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The honorables are filing so many bills right now, there's no room on the racks outside the House Clerk's offices to fit them all. So it takes something really off to grab my attention.

H 2482 did just that. If you click on that link, you might not see anything amiss. After all, it's not unusual for legislators to seek funding for nonprofits.

In this case, the bill asks for $3 million to plow into the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro.

But if you looked at that same web page this afternoon, you would have seen this (click to enlarge):

If you take a look, that version of the bill information shows Rep. Earl Jones, a Greensboro Democrat is the second primary sponsor. That's not a position you get if you absent-mindedly sign the bill, but sort of gives you pride of place right behind the author.

And if you take a look at this page from the civil rights center, you'll see Jones is a member and officer of the board for the civil rights center.

I now direct your attention to G.S. 138A 37, which governs conflicts of interests by legislators:

Except as permitted under G.S. 138A 38, no legislator shall knowingly participate in a legislative action if the legislator, a member of the legislator's extended family, the legislator's client, a business with which the legislator is associated, or a nonprofit corporation or organization with which the legislator is associated, has an economic interest in, or may reasonably and foreseeably benefit from the action... (eds note: bold mine)

G.S. 138A 38 lays out exemptions.

When I asked around, Rep. Rick Glazier, who chairs the House ethics committee, said without knowing more about the facts of this particular case, he couldn't say whether one of those exemptions applied.

Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Davidson Democrat and the House majority leader, was less circumspect.

"I just think that's a conflict of interest and I would hope he would recuse himself from the issue," Holliman said.

Out of fairness, it's worth nothing that up through 2006, it was common practice for legislators to sponsor appropriations bills that directly benefited their organizations. Rep. Alma Adams used to regularly file one on behalf of her arts group in Greensboro, for example.

But the ethics tsunami that swept in after Speaker Jim Black was sent to the federal pen sought to address some of the blatant self-dealing. Of course, now legislators are usually bright enough just to get their friends to sponsor bills for the nonprofit in question.

At about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Jones said he was not aware of any conflict. When reminded that he did not sign on to a similar bill filed in 2007, Jones recalled that was right after the state's ethics laws had undergone a major rewrite.

"At that time the rules had just come out and there was a big question mark about everything," Jones said. It may have been the uncertainty about the rules that caused him to beg off last year.

"I'll have to check on that," he said.

Well, apparently he checked with someone who has a pretty clear ready on the statute.

He called about an hour later to say he had been given advice that sponsoring that bill would have been a conflict and a breach of the ethics act and that he called the House Clerk's office to remove his name.

A check of the bill jacket later this afternoon showed his named had been scratched out, and he no longer shows up as a sponsor online.

Still, this was a case that even if it didn't step over the letter of the law, certainly raised some very immediate red flags. One might be forgiven for asking Jones what exactly he was smoking.

A coda to all this: when told that Jones had removed his name, Glazier said the Greensboro legislator was likely out of any jeopardy. "That would seem to me to resolve any problems."