Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy Watch points out some very obvious and frankly disturbing conflicts of interest around Gov. McCrory and the new private nonprofit that is supposed to replace the Commerce Department’s economic development, i.e., business recruitment efforts. McCrory named his old friend and former Charlotte city councilman and GOP mayoral nominee John Lassiter to the nonprofit’s board.
- James Willamor (Flickr Creative Commons)
- Lassiter
As a board member, Lassiter, a business-oriented Republican in the McCrory mold, will be negotiating incentives deals worth millions for big corporations. As Fitzsimon points out, however, Lassiter is also now the head of the Renew North Carolina Foundation, which is raising anonymous money from corporations to help broadcast commercials defending McCrory’s record.
In other words, as Fitzsimon notes, Lassiter “will literally be involved in negotiating millions of dollars in incentive deals with corporations at the same time he is raising cash from corporations to help McCrory politically” (my emphasis).
To say that this constitutes a flagrant conflict of interest is simply stating the obvious. Unfortunately, it’s an obvious occurrence the News & Observer and Charlotte media have so far not picked up on. With Lassiter’s long record of corporate-friendly politics in Charlotte, it’d be nice to see the media outlets with money pick up the ball and run with it.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2013.
Just toss it over there on the huge pile of OTHER patronage conflicts of interest.
Corruption has reached the level that politicians don’t even try to hide it anymore. They believe it to be their right by virtue of being elected. The corruption was validated by the Supreme Court in the bizarre “Citizens United” decision where they said allowing large corporations and PACs to buy control of the government is freedom of speech.
A better idea would be to shut down the Commerce Department and pass a Constitutional Amendment banning all incentives.