Sep 18, 2008
Ethics rules with gaping holes
editorisl - Greensboro News & Record

Ethics rules with gaping holes  
 
An influential state legislator buys more than 300 acres of land in a prime location — near a proposed exit off a planned new highway in his home county. 
 
A highway that he is using the powers of his office to get built. 
 
Somehow that’s not a conflict of interest, according to the attorney who advises state lawmakers on ethics issues. 
 
If lawyer Walker Reagan is correct — and he’s the expert — the public can have very little confidence in the integrity of North Carolina’s ethics laws. 
 
The legislator is state Sen. David Hoyle, a respected Gaston County Democrat, Finance Committee co-chairman and third-most-effective senator in a survey by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research. 
 
His real-estate investment could pay off handsomely with the creation of the Garden Parkway, a project of the N.C. Turnpike Authority. Hoyle has promoted the new road and voted to approve state funding for part of its cost. 
 
If he could benefit financially from the outcome of legislation he supports, why isn’t that a conflict? Reagan said Hoyle would not receive a special benefit unavailable to other landowners, The Charlotte Observer reported. 
 
Indeed, state law says a legislator is not using his public position for private gain if the advantage is no greater than what any other citizen would or could realize. 
 
In Hoyle’s case, that apparently means anyone could purchase land that would increase in value if the state happened to build a highway next to it. Therefore, Hoyle won’t earn a profit someone else couldn’t. 
 
But is that the logic state law should affirm? The statute seems to excuse benefits of a more general nature: cutting the income tax, for example. In this situation, Hoyle’s position isn’t like that of other landowners because only he is a member of the legislature with the power to influence whether the highway will be constructed. 
 
If the law doesn’t see a conflict of interest there, it’s not a very good law. It says the state legislature still isn’t serious about ethics reform the public can trust.