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 Our Pay to Play Culture
by Tom Campbell
May 28, 2009
There’s no denying we live in a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” culture. It has worked well for us, but when you add greed and corruption to the mix and bribes, kickbacks and other illicit activities it turns this neighborly practice into a pay to play culture.
While most people do the right thing there is far too much evidence, especially in government, that supposed public servants have used places of privilege and influence for personal gain. In recent years we’ve seen an Agriculture Commissioner, a Congressman, at least one legislator and even the Speaker of the North Carolina House exposed and convicted. It now appears our former Governor, along with family, friends and associates may have crossed that ethical line.
Our state has become a poster child for public abuses of power, ethics and the law. We, as a people in this state, need to decide whether or not this is acceptable and, if not, what needs to be done to rectify the situation.
Why is this occurring so frequently? Some blame the situation on the change in our Constitution that allowed gubernatorial succession, resulting in too few in legislative leadership remaining in power too long. The rapid growth in the size of government certainly makes it more difficult to oversee accountability. There are those who claim the public watchdogs, especially the media, are not doing their jobs. Others speculate that ethical people aren’t offering themselves for public service for a myriad of reasons.
What will it take to restore the “good government” mantle of which we once boasted? The obvious answer is that a scandal would shock us into the reality that we have serious problems that demand response, but we continue to see evidences of scandal. Our legislature reluctantly passed ethics reform laws that, while good, don’t go nearly far enough to set out clear guidelines for their own members and others in public positions to follow.
The movement must start with election campaign finance reforms. We can no longer afford to have the leaders selecting their representatives by making large in-kind contributions through political parties. Campaign contribution limits must apply evenly to all. There remain far too many conflicts of interest in which special interests have a closed-door entre to decision making. Rules for lobbyists need to be specific and enforced to prevent the relationship with elected officials to become too cozy. There should be a respectable cooling-off period in which an elected or high-ranking government official must wait before becoming a lobbyist. And yes, we must fix the system where too few stay in power too long. It is highly ironic that we won’t let the Governor stay in office but eight years yet our legislative leadership, the ones really making the decisions, can remain in power indefinitely.
North Carolina could become known as the state with the toughest ethics and election laws in the nation instead of one where a succession of officials get caught in unethical and illegal actions. The simple truth is that we won’t fix these abuses until the people of this state rise and tell those in power to either clean their own house or clean out their offices so a new group can try to restore good government. Back scratching is acceptable. Pay to play isn’t. |
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