Mar 05, 2007
The speaker's plight
Editorial - Charlotte Observer

Newly elected House Speaker Joe Hackney finds himself in a political cleft stick. As a reformer who has done more to improve election campaigns, regulate lobbyists and raise ethical standards than anyone else in the 120-member House, he's now in an even more visible position. He faces high public expectations of more reforms in the legislature. 
 
Yet Speaker Hackney won the speakership in a Democratic caucus campaign with as many as a half-dozen other candidates who wanted the job. And while he wound up with the support of the caucus, it means he doesn't have an unlimited line of political credit to spend shaking up the legislative process -- or ticking off allies. 
 
The speaker is backing rules changes that will improve the political process. Last week he said there would be no special budget provisions unless they apply to appropriations or tax changes; a ban on immediate floor votes on legislation so members have more time to study proposed bills; a ban on the filing of blank bills whose content would later be filled in after bill introduction deadlines; and no committee "floaters" -- members who serve on all committees to make sure the leadership's will is done. 
 
These changes are good. Others need to be made -- including more transparency on appropriations and term limits on House and Senate leaders. Unfortunately, longtime Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, doesn't see any need for limiting terms -- and in fact has no enthusiasm for limiting special provisions, either. They help get bills passed, he said. He's right. That's a problem in Raleigh and in Washington, too. 
 
Speaker Hackney faces further problems from within his own party. Rep. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover, is the speaker's choice for chairmanship of the appropriations subcommittee on capital and the House committee on health, as well as vice chair of homeland security, military and veterans affairs. 
 
But Rep. Wright has not cooperated in an investigation of his political campaign reports by the State Board of Elections. State elections director Gary Bartlett says Rep. Wright has declined to answer two requests for an explanation about delayed reporting of $41,000 in campaign contributions from donors associated with a landfill that would be created near Wilmington. 
Joe Sinsheimer, a political consultant who pressed state and federal prosecutors to investigate former Speaker Jim Black, has asked Speaker Hackney to remove Rep. Wright from his posts.  
 
Speaker Hackney said he didn't want to prejudge the legal process, though he advised Rep. Wright to avoid acts that might call his impartiality into question. 
 
That's entirely consistent with the American legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty. But it won't do a thing for a legislature whose image is already battered by tales of bribery, obstruction of justice and illicit cash passed along in bathroom meetings in previous sessions. The House troubles just won't go away.