House Speaker Joe Hackney’s announcement Tuesday afternoon that the Legislative Ethics Committee and the House will move swiftly to consider expelling Rep. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover, made some folks wonder: Why would the House move against Wright when it never took action against former Speaker Jim Black, now serving time in federal prison?
The News & Observer reported that Joe Sinsheimer, whose digging into public records and complaints to authorities led to Black’s prison sentence for taking payoffs and to a Wake County grand jury indictment of Wright earlier this week, said that’s a problem. “They are going to have to live with that hypocrisy,” he told the paper. “But I don’t think the [answer] is to go back and do two wrongs.”
Wright was a key lieutenant to Black, and one of the most powerful African American members in the House. He now stands accused of making off with $350,000 in campaign contributions, loans and donations intended for a foundation he ran.
The obvious question is whether there’s a different standard of treatment for a white speaker versus a black legislator who both were accused of felonies. The House didn’t any take action against Black while his charges were pending. Was it race?
In the South you can never totally discount that. But in this case, it’s more likely that House Democrats didn’t move against Black not just because he was their leader and in a position of power, but also because so many members were in his debt. Black had personally helped raise a lot of money for Democratic legislators’ campaigns, and many of them owed their seats, their political success and their own share of power to Jim Black.
There’s no such allegiance to Thomas Wright.
