical information, vote on bills, and then go home. Party on your own time, on your own dime.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.