OPINION

The Fayetteville Observer

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article?id=237977

Our View: Voters watch as legislators drag their feet on ethics and lobbying reform.
There is dim hope for some improvement in the state?s lobbying and government-ethics laws this year. But it is tempered by the suspicion that it?s more for show during an election year than a sincere attempt at reform.

Two months ago, the House passed and sent to the Senate its much-ballyhooed ethics-reform legislation. The House bills put some new controls on lobbyists and campaign-finance contributions, although they left significant loopholes. The Senate sent the bills to committee, where they were extensively modified and combined into a single bill. It didn?t emerge from committee until this week, shortly before the legislative short session appeared likely to adjourn.

The Senate bill is significantly different from the House?s legislation. It includes a much stronger, centralized State Ethics Commission empowered to investigate conflicts and wrongdoing in all three branches of government. While that?s a good thing, the Senate then elected to let the commission do its work in closed session, hardly a move for open government.
While the legislation would ban donations from lobbyists to political candidates or campaigns, that's a symbolic gesture, because lobbyists themselves aren't major donors. It would allow lobbyists to continue to solicit donations on behalf of candidates, however, a much bigger source of campaign cash for lawmakers. Even the N.C. Professional Lobbyists Association supported that ban. But it is, after all, an election year and our legislators appear more worried about collecting cash than limiting its sources. So they will leave the door wide open to influence-peddlers.

In the end, they may leave all the doors wide open. Lawmakers are eager to adjourn. Lobbying and ethics reform are the last major items on the agenda. A conference committee was appointed to somehow mesh the House and Senate's disparate bills. But nobodys making optimistic noises.

The issues just too big to make a mad dash for a deadline, said House Speaker Jim Black, whose campaign finances and dealings with lobbyists are the primary inspiration for the slew of reform measures. Black said he hopes for an agreement by early next week.

We hope that happens. If our legislators adjourn this session without enacting significant reform measures, they will all return home under a cloud dark with the suspicion that all of this was about appearances, not substance. They won't do much better if they pass a weakened compromise bill. And the voters are watching.