Wright
You remember Joe Sinsheimer, the www.jimblackmustgo.com guy? Well, while he’s done haranguing the Speaker, he’s not out of the business of pointing out what he sees as corrupt practices by legislators.
His latest target is Thomas Wright, a House member from Wilmington and mid-level member of the Democratic leadership. (He wouldn’t be on anyone’s top 5 but he would be somewhere in the top 25 and he does have enough influence to kill a bill every so often.)
According to a complaint he's filing with the Board of Elections, Sinsheimer's beef is this (after the jump):
Specifically, I am asking the State Board to investigate whether the Wright Committee deliberately filed false, incomplete and or misleading campaign finance reports in an attempt to hide contributions from at least three controversial sources: 1) the developers of the proposed Hugo Neu landfill in Brunswick County, North Carolina; 2) lobbyists for Atlanta-based CompuCredit, Inc. a company specializing in payday and other sub-prime lending; and 3) the sub-prime consumer finance industry in general.
Click here to read the whole thing.
For those who don’t remember, the Hugo Neu landfill was one of the big “mega-landfills” that were the focus of a statewide moratorium during the last session of the General Assembly. Background here.
As for the “sub-prime lending industry,” well they have any number of axes that they have and will be grinding before the General Assembly. First and foremost among those would be the re-establishment of the payday lending industry in North Carolina.
Now, taking money from people and interests (even controversial ones) who are directly affected by one’s actions in the General Assembly may be poor form, but it is nothing new. Such contributions account for the bulk of the money in our political system today.
The check on all that is supposed to be candidates reporting what they get in a timely fashion so that voters can see who is currying favor with their elected representatives. The idea is if a donor is seen as repugnant enough, or has interests in conflict with you’re constituents’ interests, one might not want to have to report that.
What Sinsheimer is alleging is that Wright failed to report those contributions in a timely and transparent way.
You can find Wright's finance reports by clicking here.
Wright is from down east, so he’s not one of the honorables I keep all that close tabs on. However, I’ll be interested to see what his response is and will post it here when I see one.
Update:Our friends at the Associated Press caught up with Wright. From their story:
Sinsheimer said 80 contributions Wright's campaign received from individuals and political action committees weren't reported in a timely fashion. That includes $4,750 from as many as 11 executives and lobbyists from Sims Group USA, which wants to build the Hugo Neu landfill in Navassa.During the primary election in May, Wright's challenger opposed the proposed landfill and Wright has generally blocked efforts to end the project. Wright sits on one of two committees examining the pros and cons of such landfills during a one-year moratorium on new permits.
"I'm not influenced by who contributes to my campaign or not, never have been, and won't be," Wright said. "I don't know the folks from Hugo Neu from anybody."
Sinsheimer also alleged delayed disclosures of two donations from the political action committee of consumer finance company HSBC and another industry executive.
While he couldn't immediately cite specific donations, Wright said he often receives checks several weeks after the date on the checks and more time may pass before the checks are deposited.
"I think I did report what was reportable," Wright said. "I don't think that's uncommon at all."
Many of the recorded donations only list the month and year in which the donations were received, although state election officials also want the day of the month. Wright said he would amend anything that needed to be updated.