Saturday, February 17, 2018

N.C. Governor Roy Cooper Caught with Illegal Slush Fund




Democrats are notorious for setting up slush funds as a means to advance their political agenda. The Obama administration extorted money from corporations and used those proceeds in the EPA, Justice Department and various other agencies to seed special interest groups who would then sue the very agencies who funded them. These lawsuits were as choreographed as the Ziegfield Follies and they did it without showing any leg, thanks to the progressive-media industrial complex.



North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper just got caught emulating this paradigm. Of course our corrupt, local media didn’t report this until the Civitas Institute - a conservative think tank - filed an ethics complaint and the Carolina Journal reported it. Here is an excerpt:


The $57.8 million discretionary fund the Atlantic Coast Pipeline operators planned to pay to an escrow Gov. Roy Cooper would control was in fact negotiated between the pipeline’s operators and a series of private parties. It remains unclear whether Cooper’s involvement was legal.


In his weekly syndicated column (link to text here), Tom Campbell, host of the UNC-TV public-affairs program “NC SPIN,” said the agreement was worked out in July 2017 at the offices of the North Carolina Farm Bureau and, presumably, presented to Cooper later. Cooper’s attorney signed the agreement on the governor’s behalf, but it did not receive legislative approval.


Of course, Governor Cooper didn’t get legislative approval. Do they ever? That’s why they call it a slush fund.


The editorial board at the Charlotte Observer is having a hard time justifying this sordid affair. But as usual, they soldier through. Here is an excerpt:


Companies don’t typically fork over tens of millions of dollars voluntarily. And while there is no proof the permit approval was contingent on the fund, it appears that way to many. At a minimum, the discussions were clearly going on simultaneously.


But perhaps Cooper’s biggest mistake was putting the fund under his personal control. The Memorandum of Understanding creating it says “the funds shall be allocated pursuant to the guidelines and directives set forth in a subsequent executive order” to be issued by Cooper.


That understandably alarmed Republicans. Cooper assured everyone after the fact that he never intended to personally decide where the money would go, and that third-party experts would make those decisions, but that’s not spelled out in the agreement. It should have been. And while at least one intended use of the money – environmental mitigation – is sound, the others – economic development and renewable energy – are broad enough to leave room for pork-barrel spending.


The Constitution says that state funds can be appropriated only by the General Assembly. These looked a lot like state funds, and Cooper could have negotiated the fund but let the legislature appropriate the money for the purposes spelled out in the agreement.


All that said, Republicans have gone way overboard by suggesting corruption. There is no indication the agreement would have directly benefited Cooper in any way. And legislators may hurt the environment in the pipeline’s counties by moving the money from its original purposes to public schools. For all the Cain that Republicans raise, the state is clearly better off with the energy companies paying $58 million to the state than not. Would Republicans have preferred that the state not receive that money?


And there it is. I would prefer companies were able to conduct business in North Carolina without being shaken down by corrupt politicians trying to shove their progressive agendas down our throats. But I guess that’s asking too much just as it’s too much to ask this rag to stop apologizing for corrupt politicians that have “D’s” behind their name.


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