Consider This...

November 3, 2006

Government reform is making progress in North Carolina , but apparently not fast enough.

This week Rep. Richard Morgan has been defending his recent decision to convert more than $350,000 from his campaign treasury to his personal account. A new law made this illegal as of October 1; Morgan wrote this check less than a week before the law took effect.

Rep. Morgan told reporters that his financial shell game was about giving himself flexibility on how to use the money. Of course, since he acted just before the deadline, he is free to spend the money on anything he wants, even personal use.

But this should serve as a reminder of why the law was passed, and why North Carolina desperately needs campaign finance reform. When politicians routinely raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds, that money has an inordinate impact on elections and the policy debate.

Clearly we should expect more from our leaders than personal use of campaign cash, and our new law largely prohibits that going forward. But greater reform is needed to take these huge sums out of the process in the first place.

 

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