News-Record.com

I have a story in the paper today (Sunday) on the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. From the lede:

RALEIGH - A nonprofit foundation run by African American legislators and designed to provide scholarships for minority students could be at odds with the spirit - if not the letter - of new state ethics and lobbying rules, good-government advocates and other lawmakers say.

The N. C. Legislative Black Caucus Foundation is associated with the General Assembly’s Legislative Black Caucus, which is made up of the legislature’s African American members - eight senators and 20 representatives - and headed by Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat.

Companies and others with interests pending before the General Assembly can give virtually unlimited donations to the group without disclosing them to the public. Good-government advocates worry this type of arrangement could allow special interests to curry undue favor with lawmakers.

Click here to read the whole story.

Some linkage and credit where credit is due:

• As I understand it, questions about the black caucus foundation have apparently floated about the General Assembly building for quite some time. I've only recently begun to hear about them from a couple of sources. WUNC's Laura Leslie was the first person that I know of to write about them, doing so in a blog post. (Click here to link.)

• Laura mainly was reporting a rumor that money had gone missing from the caucus foundation's coffers. The Charlotte Observer's Mark Johnson picked up that story and wrote it on Friday. (Registration may be required to follow the link.)

• Adams said that she doesn't think any money is missing. My story pulls on a different thread: how the caucus's foundation's as a potential nexus for money and politics.

• You can click here to read the caucus foundation's I990, which is referenced in the story.

So why does any of this matter?

As said in the story, the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus is a powerful voting block within the General Assembly. While they're not large enough to make anything happen on their own, they are large enough to keep controversial bills from moving. For example, one of the reasons that Rep. Hugh Holliman's smoking bill is having such a hard time moving is some serious dissention within the caucus.

Although allegiances can shift issues to issue, the normal configuration of the House on controversial vote has most, if not all, Republicans arrayed against the Democrats.

A bill needs 61 votes to pass the chamber. There are 68 Democrats and 20 members of the black caucus in the House. The math is pretty easy from there.

Now the caucus foundation is a separate 501(c)3, but its officers as listed on its 990 forms going back a few years are all legislators. And I heard from donors feel that the missions of providing scholarships and putting on the foundation's educational weekend are worthy, good things.

But it strains credulity to think that large corporations and interest groups - which already spend a lot on lobbying and influencing government through normal channels - don't think about the very strong connection between this nonprofit and a group of legislators when they donate.

So who is giving to the caucus foundation and why is of interest pretty much in the same way who gives to political campaigns is of interest. But in this case, those donors are rarely a matter of public record.

A few more points.

• I see the problems that could crop up in connection with the caucus foundation as very similar to those that could arise in connection with legal defense funds, which don't have to disclose their donors either.

• It is worth repeating that Rep. Alma Adams just took over this group in January and is in the position of figuring out what's what for the first time. She told me she has not been that involved with the foundation's operations in the past, and I'll take that on face value for the moment.

• No one has said that those involved with the caucus have done anything wrong vis-a-vise the foundation. What has been said very clearly is that there is a potential problem, especially under the state's new ethics guidelines.

• Given the recent history of House Speaker Jim Black and the 2005-2006 push for ethics reforms, you can pretty much bet any group connected to a group of legislators is going to get its share of scrutiny from now on.