The N.C. secretary of state's office is trying to fine lobbyist Don Beason $111,000, but the public would know nothing about the action had Beason, himself, not revealed it in a court filing.
Under current state law, lobbyists are protected from most public exposure of allegations made against them, any evidence collected and then the fines levied.
The legislature should immediately change the law and open records of allegations and their disposition to public view.
McClatchy Newspapers recently reported that Beason appealed the fine in court. That's how its existence became public. He is accused of lobbying on behalf of clients who funneled their money through a different company. (Beason, once considered the most powerful lobbyist in Raleigh, is best known for once lending $500,000 to now-imprisoned former House Speaker Jim Black.)
McClatchy said the privacy clause for lobbyists was "apparently created by mistake" in 2008 when the legislature was making other changes in the state's ethics law.
It is possible that the extent of the change was a mistake. But it is easy to see how it was made. Throughout the last five years, as public pressure for ethics and lobbying reform has grown, the legislature's disposition has been to do as little as possible to upset the long-time practices of North Carolina politics.
On matters such as this, legislators have been far more deferential to the comfort of lobbyists than to the concerns of a public outraged over a seemingly endless string of scandals involving public officials.
When this legislation was debated, legislators demonstrated a decided tilt toward protecting the lobbyist. They expressed concern that, in the highly competitive lobbying business, lobbyists would be subject to baseless charges. They feared that a lobbyist who had done nothing wrong could be tarred by such charges.
There is a simple solution to such a concern. Make it illegal to file a false claim, and provide the victim of such an attack with the legal recourse to collect damages for any harm done.
It's awfully curious that legislators would grant such near-absolute privacy protection from baseless charges to lobbyists when they cannot get it for themselves. Under the right to free speech, anyone can say almost anything about a public official without fear of legal recourse. The legislature should rewrite the law to allow for full public examination of all allegations in the investigation process. At the appropriate point before a fine is actually assessed, the public should be made aware of the allegation, the evidence and the lobbyist's defense.
Hiding this information just further undermines public confidence in the legislative process and probably encourages corruption, too.
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