Slime

Democracy took a sucker punch this week when the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted to allow the sale of legislative seats to fat-cat corporations. In an embarrassing display of incompetence, board chairman Larry Leake and his hapless colleagues went through the motions of hearing Richard Morgan's complaint with barely a nod in the direction of decorum or seriousness. Loony Larry even had this to say to a reporter from the Southern Pines Pilot:

Asked if the board could not really have ruled just the same way in about 20 minutes - without all the testimony and argument - Leake just smiled.

"Maybe five," he said. "But people have a right to a hearing."

I'll bet he smiled ... just like he did throught the sham hearing ... pretending to be taking the matter seriously, but having already made up his mind. This comment alone would seem sufficient for overturning the decision on appeal.

But in addition to having a closed, narrow mind, Mr. Leake failed We the People on many other fronts. For example . . .

The SBOE refused to force those individuals with subpoenas to comply and turn over emails. BlueNC troll Socrates GOP is one of the slugs who ducked and covered, refusing to come clean when asked for her files. This lack of compliance made it impossible for Morgan's attorneys to prove that Pope's organization coordinated its activities with candidate campaigns. So the Puppetmaster and Sockrats were able to sit on the witness stand and lie (to my knowledge) with impunity.

Chairman Leake prevented Morgan’s key witness from testifying because the SBOE said it didn’t need to understand how 527s operated or why RLM is a committee engaged in influencing elections according to IRS revenue rulings because that isn’t relevant to the BOEs inquiry. From my watching the hearings, the SBOE didn't understand jack shit.

The Board also prevented Morgan's attorneys from doing a detailed analysis of the RLM mailings because it "didn't need help" in determining if the mailings were substantially identical. Welll that's flat-out bullshit. The Board obviously needed help because even an idiot could tell the pieces were substantially identical, which was one threshold for finding in favor of Morgan.

Finally, Leake said it is permissible for a 527 to mail 4,999 pieces once a day every day for 30 days (meaning 149,970 pieces of mail into a district) or maybe even two or three a day – but 100 a day wouldn’t be OK. What the hell sense does that make? None.

For the record, the five SBOE members will receive $15 apiece for each of the two days they worked. That's $150 and a pretty good deal. Where else could you get so completely screwed that cheap?

And just in case you're not fully up to speed on why all this matters, consider this: With the new freedom to pour unlimited amounts of money into legislative races, North Carolina is becoming the next Florida - a crooked state where the company with the most money can buy and sell elections like, say, sugar.

In the Florida Democratic primary for governor, Rep. Jim Davis has been the target of a series of attacks by outside groups funded largely by U.S. Sugar Corp. According to state records, one group is 100% funded by U.S. Sugar; the other has recieved $1.6 million in contributions from U.S. Sugar over the past two weeks alone.

If he didn't have a sugar daddy, Smith's campaign would be practically out of business. From Aug. 15 through Aug. 31, U.S. Sugar contributed 20 times as much money to outside groups supporting Smith as Smith had left in his own campaign coffers, according to forms filed with the Secretary of State's office.

The connection between the sugar industry, a powerful force in Florida politics, and Smith is well documented by the state press. As a state senator, Smith was instrumental in passing Everglades cleanup legislation that went easier on the sugar companies than prospective alternatives. Also, a top consultant to the Smith's campaign serves as a U.S. Sugar lobbyist.

That, friends, is the future of politics in North Carolina. Replace Big Sugar with Big Banking and Big Insurance and Big Retail and Big Tobacco and Big Oil and Big Asphalt and Big Whatever and you have just what John Hood and Art Pope want: elections for sale to the company with the most money.

It's a sorry turn of events, made even sorrier by the piss poor performance of an incompetent board of elections. For $15 pathetic dollars a day, they laid down a trail of slime that could corrupt NC politics for years to come.

Anglico

P.S. I've called on moderate Republicans like Richard Morgan to walk away from GOP, Inc., and join the Democrats in restoring integrity to government (including dumping our own sleazoid Speaker Black), but Morgan says no. He says he's going to change the Republican Party from within. Yeah right. Him and whose army? Morgan will be out maneuvered and outspent by government haters like Art Pope until the NCGOP has bought a majority of the NC house and drowned responsible government Grover Norquist's bathtub.

I say again, Mr. Morgan: What the hell are you still doing in the Republican Party?







Update: Someone pointed out to me that the SBOE board members are not equivalent to the SBOE staff members, who apparently comported themselves admirably throughout this painful charade. That's often the case with paid, professional staff. They do a good job that becomes irrelevant when $15-a-day politicos start hacking away. To my knowledge . . .