Committee: remove Wright
The special House Ethics Committee investigating Rep. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover, voted 6 - 0 to recommend he be expelled. That recommendation now goes to the full House.
Previously today: here and here and here.
It fell to lawyer Bill Hart, who has served as the committee's de facto prosecutor, to make the case for kicking Wright out of the General Assembly.
He listed the 11 House members who had been expelled between 1757 and 1880 for offenses ranging from getting into a fight after a card game to fraud, larceny and "gross prevarication."
"I would submit to you that the conduct of Rep. Wright matches or exceeds the conduct in those cases," Hart said.
(Update: Click here to listen to some of Hart's arguments during the punishment phase of the hearing.)
The committee apparently agreed with .
Wright and his lawyers did not present a defense or argument during the punishment phase of the proceedings.
He told the Associated Press before the committee's dinner break: "I'm highly disappointed in my colleagues," Wright told reporters after the hearing. "This was a joke ... how dare they sit in judgment."
One of his lawyers called the proceedings a "charade."
Committee members did not let his absense stop their judgement.
"This man who was once a very good legislature ... somewhere, some time ago, lost his way," said Committee Chairman Rick Glaizer. He called Wright's alleged transgressions "breathtakingly massive...Rep. Wright holds public office because of his lies."
From Rep. Laura Wiley, a member of the committee: "No one is above the law, no matter what good they may be trying to accomplish...There is not excuse for deliberate flouting of the law that we ourselves make."
More to come.
Update: Click here to listen to Rep. Laura Wiley, a High Point Republican, giver her comments on the case before voting to recommend expelling Wright.
Update: The proceedings now go to the full House.
Wright has a court date on March 31, and House leaders have said they don't want to interfere with the operation of the courts. On the other hand, House leaders have seemed eager to move these proceedings forward. I would, frankly, be shocked not to see a special session sometime before the May primaries.
A spokesman for Speaker Joe Hackney said that the timing of any special session would depend on the schedules of members and the courts.
Previously, Gov. Mike Easley said that he would call the General Assembly back to work as soon as he received word from Hackney.
Update: For balance, Click here for the closing argument made by Prof. Irving Joyner, one of Wright's attorneys. The clip joins him as he argues that legislators are allowed to amend their campaign finance reports. (He doesn't mention that his client hasn't attempted to amend the reports that lead to part of his troubles.)
Final note: There are many reasons that the House has not voted to expel one of its members for over 128 years. Among them: most folks in elected life genuinely have an interest in serving the public. As I've written before, it would be a mistake to paint all legislators with the same brush.
Also, this is a drastic, serious step. Irrespective of what you think of Wright and what should happen with him, expelling him from the legislature essentially voids the votes of all those in his district who put him in office. For better or worse, he's who they elected and forcibly depriving someone of their elected representation is the most radical of steps in our democracy. No level of government takes such a step lightly.
Another reason you haven't seen this kind of proceeding for a while: most folks who come under the kind of pressure and scrutiny that Wright has faced simply resign. The most recent example of this is former House Speaker Jim Black. It's hard to fight a legal case and defend one's House seat and represent your constituents. Wright, by the way, is on the ballot in the May primary.
We'll look for clarity in the next few days about what the timelines might be and how exactly the House will handle this most somber business. Since it hasn't been done in 128 years, I'm guessing there's no ready-mix rulebook lying about that lays out how to go about this sort of thing.
If you need to catch up, I'm posting the AP's summary of what exactly it is Wright is alleged to have done wrong.
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From the Associated Press
- RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ A House ethics committee unanimously agreed Thursday that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Rep. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover, engaged in six counts of ethical misconduct and that the full House should expel him from office. The panel agreed that evidence showed Wright had:
- unethically persuaded Torlen Wade, then the director of the rural health office in the Department of Health and Human Services, to write a letter in 2002 stating his office was committing $150,000 toward a project to turn a Wilmington building into a museum commemorating the 1898 race riots in that city. But no such grant existed and Wade had no authority to provide money. According to Wade, Wright said he needed the letter to help him obtain money through a bank for the Community's Health Foundation that Wright had started.
- converted to his personal use a $2,400 check to the Community's Health Foundation dated Dec. 15, 2003, from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals. The money arrived after Wright wrote a letter to the company seeking a charitable contribution that he said would be used to improve health care in New Hanover County.
- converted to his personal use a $5,000 check to the foundation dated March 5, 2004, from Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. Wright also has written a letter to the company seeking a charitable contribution for the purchase and development of the Wilmington building into a museum.
- converted to his personal use a $1,500 check to the foundation dated April 1, 2004, from AT&T Corp. Wright also had solicited AT&T for a donation.
- failed to disclose on his campaign finance reports $180,000 in contributions from Jan. 1, 2000, through the end of 2006, as required by state election law.
- engaged in a pattern of conduct by deceptive solicitation of money for the foundation by getting Wade to write the letter and by asking the companies to donate.
The committee withdrew two of the original eight counts but reserved the right to consider them later. On Monday, the panel withdrew an allegation that Wright had fraudulently obtained a $10,000 line of credit from a credit union for the foundation, received $9,910 from the line and put it in his own personal bank account. On Thursday, the committee withdrew a count alleging that Wright gave to a Wilmington bank loan officer the letter written by Wade to obtain the loan.
Comments (2)
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Great coverage, Mark. Thank you.
Posted on March 7, 2008 2:40 PM
Two things to think about:
Wright reported many contributions late and failed to report other contributions thus depriving his electors of information that would affect their decisions.
Wright help Jim Black gain and maintain power, creating a parallel universe where his actions seemed normal to him.
Posted on March 7, 2008 9:25 PM