RALEIGH – Whose money is it?
State money, that is. House Speaker Jim Black seems to think it is his money to do with pretty much as he pleases. That’s why he exhibits little concern about the revelation that he and other legislative leaders stowed more than $20 million in “discretionary funds” within agencies of the executive branch to hand out pork-barrel projects to their political friends.
Former House Co-Speaker Richard Morgan was even more blunt in an Associated Press interview Wednesday, admitting that he used slush funds to help Republican allies in their primary campaigns against GOP challengers last year — and adding, “so what?”
State money doesn’t belong to Black or Morgan, however. It also doesn’t belong to Senate leader Marc Basnight, who used his share of the slush funds, apparently illegally, to contravene the will of the General Assembly by funding projects previously considered and rejected.
State money is another term for taxpayers’ money. It is not campaign cash. It is not earnest money. Its collection and dispersal are bound by constitutional and statutory rules, not subject to whim.
Speaker Black is having trouble keeping this straight, judging by his comments Thursday on a different matter – Gov. Mike Easley’s successful and praiseworthy action to sell a taxpayer-owned parcel of land in Charlotte for $5.2 million. Easley took the land bid to the Council of State, as legally required, just days before a bill shepherded by Black and Basnight was due to be either vetoed or implemented. In part, that bill would convey the Charlotte land to the Johnson & Wales cooking school essentially for free.
Black didn’t like this turn of events at all. Back in 2002, he and Basnight had given their personal pledge in writing that the state would subsidize the Johnson & Wales investment in Charlotte to the tune of $10 million. A month ago, he pitched the idea of essentially satisfying the pledge by giving the land away to the school. But before he could get the legislation into place, the governor was available to outmaneuver him.
According to Black’s press representative, he “will continue his efforts to fulfill his personal commitment to the school for the additional assistance and will look at other options.” The speaker’s “personal commitment to the school,” however, is not a matter of public concern. Jim Black is not the governor. He does not represent the state of North Carolina in negotiations. His “personal commitment” is certainly not binding on state government as a whole, or even the North Carolina House in particular. Black is the presiding officer of that chamber. He isn’t its czar.
Whatever personal commitments he made or will make are his own affair, to be satisfied by his own funds. State funds belong to the taxpayers, who still live in a constitutional government that separates legislative, executive, and judicial powers for reasons that, as recent events have reminded us, remain relevant and compelling.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.