"First they came..."

By Fern H. Shubert

As printed in The County Edge (April 18, 2008)

When I ran for Governor, I carried with me a copy of a poem that once was well known but now seems unknown to far too many in Raleigh: 

 

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, 

because I wasn’t a Communist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, 

because I wasn’t a Jew. 

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, 

because I was a Protestant. 

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left 

to speak up for me.

The poem, by Rev. Martin Niemoller, “was printed in Time magazine on August 28, 1989, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the start of World War II.” (From Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.) There are many variations on the wording of the poem, but all describe the way Hitler and his National Socialist Workers Party came to power.

Of course, in “Progressive” circles, mentioning Hitler was a socialist is unpopular, but the name of his party leaves little doubt of his politics. The methods he used remain popular in North Carolina politics. “Divide and conquer” is definitely still in vogue.

That is why, when a friend informed me he was told that my columns on Thomas Wright were ruining my reputation, my response was, “Says who? The people responsible for the media circus that denied Wright a fair trial may not like what I’m saying, but that’s their problem.” 

Some people apparently believe that because Wright was a Democrat, I should ignore the fact he was denied a fair trial. My response is to suggest they read and then reread the poem at the beginning of this article and then ask themselves the simple question, was Wright accorded due process? Was he treated as you would hope and expect to be treated if accused of a felony? Did he get a fair trial?

Campaign reporting is not the issue on which Wright was tried, but the charges were based on an investigation triggered by the State Board of Elections. Gee, I wonder how they decided to investigate Wright? Joe Sinsheimer has filed complaints about a lot of people who have not been investigated. What prompted Sinsheimer, right after the November 2006, elections to single out Wright and ignore bigger fish?

How many remember the case of Matt McWilliams who made the mistake of filing to run against Richard Morgan several years ago? I did not, but after I ran into Dave Burton at the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury luncheon on e-mail scandals, he was kind enough to send me the following reminder:

“WHAT THEY DID TO MATT McWILLIAMS, AND WHY:

After Matt announced he intended to run against Morgan, they hit him with seven felony charges because of $261 in mishandled campaign contributions in a prior school board campaign:

http://www.mooregop.org/050204McWilliams.html

http://www.mooregop.org/ps050504Keener.html

What's more, the reason his previous school board campaign was investigated was that Moore Co. BOE director Glenda Clendenin asked the State Board to investigate him BECAUSE she learned that he was running against Morgan... and we know that is true because SBOE investigator Marshall Tutor said it right out loud, to a reporter:

http://www.mooregop.org/091004McWilliams2.html”

That may sound pretty strong, but the press links show that McWilliams was indicted “on seven felony charges — five counts of obtaining money by false pretenses and two counts of perjury. He was accused of filing false reports with the state board of elections in connection with his run for the nonpartisan school board in 2002.” (The Pilot, September 10, 2004)

McWilliams claimed his prosecution was politically motivated, which was, of course, denied. But the press reports give the charge considerable credibility.

The state elections board official who handled the case acknowledged “The investigation really began when he filed papers to run for the House here in Moore County.” (The Pilot, September 10, 2004) In other words, had he not filed to run for the House, no one would have cared what he did or did not do in the school board race.

McWilliams eventually reached a plea agreement in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count in return for a suspended sentence with 90 days of house arrest. I suspect his legal fees were a greater punishment than the sentence. Maybe he deserved the sentence. I did not sit through that trial, and I know better than to form final judgments based on press accounts. Still, it is interesting to consider who gets to decide who gets investigated. 

For example, while the public was entertained by the Thomas Wright circus, District Attorney Colon Willoughby decided the Centex contract with Jim Black's son wasn't worth his time to pursue, but it was too sensitive to even release the SBI report. An informant claimed Centex gave Black’s son a sub-contract for the prisons as part of the deal to get Centex the contract to build the prisons. The accusation sounds plausible enough that the public deserves more information than Willoughby has made available to date.

Wright was convicted of using a non-profit to steal from the foundation he helped establish because Willoughby thought that charge was worth investigating. Don’t get me wrong. I think those who abuse non-profits to line their own pockets deserve prosecution. But who decides who gets investigated and prosecuted? 

I supported Steve Monk’s run for DA in Durham against Mike Nifong before Nifong’s reputation crumbled, because Nifong’s handling of the Duke lacrosse case was offensive to me. Was I wrong then?

Nifong won the DA race because the majority of the public supported him based on what they had read in the papers, but remember what happened next? What happened in that case should be instructive of how public perception can be manipulated by the unscrupulous until reality intrudes.

In fact, it is somewhat ironic that earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr., who is presiding over the suit brought by 38 current and former lacrosse players against Duke University, the city of Durham and others “ordered lawyers on both sides not to publicly discuss the case to protect a potential jury pool.” (Charlotte Observer, April 16, 2008)

How is it that Judge Beaty is aware of the problems posed by a tainted jury pool, while the highest public officials in the state seemed almost eager to insure that Thomas Wright would not receive a fair trial? 

Thomas Wright’s attorney ran out of challenges because so many jurors were well aware that Wright had already been found guilty by the House, but Judge Hight saw no reason to postpone the trial. A lawyer was even seated as a juror who had revealed she had family ties to the prosecutor, something Wright’s attorney said he would not have allowed if he had any challenges left.

How tainted was the jury pool? Questions should be being raised about why an attorney whose mother went to law school with the District Attorney was even seated.

Even more interesting questions could be being raised about why Colon Willoughby did not disclose he knew about the $4,900 interest payment Wright made on behalf of the foundation until Wright’s attorney raised the issue in court. Wright claimed he had reimbursable expenses. If the District Attorney knew that he had made payments on behalf of the foundation, was he not required to disclose them? I’m told he did not.

Maybe I am nuts, as some have suggested, but I'll stake my reputation as a CPA on the fact that a lot of our leading citizens act more like RICO targets than pillars of the church.

I'm still quite willing to stake my political reputation on my longstanding assertion that Jim Black was the runt of the litter when it came to corruption, which means the big boys are still in business, does it not? The Parton Theater is pocket change compared to what I expect to be revealed over time.

 

Speaking of church, my church has a new minister and Sunday he told the story of a nosy neighbor who, watching the couple next door standing outside, saw the husband slap the wife on the side of her head and then run to the car and take off in a hurry. Obviously, from what he saw, a sad case of domestic abuse. 

Actually, the husband was hitting a wasp that had landed on his wife’s head. Despite his attempt to protect her, she had been stung and he was hurrying to the drugstore to get something for the sting. The scripture was on the blind man given sight, not current events, but it was timely, as always.

 

What you see depends on where you stand and what you know, as well as what you expect and what you hope to see. Auditors are trained to try to see more than the casual observer, which is why I keep wandering away from the herd. I’m looking for facts.

Wright Punished for Supporting Republican?

The County Edge, March 7, 2008

Some days you have to laugh to keep from crying. I’ve finally found out why the Legislative Ethics Committee dismissed my complaint against Pryor Gibson. They do not believe telling a lie is unethical. It is just a procedural matter.

In 2006, Pryor Gibson wanted to introduce a bill that was not eligible for consideration unless he signed a document verifying that his bill had the unanimous support of the other representatives from the area affected by the bill. They did not support the bill. Gibson lied in writing and said they did in order to get a bill passed that could not have been introduced if he told the truth.

The bill was not an insignificant matter. It moved the date of the vote on the Monroe food tax from the general election in 2006 when Gibson was running for re-election to the lower turnout municipal election in 2007. It also granted ETJ to two towns, Wingate and Marshville, that had not even made a public request for it. The bill gave town officials the authority to decide the zoning for people who lived in the county and could not vote for or against them. It affected the property rights of hundreds of people.

When I challenged Gibson’s lie by filing a complaint, the Legislative Ethics Committee dismissed the complaint, saying “the complaint alleged conduct, that even if true, would not constitute an ethics violation, or alleged conduct, that even if true, would not be within the jurisdiction of the Committee.”

It was my understanding that since the fraud was committed in 2006, the committee dismissed the complaint because it did not believe it should go into events that happened before 2007 when the current law became effective. If they truly believed actions prior to 2007 were a closed book, so be it.

But if that was the standard, how could they ask the House to hold hearings designed to lead to the expulsion of Thomas Wright based on even older events? Mr. Wright and I were hardly friends . . . he was a friend of Jim Black and I was the only member of the 2001 House who never voted for Black . . .plus he was a Democrat and I’m a Republican, but the way he was being treated just didn’t make sense.

In my experience, far greater misdeeds than any alleged against Wright were normally ignored. While I did not see his treatment as racially motivated . . .after all, misuse of non-profits by several other black legislators didn’t result in expulsion attempts. . . the fact that my complaint against Gibson was dismissed because the event was pre-2007 while events even older were being used to justify Wright’s House ethics hearing just didn’t seem right.

I approached Wright’s attorney, Irv Joyner, at Wright’s court hearing last Thursday with some hesitation. I had no desire to be seen as defending illegal behavior and some reluctance to even be involved in something with so much negative press, but the double standard being applied in the legislature offended me. In addition to giving Joyner a copy of the dismissal of the complaint I filed against Gibson, I informed him of the November 2002 Carolina Journal article outlining several other ethical issues concerning Gibson.

If the committee didn’t have jurisdiction to deal with my complaint against Gibson, I didn’t understand how they could be dealing with far older issues with respect to Wright.

Moreover, the Carolina Journal article stated that Gibson had a non-profit that seemed far more dubious than Wright’s, but to the best of my knowledge, no one ever followed up on the questions raised by the Carolina Journal. Why the double standard?

I later learned that Wright had supported the Republican NC Senate candidate from Wilmington in 2006 rather than the Democrat, and suddenly the reason for the double standard seemed very obvious. The Democratic leadership of the House and Senate, plus the Governor, needed someone to toss to the wolves to divert the public from the bribery and gerrymandering that kept them in power, the sale of DOT board seats, the mental health malfeasance, and a litany of other misdeeds.

By going after Wright, the leaders could sell the public on how serious they are about ethics without actually doing anything to reform the system. At the same time, they could show other legislators how dangerous it would be to cross the party big wigs. A twofer!

In 1998, my opponent used last minute ads that misrepresented my vote against the 1997 budget in order to defeat me. He and Speaker Black later used what happened to me to threaten other legislators; vote as you’re told on the budget or we’ll do to you what we did to Shubert. In my case, the threat lost a lot of steam when I returned to the legislature in 2000, but I see some of the same motivation behind the hearings now being held.

Note, I see nothing wrong with a criminal prosecution of criminal misdeeds. I think we need a lot more legislative attention to ethics; but to hold hearings on Wright while ignoring far greater ethical lapses by other legislators is just plain wrong.

Speaking of wrong, according to an article in The Charlotte Observer (March 4, 2008), committee chairman Rick Glazier “said that Gibson's and Wright's cases are so different that any comparison is profoundly absurd. One involves legislative procedure, he said, and the other involves allegations of fraud and corruption.”

What is fraud? According to Wikipedia, “In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain.” A lie in writing is certainly a deception, and there is no doubt that Gibson lied in writing for his personal benefit, to gain a political advantage he could not otherwise obtain. I didn’t just accuse Gibson of breaking a rule; I provided the evidence to prove he committed fraud on the people of North Carolina.

Mr. Gibson has tried to trick the House before to get a bill passed that would not pass without deception, but I exposed the trick in time and the bill was voted down. This time, the lie was told in a printed document, and even though it was exposed before the bill passed, the leaders of the legislature made the conscious decision to support Gibson’s dishonesty.

Gibson tells people he withdrew the bill when he learned the legislators he said supported it did not, but that’s another deception. Ask Gibson how the contents of the bill became law if he dropped the issue when he learned of their objection?

Gibson’s case involves the corruption not only of Gibson but of the leaders of the House and Senate. The fraud Gibson committed was embraced by the very people who are now eagerly condemning Wright for deceit.

I regret that Wright’s attorneys suggested Mr. Glazier is racially biased; I do not believe he is. But I understand why they came to that conclusion. Anyone unfamiliar with the history of the legislature, who is familiar with North Carolina history, would easily see racism in the totally disparate treatment of Gibson and Wright.

People unfamiliar with the legislature would find it hard to believe that telling a lie to deceive the legislature into acting in a way it would not if it knew the truth is a mere procedural matter.

To people not tainted by “legislative ethics,” telling a lie to the legislature to subvert our very government is a far more significant ethical transgression than anything of which Representative Wright stands accused.

The explanation of the dismissal of the complaint against Gibson makes the phrase “legislative ethics” an oxymoron.