Fitzsimon File

 

The guilty plea to federal corruption charges entered by former House Speaker Jim Black Thursday was startling because in it Black admitted that he used his position as Speaker for personal gain, apparently pocketing $25,000 in cash from a handful of chiropractors who had an intense interest in legislation pending in the General Assembly.

Documents released as part of the plea say that Black accepted the cash in several payments, sometimes in restaurant bathrooms, and told the person handing him the money not to tell anyone about it.

Until now, most folks following the case had assumed that Black would be indicted or plead guilty to charges that involved illegally soliciting or directing campaign contributions in an effort to make sure the Democrats stayed in control of the House and that he remained Speaker.

That was certainly the assumption after former Rep. Michael Decker pleaded guilty to accepting cash to switch his party registration from Republican to Democrat and support Black for Speaker in 2003.

The admission by Black that he used the power of his office for personal gain caught many of his longtime supporters off guard and seemed out of character for a man who seemed far more obsessed with remaining in power than lining his own pockets.

Considering the millions of dollars in campaign funds that Black raised and directed in the last several years, $25,000 is not a massive sum of money, but for many people in the state, it’s close to a year’s salary.  And it is not the amount that matters anyway, it is that Black admits he sold the Speaker’s office, or part of it, and kept the proceeds.

The reaction to Black’s plea has been predictable. The State Republican Party sent out an alert about Black’s plea and included a fundraising appeal. The State Democratic Party didn’t even mention Black in its weekly newsletter distributed by email late Thursday afternoon.

Pundits are blasting Black’s supporters in the General Assembly for saying Wednesday that Black should not serve jail time or that he should also be remembered for what he accomplished in his eight years as Speaker.  It is true that the details of Black’s plea makes those statements harder to hear, but it shows how convinced many lawmakers were that if Black broke the law, he did so out of some misguided effort to stay in office.

Overall, the reaction to Black’s guilt generally breaks down into two camps, those who believe that the best way to prevent future corruption is to elect more ethical people to office and those who condemn Black’s misdeeds, but think the current system of funding campaigns with millions of dollars donated to politicians with at least implicit strings attached makes corruption likely.

Ultimately, both takes are right. Electing more ethical people to political office would mean fewer politicians walking into courthouses in Raleigh and Washington. Some restraints on the power of political leaders would help too, like limiting the House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tem to two terms in office, and ending the legal money laundering that allows political leaders to funnel huge amounts of money to individual candidates by running it through their state political party.

Lost in all the justifiable outrage about Black and his transgressions are all the things that are still legal under our current system of funding elections. A special interest group can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a handful of politicians or a political party and then ask lawmakers to vote a certain way or include a special provision in the budget to help them.  

Lobbyists can still raise thousands of dollars for lawmakers the week before the session begins and walk into a lawmaker’s office a week later and ask him or her to introduce legislation.

At the very least, people with money can purchase access that the rest of could never enjoy. Politicians know they need a lot of money to run for office and they know where to get it, from people who have a direct interest in what happens in the General Assembly.  Our elections are effectively for sale and the bill comes due when the General Assembly debates legislation.

None of that excuses Jim Black’s reprehensible behavior in the least.  He has brought dishonor on the General Assembly and the House Speaker’s office and significantly eroded public confidence in their elected government and it appears all but certain that he will serve time in prison as a result.

It will take a while for the institution to recover, but let’s hope one of the results of this disturbing saga is that lawmakers take a long look at not only tightening up a few more ethics rules and campaign finance regulations, but also finally admit that the current system of paying for our elections is undemocratic and is itself inherently corrupt.

Here’s hoping for a new day in government when ideas, not big money, decide elections and policy debates.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.