'This story of the corruption of a democratic governor comes on top of the story of how the Democratic Speaker of the N.C. General Assembly, James Black, had to resign and plead guilty to federal corruption charges as a result of a separate corruption scandal'
The Raleigh Way
Betsy's Page
Not to be outdone by corruption in Illinois, we here in North Carolina have our own political corruption scandal involving former governor, Mike Easley, his wife, and a whole host of officials in Easley's administration and at North Carolina State University. Now that he's out of office after having served for eight years, we're finding out all sorts of things about how he used his position for his private benefit. First there were the stories about how, in violation of campaign finance laws, he accepted free flights around the state on their private airplanes. Then there was the story of how he rewarded a rich supporter, McQueen Campbell, with positions on boards and abnormally quick approval of the supporter's real estate development projects in exchange for campaign donations and free plane trips.
A federal grand ury is looking into all the aspects of these stories about Easley's sleaze.
That story has morphed into a story about how Easley put Campbell on the Board of Trustees of NCSU and then helped arrange for NCSU to hire the Governor's wife for a rather amorphous, but well-paying, job at the university. She got $170,000 a year for a job that was cobbled together out of several part-time and other created positions. The provost who arranged the job has resigned, but he got a very sweet severance deal to receive more than $300,000 above his faculty salary. At first the university chancellor hid the information about the golden parachute that he had arranged for the provost and, after telling several shifting stories about what he did, the chancellor has resigned. And now it has emerged that, despite their previous denials, e-mail messages now show that the Governor, an aide, and a friendly lobbyist were very active in arranging the sweet deal for the Governor's wife.
This story of the corruption of a democratic governor comes on top of the story of how the Democratic Speaker of the N.C. General Assembly, James Black, had to resign and plead guilty to federal corruption charges as a result of a separate corruption scandal involving his paying off a Republican representative to vote for him in order to break a tie between the two parties in the Assembly.
I wonder how the Democratic sweep of state positions in the past election would have been affected if the story of the governor's corruption had come out before the election instead of afterward.
I somewhat feel for the university officials who have lost their jobs and reputations as a result of doing a favor for the governor's wife. And I also feel for the replacements who are coming in during the midst of this scandal to try to shepherd the university through a major financial crisis necessitating unappealing choices of how to cut spending at the university. It isn't a job I'd like. There are no easy answers and they're sure to annoy everyone with whatever cuts they choose to make.
We're not quite up to Illinois standards in corruption yet. Or even Massachusetts standards since they are having their own corruption scandal involving Democratic legislators and an indicted Speaker of their assembly. North Carolina's Easley is not at the Blago level and, as far as we know, we don't have tapes of Easley spouting obscenities on the phone as he demands pay-to-play bribes. But the former governor will now be known for his sleaze in using his position in order to get his wife a nice paying job and some free plane rides.
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