LOD: Swamped in Corruption

Here’s a brief but important column from Chris Fitzsimon of NC Policy Watch:

Governor Pat McCrory spent more than five years campaigning for his current job and it seemed like he couldn’t give a stump speech without complaining about what he called “the culture of corruption” in Raleigh. . . . McCrory promised a more transparent administration, more open and honest. He would be different.

This Thursday and Friday McCrory and his top lieutenants huddled in private meetings with anonymous donors at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro to raise money for McCrory’s political organization that has already spent close to a million dollars running television ads defending McCrory’s sputtering performance in his first nine months in office. No one is exactly sure of the details of the two days. The officials with the Renew North Carolina Foundation won’t disclose them. New accounts have reported that dinner with McCrory Thursday cost $1,000 and attending the entire two-day soiree was a cool $10,000 . . . .

The head of the Foundation is John Lassiter, McCrory’s former campaign manager who McCrory tapped this summer to head the N.C. Economic Development Board. The Board will oversee a new nonprofit that will run the state’s business recruitment efforts that include awarding millions of dollars of taxpayer money to lure new companies to the state or convince companies already here to stay. That’s awfully convenient, having the same person asking corporations for anonymous contributions to support the governor playing a role in deciding which companies will receive millions of dollars from the state. . . .