Daily News

The responsibility for restraint when it comes to perks from lobbyists really lies with North Carolina lawmakers North Carolina legislators could have avoided all this fussing about how to limit lobbyists’ gifts and campaign fund-raising if they’d shown a little self-restraint a long time ago. They could have imposed upon themselves, without any problems at all, a promise not to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists, not to allow lobbyists to raise money for them, not to attend high-dollar functions sponsored by special-interest groups and, in short, to behave as servants of the people — instead of acting like self-important big shots on the make.

Lobbyists are getting a little tired of being the poster children for all the problems with government, and they’ve got a point. The problem with all the wining and dining and campaign money and other things that have characterized North Carolina’s ethically challenged legislative process isn’t so much with lobbyists who provide those things. It’s legislators who can’t say no.

And even if they could, they’ve repeatedly shown signs of not wanting to. Not to mention that some lawmakers have solicited every lobbyist with a pulse for campaign donations.

So it’s no surprise that every time lobbying regulation reform comes up on Jones Street, it sort of flops around until it dies, like a carp on a beach. (more…)

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 4:57 am and is filed under Daily News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.