Mar 02, 2008
The great Raleigh cleanup benefits us all 

Charles Broadwell - Fayetteville Observer

Jim Black, the former state House speaker, is in federal prison. 
 
State Rep. Thomas Wright of New Hanover County is feeling cornered, more and more, by the House ethics committee chaired by Rep. Rick Glazier of Fayetteville. 
 
Yes, the broom is sweeping through Raleigh, but plenty of crummy cobwebs remain. 
 
The current House speaker, Rep. Joe Hackney, discussed the ethics-reform efforts during a visit to The Fayetteville Observer on Tuesday. He acknowledged that there’s still work to do. 
 
State Sen. Tony Rand of Fayetteville said much the same Friday before about 40 editors and publishers at a North Carolina Press Association meeting in Cary. 
 
North Carolina has never had the political sleaze reputation that has clung to some Southern states like entangling moss. But we have taken big hits this decade, including the imprisonment of former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps. 
 
Attorney General Roy Cooper, in his remarks before the newspaper group, said his office has investigated or prosecuted more than 350 public officials across the state on corruption allegations since 2001. That’s a big number. 
 
Rand traces his connection to state government to his boyhood service as a legislative page in 1953. “We will try to restore the public’s faith in our government,” he said. But, he added, “it’s sad when we get tarred with the brush.” 
 
Rand has supported open-government initiatives. But he said he’s not sure about possibly making any ethical complaint filed against a legislator as a matter of public record. That could lead to political-sabotage efforts intended simply to stir negative publicity. 
 
Around this time — and to my surprise — Rand brought up an ugly rumor that had been spread about him in the past year or so. The word was that he had been stopped for drunken driving and that the sheriff had somehow made the charge disappear. 
 
Newspapers contacted him about the rumor, he said. One told him that if he denied the rumor, that’s what would be reported. 
 
“Denied it, hell. It had not happened,’’ he said. 
 
“But if it had been printed, everybody would say, ‘Yeah, I knew the boy had been drinking too much.’’’ 
 
So much for that courthouse rumor about our Senate majority leader, perhaps. 
 
Now, as for the role of the press in keeping tabs on politicians, whether to sift through gossip or monitor legislation-in-the-making: It’s critical to the process. 
 
The state of our statehouse may be looking cleaner, but those cobwebs can always creep back in.