News-Record.com

But this past week I was scratching my head, at least temporarily, over two guys who seemingly have enlisted in the cause of reform down here in Cap City.

Greensboro Republican Rep. John Blust has been pounding the reform drumbeat faithfully for years, and has been one of the most consistent voices for tighter reforms all legislative session. Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam , a Wake County Republican, is respected among his fellow representatives for his keen eye in making legislation work better and his clever turn of phrase in debate.

So it took me a while to register why these two were t-ing off on HB 1847. The bill is aimed squarely at 527 groups operating in North Carolina. If you remember the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” or “Move On” from the last presidential campaign, you have some idea what a 527 is.

Named for a chapter in the tax code, these groups can raise and spend money like candidates and regular political committees cannot. Basically, they can get buck loads of cash from businesses or labor unions or whoever and under the cover of lax reporting laws and loopholes batter or boost a candidate at the last minute with mailings, advertisements, robo-calls and push polls.

The bill in question is aimed at reining those groups in a bit. Basically, it boosts reporting requirements and clarifies that donors to 527s are restricted to the same folks who can give to regular political committees; in other words, no corporate contributions allowed.

So how did two reform-mined Republicans react to it?

Stam said that it was “essentially the government telling critics to shut up, we don’t want to hear what you have to say.” And then he went on to compare the proposed law – which has been sent to the governor, by the way – to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the late 18th century. For those who skipped that day in U.S. history, those acts were a widely reviled, unconstitutional blunder that tried to outlaw talking smack about the President. If you were to say something bad about the commander in chief, he could plunk your dirty mouth in jail.

Just to address a glaring point right off, no jail time is involved under the new 527 law, although an offender might have to fork over some cash.

Blust, to his credit, objected on procedural grounds as well as the grounds that the bill did little to stop the flow of money to and from legislative leaders.

“We ought to go after all the outside sources at once,” Blust said. Big donors, he argued, could still give to party PACs, which then pass on the money to individual candidates. I’ll come back to that idea in a minute.

Still, if government reform experts from the political left and right are to be believed, the most pernicious influence in politics today is the almighty dollar. And if you think a state representative might be influenced by someone who plunked $4,000 into their war chest, what might they do for a business interest that funded a 527-style campaign against a political opponent?

Keeping the big bucks at bay helps level the playing field. It ought to be something that reformers of all stripes would welcome.

Here’s the piece of the puzzle that took about 3 minutes to register in my thick skull: The biggest 527 player in state politics is the Republican Legislative Majority Committee bankrolled by millionaire and former state Rep. Art Pope and lead in part by Blust. The group has targeted those they consider RINOs, Republicans in Name Only. Most notably, it helped unseat Moore County Rep. Richard Morgan.

So when Blust and Stam and 25 other conservative Republicans (including High Point Rep. Laura Wiley) voted against the bill, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Their most successful political tool was about to be taken away, or at least weakened.

By way of full disclosure, the bill has an exception for us scrubby news media types and our corporate masters. Stam took exception to that exception, saying that it gives us corporate media types a “monopoly” on mass political speech. Although, I’m pretty sure my employer would never put a push poll or robo-call in the field. And given the industry’s track-record of lobbying on behalf of open meetings and records laws, I wouldn’t say all that “corporate speech” has gotten us very far.

But let me come back to Blusts’ point for a second. Along with his criticism of how the measure was done and the implicit criticism of the 527 restrictions themselves, was a larger point that pieces of ethics and campaign reform won’t work on their own. In order for all this legislation to have the desired effect, the public must have faith that real reform is taking place.
The honorables have a chance to do that, even if some commentators (here and here for example) don’t believe they’re trying all that hard.

With a week or two left to go in the legislation session, Blust, Stam and the rest of the crew have a short time to prove the skeptics wrong.