Two recent developments in Raleigh ought to help the push for changes in the way campaigns for state offices are financed and the way the legislative process works.

Folks on the right are up in arms about the amount of money that labor interests gave to campaigns in North Carolina this year. One conservative think-tanker said on a talk show recently that the unions will definitely be expecting favors from the politicians who received the contributions.

Unions did significantly increase their political giving this election, though their donations are still dwarfed by corporate interests opposed to their agenda. And there's no doubt the money from unions played a role in the election of the progressive candidates they supported.

But it appears to have done something else too, prompted folks on the right to start complaining about the role of big money in the political process. After years of dismissing claims by progressive reformers that special interest money unduly influences elections and buys access and favors from politicians, the anti-campaign-finance reform crowd is all of a sudden singing a different tune. 

Of course big money buys access and special considerations. That's why wealthy interests give it. And it certainly didn't start with this election. It has plagued the system for years, but the money generally came from corporate interests that the folks on the right agreed with and they stood steadfastly against any restrictions on contributions, much less comprehensive reform.

Now that unions have increased their donation, all of a sudden there's a problem and they fear the donations will lead to pro-union legislation.

Unions have been outspent for years in North Carolina elections by corporate interests and they were outspent this year, they just closed the gap some. 

Maybe the result will not only be more openness from lawmakers to labor's agenda for workers, but also renewed momentum for taking private money out of the political process and replacing it with public money that comes with no strings attached.

The second development inside the Raleigh beltline is even more disturbing and illustrative of how state government works and who it works for. A legislative committee considering how to compensate the living victims of the state's horrific eugenics program met Thursday to talk about how to help the people maimed by the state from 1929 to 1974. 

The committee appears to be headed towards a recommendation to give each living victim $20,000. This is the not the first time lawmakers have wrestled with how to provide some measure of compensation to the roughly 3,000 living victims of the forced sterilization program.  A 2003 commission recommended that the survivors receive health care and education benefits. The General Assembly ignored the recommendations.

Rep. Larry Womble introduced legislation in 2005 to give each victim $20,000, but that was ignored too. The state has yet to do anything at all for the victims of its own eugenics program other than create a museum exhibit to explain it.

Lawmakers are likely to use this year's budget crisis as excuse not to help this time. But the budget is simply a list of priorities. The General Assembly could find the money if legislative leaders decided it was important enough.

The state budget has increased by more than $4 billion since Womble's bill in 2005. The needs of the state have increased too and most of the funding decisions make sense. But that doesn't mean there wasn't money for the victims of forced sterilization.

It means lawmakers decided other things were more important.   Since 2005, the General Assembly has spent new money on welcome centers, shipwrecks, the ballet, the opera, a new shed at the state zoo—and not a penny for the victims.

Taxes have been cut on the wealthiest people in the state. Corporations in specific industries have received tax breaks.

In 2005, the final budget left $112 million unspent, lying on the table, instead of compensating the survivors. In 2007, $270 million was left unappropriated while the victims were ignored.  And now we have a budget crisis and they are likely to be ignored again.

There is no reasonable explanation for that. There is nothing wrong with what the General Assembly voted to fund, but the people who have suffered at the state's hands should have come first.

The reason they didn't is that the political process is stacked against people who don't make campaign contributions or hire a well-connected lobbyist. It is a safe bet that the people living with the scars of the eugenics program are not major campaign contributors and don't have their own political action committee. There is not a battalion of lobbyists registered with the Secretary of State for them. 

Maybe lawmakers will muster the courage to do the right thing and help the people the state has wronged. But don't bet on it. The system doesn't work that way. There are too many favors they have to get to first.

Talk about the change we need.