Bob Hall, the persistent elections and ethics watchdog at Democracy North Carolina, applauds federal prosecutors' connecting the dots in the Ruffin Poole case. He's the former aide to Gov. Mike Easley who has just had 56 of 57 charges dropped against him in exchange for his agreeing to help prosecutors understand more about the performance of the governor and his associates. Poole will plead guilty to a single count and could go to jail for about five years, a remarkable turnaround from the blizzard of corruption charges he had faced, but it's clear the U.S. Attorney's office wanted his help in its investigation of Easley.
But Hall says people must understand that sending either of them to jail, or adopting tough new changes to campaign laws, won't solve the problem. As he put it, "New fundraising regulations or ethics reform will just add more limits to the current system; they do not offer an alternative supply of campaign money that could address the heart of the problem, which is: candidates tethered to the endless money chase. Throwing Poole and/or Easley in jail may feel good, but it won’t change the system in which they thrived."
Here's what Hall had to say:
In the court yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Duffy made a point of connecting the dots between campaign fundraisers, political appointments and personal profiteering. He described how major donors to former Gov. Mike Easley’s campaign cozied up to Ruffin Poole, gained appointments and special access to state officials, and traded their political fundraising skills for enormous personal gain. “These guys were falling all over each other because of the value of these appointments,” Duffy said. He could have added: If you want less corruption, shrink the importance of private money in politics.
In plain truth, the current system of endless private fundraising for high public office is poisonous. The money chase nurtures a sinister, pay-to-play mentality. It corrupts officials desperate for campaign cash and enriches insiders at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. Good politicians and donors with a genuine interest in social policy are again and again tainted by the rotten apples that keep turning up in this toxic mix of access, cash and special privilege.
In their own defense as public officials, and in the name of public decency, elected leaders need to speak out more forcefully against this system and in favor of a dramatically different approach to campaign financing – one that puts the public in charge of elections and policy making. New fundraising regulations or ethics reform will just add more limits to the current system; they do not offer an alternative supply of campaign money that could address the heart of the problem, which is: candidates tethered to the endless money chase. Throwing Poole and/or Easley in jail may feel good, but it won’t change the system in which they thrived.
