Attempted Special Interest and Lobbying Coup D'état Aborted in North Carolina

Perdue veto dead solid perfect

 

…The governor rightly vetoed the bill, [‘that would have called for more secrecy among state lawmakers’] which never should have made it to her desk in the first place.

 

"These are the people's documents," the governor said last week of the shameless attempt to keep the public's business away from public scrutiny.

 

The bill would have classified as confidential any new document an agency created in response to a legislator's request for information to help draft a bill. It also would have shielded from public view any constituent's request for a lawmaker to propose a bill. (GH: like special interest targeted campaign donations relative to proposed legislation)

 

In effect, the proposed law would have made it harder for the public to know who is requesting a bill, why and how he or she might gain from it.

 

…As if that weren't outrageous enough, the bill would have imposed criminal penalties on any executive branch employee who violated the bill's confidentiality requirements. Similar penalties for legislative employees were conspicuously absent.

 

Nor was this bill justified from the start. Given all of the recent skullduggery in Raleigh, lawmakers should have known better.

 

They ought to be shining more light, not adding shadows.

 

Greensboro News and Record Editorial Board

September 15, 2009