Fitzsimon File

A member of Congress who voted for the Wall Street bailout this week told a reform group that the $50,000 he received in campaign contributions from banks did not influence his decision to support the legislation. And maybe that's true.

Politicians always deny that they are influenced by campaign contributions and it is impossible to prove definitively that they are.

There is no way to know for example that members of the General Assembly who receive significant contributions from the hog industry and oppose further regulation of corporate hog farms are doing it because of the money.

Many opponents of campaign finance reform claim that the apparent connections between contributions or fundraising and votes are misleading, that wealthy special interests mostly give money to lawmakers who already support their position and campaign donations are not made to buy influence or access.

But that debate should have been settled long ago. People making the contributions are clear about why they donate. The obituary this summer for Walter Davis, Texas oilman and prominent North Carolina political donor, quoted him saying that "a campaign contribution will only get you a returned phone call…a chance to be heard."

How do the rest of us get that chance?

And even if it were true that wealthy interests are simply paying to get people elected who agree with them, that's not a very comforting thought about our political system.

Libertarian Gubernatorial Candidate Mike Munger won’t be the next governor, but he can say one thing to voters that neither Democrat Beverly Perdue nor Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory can claim.

Munger is running without the predictable ties to the big money interests that control both major political parties. The latest flap between Perdue and McCrory makes his case.

McCrory continues to legitimately criticize Perdue for her ties to Louis Sewell, who resigned from the State Board of Transportation last week after reports that he voted for $375,000 in highway projects that improve commercial property he and his son own in Jacksonville. 

The scandal also prompted Sewell to cancel a fundraiser for Perdue, which seemed like the least he could do.  But McCrory won't let up. The story seems to fit well his campaign theme of cleaning up the "culture of corruption in Raleigh."

But the News & Observer reported Thursday that Tommy Pollard, a former member of the transportation board who faced his own conflict of interest charges, has raised $50,000 for McCrory's campaign.

Pollard raised $350,000 for the campaigns of former Governor Jim Martin, the last Republican elected in North Carolina. Before Martin left office, he pardoned Pollard, who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 1975 for shooting the husband of his ex-wife outside a truck stop.

Pollard also served in the state Senate and is now raising money for McCrory, but says he doesn't want to be on the DOT board again. McCrory has pledged not to appoint fundraisers to the board, but stops short of saying big donors won't get a seat or that fundraisers like Pollard won't be able to designate someone for the board.

McCrory's campaign manager Jack Hawke says there is no comparison between Sewell and Pollard because Pollard is a "volunteer citizen of North Carolina with no power."

Of course he has no power. His political party doesn't control the governor's mansion. Sewell had no power either before he started raising money for Governor Mike Easley and helped get him elected.

Hawke should know that. He was Deputy Director of the Department of Transportation under Governor Jim Holshouser.

That's the legacy of DOT in the last 40 years. It's the most obvious place where money buys influence for Democrats and Republicans, no matter how hard everybody tries to deny it.

 Email This Post  Print This Post

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.