Carter Wrenn posted on February 04, 2010 16:53
The pictures of young Ruffin Poole being led into the federal courthouse hand-cuffed has sent Democrats into a frenzy to pass another round of Ethics Reforms – and it’s like ‘déjà vu’ all over again.
After every scandal (from Jim Black fixing the Lottery Commission to Mike Easley’s wife getting a $170,000 a year job at State University) the poor Democrats have reformed but none of their ‘reforms’ work and there’s a reason: The Democrats reform the wrong things.
Mike Easley gives tax breaks and state contracts to campaign donors and the Democrats’ solution is to ban lobbyists buying legislators dinner.
What Easley (and Ruffin Poole) pretty clearly were doing this time was swapping State environmental permits for donations to the Democratic Party to elect Easley.
So what are the Democrats going to do to stop that? Limit contributions candidates give each other. The Democrats are dead-set on reforming – the wrong thing. All they really need to do is pass one simple law that says: No one doing business with the state can give contributions or gifts to elected officials. Period.
So why won’t Democrats do it?
Because they raise millions from people doing business with the state.
And one thing Democrats aren’t about to do is vote for a ‘reform’ that leaves them poor as Republicans when it comes to campaign cash.