May 28, 2008
So, only Dems can properly investigate ethics charges?
editorial - News & Observer

Remember the bad press legislative Democrats got in 1989, when they stripped Republican Lt. Gov. Jim Gardner of the power to assign bills to committee and appoint committee members? That may have been the right policy decision, given that the lieutenant governor is an executive branch official who should not be dabbling in internal legislative politics, but it was a public relations disaster because it was attributed to partisan huffiness. What did Senate Democrats learn from that episode? Nothing. Last week they were busy ginning up a bill that would prevent the state auditor from investigating ethics complaints. From a policy point of view only, it might seem reasonable to have one central office, in this case the State Ethics Commission, responsible for ethics investigations. But once again, the tin-eared Democrats evidently do not understand how bad it looks taking power away from Republican State Auditor Les Merritt. Or perhaps they did understand how it looks, and went ahead anyway.