In the latest McCrory administration scandal, Secretary of Public Safety Frank Perry says that a donor to Pat McCrory complained that he had given a lot of money to political candidates and that he expected something in return. In particular, he wanted a contract extension worth $3 million of taxpayer money. If what he alleges is true, then Pat McCrory’s run as governor should be over. If it’s true and the episode doesn’t end his tenure, then the state, and the voters, accept that our government is openly for sale.
For decades, good government advocates have complained that our method of financing campaigns opened the door to corruption. In many cases, they argued, the corruption was already happening with a wink and a nod. People give big contributions to political candidates and expect access and favors in return.
Proponents of the system have always said that’s not true. Sure people give money but it’s just to get the attention of the candidates and elected officials or to promote people with shared ideologies. Nothing tangible is expected in return. They believed the old Jesse Unruh saying, “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, kiss their women and then look ‘em in the eye and say ‘Hell, no!’ then you’ve got no business being in this business.”
McCrory apparently can’t say no. According to Perry, Graeme Keith had complained to him several times about giving money and expecting something in return. He repeated his complaint in a meeting with McCrory and prison officials. McCrory says he didn’t hear Keith’s complaint but that’s not believable. According to Perry and others, the meeting broke up because DPS officials were uncomfortable with what Keith was saying. If that’s so, McCrory obviously knew the problem. If he didn’t, Perry made sure he did later when he warned McCrory’s chief of staff and budget director that awarding the contract to Keith would “soil our Gov.”
There’s very little wiggle room here. Either Perry is not accurate in his account of what happened or McCrory sided with a donor over his cabinet secretary. If the latter happened, it’s very difficult to see how McCrory is not considered corrupt. If the former happened, we need to better understand why Perry would say things so damaging about his boss.
The third option would be that the powers that be—the District Attorney’s office, the U. S. attorney’s office, the State Board of Elections—say that it’s okay for a donor to make such statements without any consequences. If that’s true, then we’ve reached a dangerous place in our politics. Throughout the first decade of this century, we sent politicians to prison for similar behavior. For the sake of our state, McCrory and company should be held to the same standards. At the very least, we should let a jury sort it out.
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 >
And might I add Duke energy is in the process of purchasing piedmont gas . Shall we say MONOPOLY who do you think will profit ; the good people in North and South Carolina or mccory and the Kochs ? State government and not Federal government .. The state of North Carolina has been mentally drained since Mccory and his government official’s have ruled our state and get ready for the physical drain once fracking goes into full swing in 2016 . I hope we can turn this state around in 2016 . Mccory should be a one term governor lets get the corruption and big money out of our government and return it to the citizens our teachers, students, veterans , environment and our elderly .
The episodes and outcomes of the McCrory tenure add up to an image of a Governor unworthy of the office. I myself find the power grab aimed at enabling Fracking most egregious. Cut down your trees and destroy your water is the best way to destroy a state. Fracking is bad for your aquifers, and Mike Williams Department Head for Poultry Science was making great headway in developing further systems to provide all the Natural Gas the State would ever need to offer from the hog wastes. The high price of grid electricity had at the last stage a negative impact on the economics of it, but Professor Williams was, or is in spite of all making good progress.
Little has been ever made of the fact that renewables and energy capture are jobs In Place for rural and urban workforce citizens.
How much the withdrawal of Tax Credits and other support may have had is not fully known to me. I did find out that the withdrawal of tax credits had immediately thrown people out of work in the biofuels waste to diesel business. I have a clip of one worker saying so on my youtube channel Transcendian.
The facts of all those who are in positions of leadership spending taxpayer money are that few of them seem aware of the priorities.
Energy is the main thing that enables the development and maintenance of Civilization. For the legacy grid I would be demanding Duke, Progressive, or Whatall give us Energy Capture from the Gulf Stream at the end of Two years. It isn’t as if they have to build a dam. GE is doing it far away in waters off Thailand or Indonesia, somewhere of no benefit to NC anyway. MCT in the UK is doing it for the shore communities.
Corruptions that keep NC citizens wedded to fossil fuels and threaten the water need to be crushed out of the system. if this isn’t obvious by now, then we can refer back to HB 819, noted as the Climate Change Denial Bill a corruption in total, as designed to allow shore real estate brokers to not have to mention land they sell by the ocean will in a lifetime be underwater.
Corruption is the number one reason states are dissolved, destroyed, wrecked, or abandoned.
Deciding how corrupt corrupt is seems a corrupt reach for legitimacy.
Corruption is so dramatically destructive to governments, peoples, that it must be simply stopped immediately no matter how much is considered the trigger. Like cockroaches, see one in the house, you can assume there are more.
In other words a little corruption is a lot of corruption, especially accompanied by stupidity and arrogance in general.
Looking at the larger picture, my understanding is that ballot initiatives are permitted in North Carolina’s 5 largest cities. In the most recent election the city of Seattle passed a ballot initiative that reformed campaign finance laws.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/campaign-finance-reform_563a14fee4b0b24aee482a20
If North Carolina’s 5 largest cities passed a similar initiative it would be for all practical purposes apply state wide. So instead of spending a ton of energy focusing on isolated cases of corruption that may or may not be successful, I think we should take a proactive approach to the problem and work on ballot initiatives.
Thomas, did the contract extension go to the donor? I assume it did or there would be no controversy. Was it McCrory’s decision to give the contract extension to the donor? Again, I assume it must have been or there would not be a controversy, yet the article fails to say so. Was giving the contract extension not in the public’s best interest? If there wasn’t a better alternative (or at least an equally beneficial alternative), then giving the extension was the right thing to do even in the face of embarrassing comments about quid pro quo from the donor.
Esse Quam Videri. The governor should not back off of the right thing to do just because it looks like the wrong thing to do. Of course, if the contract extension was not the single, best option then McCrory should be prosecuted.
Walter, the Secretary of Department of Public Safety recommended not extending the contract because it did not save money and had security risks. He recommended maintenance be handled by state employees instead of contractors. After complaints by the contractor, McCrory convened a meeting and overruled his cabinet secretary. There were certainly better options.
Cronyism is alive and well in NC