Just because the State Board of Elections found no violation of campaign finance laws in the case of a the video poker group distributing checks to lawmakers through lobbyists doesn’t make the case stink any less. The video sweepstakes industry paid lobbyists, consultants, and lawyers $10 million over four years. One executive, Chase Burns, donated $274,500 to 90 campaign committees, including $25,000 to Thom Tillis and Phil Berger.
The Elections Board determined that the donations were personal contributions. Had they been from a business or corporation, they would have been a violation of state law. Burns, though, was getting paid $45,000 a week, roughly the annual median income in North Carolina, from sweepstakes operators in North Carolina. Chase may have stayed within the letter of the law but what he did certainly violated the spirit of it.
Just to add to the smell, it turns out that Elections Board member Paul Foley worked for one of the law firms that represented the sweepstakes firms and was under investigation by the board. Foley reportedly pressed the board for information on the progress of the investigation. He’s also the guy who worked with GOP operatives to try do away with an early voting location at Appalachian State, a site where Democrats did well.
We should also remember that Governor Pat McCrory worked for Moore & Van Allen before he was elected. The law and lobbying firm represented the video sweepstakes industry. Despite running on transparency, McCrory never disclosed what he did with the firm and whether or not he worked with the video poker groups. We only know that he appointed Paul Foley and four other people to the State Board of Elections.
Finally, last year, the legislature moved the State Bureau of Investigations away from the Department of Justice and put it under the Executive Branch. So now, all of the people who would investigate the governor for campaign irregularities were appointed by the governor. So much for McCrory’s pledge to end cronyism and increase transparency.
The whole thing stinks.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Bonds just help rich people get paid from the loan, instead of paying taxes. The scheduling of the Bond Referendum for this Connect boondoggle is another in the trail of tears that has become the NC way. Pseudo Aristocrats and religious fanatics who get what they want as they crush the working classes from pleading ignorance. They’ll schedule that vote at the worst possible time for working people, who for the most part have no education of what it all really means. If you think the corporate control of the media leaves these TV stations and newspapers alone, keeps them impartial, your in another world.
Yes, this reeks of politics as usual in NC. All the GOP claims of integrity, transparency and “open-process” were nothing but campaign rhetoric before 2010, and have been nothing but bold-faced lies since then.
The NCGOP is sitting pretty. A supermajority in both NCGA chambers. The governor’s seat is theirs. No independent DOJ any more, so investigations don’t happen when they should. Gerrymandered districts making any loss of their NCGA majority a big challenge (if not a fantasy) for their opposition. A voting suppression law in place that makes any substantive losses of state NCGA and federal House of Reps seats very remote possibilities.
So, unfortunately, incompetence (DHHS//Foods Stamps/Wos), “smoke” (this campaign finance example above), arrogance (can you say Sens. Rucho,Tucker and Berger, and Reps. Barefoot, Wade, and Stam?), regressive taxation, veteran teacher leavings, corporate welfare, government-by-bible, trickle-down worship, no jobs programs or relief for the lower/middle economic classes, and denial of Medicaid heathcare coverage to hundreds of thousands of near-poor NC’ers will continue unabated. I fear that only a series of major, proven and prosecuted scandals can tilt the game Republicans are playing….
Gee, do ya think that Thom Tillis will have a “one-on-one” with Chase Burns to get Burns’ “unique perspective” on, say, gambling addiction, or campaign finance reform, if one of those issues comes up before one of his committees?
Wow is right! NCGOP – so intent on “protecting the state from voter fraud” – has been extremely busy committing fraud in so many areas – disenfranchising voters, taking money from businesses and advocating for them via legislation, protecting them from investigations, etc. and so on.
VOTE ‘EM OUT – that’s the way to shut them up…
Wow!