The Road to Corruption

Not long ago, a Florida developer struck a deal with officials in Mooresville, a booming town north of Charlotte.  In exchange for the company paying $15 million for a new road, the town agreed to rezone a large parcel of land for a massive “planned community” with shops and 560 homes.

Town leaders boasted that the much-needed highway would be built “at no cost to taxpayers.” But that’s not what happened.

The developer hired two prominent lobbyists in Raleigh and began donating thousands of dollars to Republican state legislators.  Presto!  Without any debate, GOP leaders added a provision in the 2023-24 state budget to spend $15 million of our tax money on the developer’s road project.

The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer have the gory details of this cash-in, cash-out transaction.

No doubt happy to learn how to make big profits in North Carolina, the Florida developer has initiated more projects here.  It’s hired more lobbyists and sent $450,000 in campaign contributions to Republican legislators and their party committees.

Fifteen years ago, Republican leaders were blasting Democrats for creating a culture of corruption in Raleigh.  And in many regards, they were right.  Scandals involving political money sent House Speaker Jim Black and other Democratic officials to prison and produced a raft of new ethics and lobbying laws.

But now, Republicans in control of the General Assembly and NC Supreme Court have taken us down the road to deeper, more insidious corruption.

Senate Leader Phil Berger, who championed ethics reform when Democrats ruled, is now the king of self-dealing and pay-to-play politics in North Carolina.  He used campaign funds to buy a home that he later sold for a handsome personal profit.  He helped lift his son onto the state Supreme Court, and he’s raised millions from donors seeking legislation of dubious public benefit.

Prime example: Until grassroots conservatives stopped him, Berger doggedly pushed legislation to legalize casinos and authorize addictive slot machines in thousands of stores, while gambling interests pumped over a million dollars into his allied political committees.

More typical are the quiet cash-and-carry deals that Berger and his allies insert into legislation, like the public grant for the Florida developer’s road. Or like granting permission for Illinois-based RedSpeed to sell its speed detection camera to local governments. The company’s monitoring system is banned in some states because, as a Georgia lawmaker said, it uses “deceit and trickery” to “rake in revenue.”  But a week after RedSpeed gave $120,000 to a Berger-controlled fund, a Senate committee slipped the RedSpeed provision into a transportation bill, and it became law two weeks later.

Gene Nichol’s book “Indecent Assembly” details the disastrous impact of Berger’s deals and policies, especially on poor and working-class North Carolinians.  Sadly, Berger keeps expanding his control over boards and courts – and protecting his power through extreme gerrymandering.

His self-serving corruption is reaching a new level this week with the mad dash to redraw Congressional district maps and disenfranchise Black voters in order to gain President Trump’s approval – and the possible Trump endorsement Berger needs for his reelection.  This gross abuse of power should prompt judicial rebuke, but that won’t come from a NC Supreme Court infected with similar corruption.

When first elected to the high court in 2004, now-Chief Justice Paul Newby accepted strict limits on raising money from special interests and qualified for public campaign funds.  But in the last 10 years, he has sided with Duke Energy in six different court cases while he and his wife own thousands of dollars of stock in the company.  Newby has engaged in these cases even though the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct says that “a judge should disqualify himself/herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality may reasonably be questioned,” including when the judge or a family member has “a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding.”

As chief justice, Newby has helped his Republican-majority court earn a reputation as the most aggressively partisan Supreme Court in a century.  His rulings have sanctioned gerrymandering and protected Berger & Company from accountability.

It falls to us to speak out, organize, vote and act together to put North Carolina on a better path toward liberty and justice for all.

Bob Hall is a longtime voting rights advocate and government and politics watchdog.