Gov. Bev Perdue is getting indignant about questions related to the integrity of her 2008 campaign spending, fundraising and reporting.
After the campaign returned $48,000 in contributions, she said, "My reaction is that I have the first campaign in the history of the state who has been very, very persistent in reviewing its campaign reports," according to McClatchy Newspapers.
North Carolinians are justified in their skepticism about any candidate. For the past decade, they've heard news of a House speaker, an agriculture secretary, a congressman, several former legislators and a former lottery official all going to federal prison. Some other luminaries have avoided prison but still had their sins revealed to the public. And that synopsis does not count any criminal convictions that might grow out of the investigations of former Gov. Mike Easley's administration.
So the governor must pardon her constituents if they are skeptical of $48,000 in contributions that even she admits were questionable. That these revelations came after she also had to concede that some campaign airplane flights were not properly reported only adds to the justification for the public skepticism.
Perdue and every other candidate for office must understand that the public will no longer sit by and accept the old way of doing things. Although state leaders have reformed ethics, campaign financing and lobbying laws during the past six years, they have done so only in small steps, hoping to do as little as possible.
That's because the traditional system in North Carolina politics rewarded the winners with the spoils of state power and revenue. It was accepted practice that whoever financed winning candidates got seats on powerful boards and commissions, special treatment in the legislature and in the awarding of state contracts. It was a system of pay-to-play, one that former House Speaker Jim Black must think about every day as he serves his sentence in a federal prison.
If Perdue really wants constituents to admire her integrity, then she will support strong reforms, ones that were sitting on the legislative agenda last year but which legislators conveniently failed to address. She will be in favor of additional restraints on fundraising and additional requirements for the reporting of the money a candidate's supporters raise. She will support the tightening of ethical standards that the Easley investigation has shown to be too loose. And she will push legislators to tighten standards for both themselves and local government officials.
Maybe then we'll be impressed.
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