Editorial:  Auditing Ethics

For a group shamed by a disgraced speaker of the state House and other embarrassments related to campaign finance and ethics issues, some members of the General Assembly seem all too eager to tie the hands of the state auditor with regard to enforcing ethics laws. A bill supported by members of the legislature's ethics committee would prohibit the state auditor from investigating ethics law violations. That could interfere with the auditor doing his job.

Republican Les Merritt is state auditor. Democrats control the legislature. Would they be as interested in limiting the scope of the office's powers (at least, that appears to be what they're up to) if Merritt were a Democrat? It's an impossible question to answer, but a fair one to raise.

The fact is that Merritt or any state auditor is not just a bookkeeper. He deals with job performance, with the expenditure of public resources and other issues that might well, at some point in a particular investigation, raise ethical questions. Hypothetically, if the head of Agency A grants a contract, which is looked into by Merritt's office, to someone who turns out to be a political ally or former business partner, there could be a serious ethical issue involved.

It might amount to nothing, or it might amount to something. But is Merritt supposed to cease his investigation because an ethics issue has arisen, and turn it over to the exclusive jurisdiction of the State Ethics Commission?

In addition, the commission's position on what information to make public, and at what point after an ethical issue has come up, is still murky. The legislative committee that considers cases where a legislator is accused of ethics violations meets in secret and does not have to release findings. To some degree, that makes sense, else a lawmaker who was entirely blameless might be the victim of a personal gripe or a politically motivated smear. But there is a time when issues involving public officials need to become public.

Currently under debate is a case in which the auditor's office was tipped off, anonymously, about a possible ethics violation involving a legislator. Merritt's investigators obtained records detailing the lawmaker's business holdings and other economic information. Merritt's office has drafted a report on the matter. His office also says that during the investigation, the legislator asked the Ethics Commission for an advisory opinion, which the commission declined to offer.

The legislature passed ethics reforms in the wake of the scandals surrounding former Speaker Jim Black. That episode was damaging to the General Assembly, and certainly rattled the public's cynicism meter. If the public now perceives that lawmakers are trying in some way to curb the powers of the auditor in order to keep any ethics investigations solely under their control, the needle on that meter will move again.

This seems an unnecessary piece of legislation, if North Carolina's lawmakers mean what they say about being open and honest and determined when it comes to rooting out rascals and enforcing the ethics guidelines they passed with such fanfare to try to put the Black era behind them.