Weekend Tuesday Update: post-MLK edition
Raleigh is back up at work after the 3-day weekend. Here are a few items to catch you up on things around town and beyond:
- I was going to include a brief explanation of my Sunday story on accounting for lottery money but ran on at the keyboard too long. Click here for a separate post on the topic.
- Mark Johnson of the Charlotte paper writes that Democrats are standing by Black,(mini reg. required) even in the face of the speaker's troubles. If that sounds like a familiar theme, it should.
- In one of their "Under the Dome" columns this weekend, the Raleigh N+O reported this nugget:
A member of the N.C. Board of Ethics suggested last week that its efforts to develop recommendations for a proposed ethics law should be done in closed session.
Mittie Smith, a High Point lawyer who has served on the board since 1993, said she didn't know whether the board could come up with the best recommendations "if we are being watched by the press."
"I think we would probably be better to do it without the press looking over our shoulder," Smith said.
Yeah, you'd hate to have those discussions about making sure government is transparent and that people are fair-minded and not improperly influenced by arm-twisting or bribes out in the open. (To their credit, the rest of the ethics board seemed to ignore the suggestion.)
- If Earl Jones is listening, Earl you might want to have a talk with one or two of your colleagues.
Why?
Well, the N+O's Dome also reported this tid-bit in the last few days:
Amid all the ethics reform talk in the state House, Rep. Deborah Ross, a Raleigh Democrat, wants to do something about lawmakers who use campaign contributions for personal use. She has asked that a special House ethics committee take up the issue and, ultimately, recommend a ban on the practice.
"It needs to be changed because when people give money to someone's political campaign, they give it to advance the public policy that the person might affect," said Ross, who is a co-chairwoman of the House election committee. "They don't give it for that person's personal expenses."
Rep. Grier Martin, also a Raleigh Democrat, said the current law also could allow someone to legally bribe lawmakers by giving them campaign money that they can pocket.
This idea apparently came up in the context of discussing former Rep. Mike Decker, a Republican who got some healthy campaign contributions at just about the same time he sent the House all higgly-piggly and forced the now-infamous power-sharing agreement between the GOP and the Dems.
But that kind of restriction would pretty well crimp Jones' style as well. He recently told our editorial board that legislators' pay is so low, they should be able to reimburse themselves for some expenses. (For more editorial ire, click here.)
- She's not a state legislative contender, but an e-mail from Ada Fisher's Congressional campaign address seems to indicate that the Charlotte Republican will be challenging Mel Watt in the 12th Congressional District again. The e-mail was publicizing her talk during an MLK Day celebration and called Fisher "a likely candidate for the 2006 12th District US Congressional race."
Fisher took about a third of the vote in 2004, which isn't bad considering she was outspent 5-1 and registered Democrats only make up 26 percent of the district that defines gerrymandering in the tar heel state.
- In honor of my trip to visit the parents over the weekend and my home state of Maryland, check out this story on the Maryland legislator over-riding the governor's and forcing Wal*Mart to pony up money for health insurance. I don't know if that could or would happen here, but if it ever got going the fight would be epic.