Former House Co-Speaker Richard Morgan, a Republican from Moore County, is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction this fall. Like some candidates, he has also recently published a book about his time in politics,:The Fourth Witch: A Memoir of Politics and Sinning." In it he sheds light on how he came to share power in the N.C. House of Representatives with former Speaker and Co-Speaker Jim Black of Mecklenburg, now serving time in a federal prison for having accepted bribes.
He writes about a former aide to Black, Meredith Norris, who wielded great power and who benefitted from Black's helping her get clients as a lobbyist, and about former Rep. Mike Decker, a conservative Christian who accepted a bribe to switch his vote to help keep Black in power and who is also in federal prison.
Here's what Morgan had to say about Black: "It's hard to describe how I feel about what Jim did today. I served beside him two years as Speaker. I worked with him every day. He was my friend. How I don't feel is outraged. Or holier than thou. A day comes when unless you're blind you can't avoid seeing what every saint who ever drew breath figured out: Sin is bone deep. It's wider than any ocean. And none of us is safe. A thirty-year-old-girl was foolish enough to believe monitoring legislation wasn't lobbying. A history teacher from the Gospel Light Christian School, in an IHOP in Salisbury, took a $50,000 bribe. And a 72-year-old grandfather is serving five years in prison.
I guess how I feel about it is like the sinner's prayer, 'Have mercy, oh Lord, on me a sinner.'"
Later in the book, Morgan writes about his failure to confront Black in the House:
"My sin wasn't that I agreed to share power with Jim. It was in my not looking him in the eye, later, and saying, 'I can read a newspaper report. Is it true you bribed Mike Decker?'
"Instead, I didn't ask. Because Jim was my friend I closed my eyes -- and I'll warn you the easiest sin you'll ever commit is the one where you don't have to say a word or lift a finger -- where all you have to do is close your eyes."
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
6 comments:
Richard doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning his election, but his book is a compelling read, and, if you are a political junkie, it might just qualify as 'must reading.'
There is a lot to be said when you can look a man in the eyes and trust him," Rep. Morgan said. "We are able to lead by example and putting the public policy of this state ahead of all else." {Morgan is referring to his relationship with Jim Black}
A little formatting would go a long way toward being able to read whatever it is you're typing (which I didn't).
I know you're an old dude, but geez, man, if you can't handle it yourself, get one of your outsourced Indian's to fix it for you!
Or maybe the wrong person lost his/her job?
There is a legal doctrine called Willful Blindness. “Under the doctrine of willful blindness or deliberate ignorance, which is used more often in the criminal context than in civil cases, knowledge can be imputed to a party who knows of a high probability of illegal conduct and purposefully contrives to avoid learning of it.”
Richard Morgan confesses to being willfully blind about his coalition partner, Speaker Jim Black’s crimes. Morgan directly benefited from Jim Black’s bribery of Mike Decker, which made it possible for Richard Morgan to become “Co-Speaker” with Jim Black in a dead locked N.C. House in 2003.
But more than just willful blindness, a sin of omission, Richard Morgan was an active participant, keeping Jim Black in power as Speaker so that Jim Black could carry out his corruption. As but one example, Jim Black put a slush fund in the state budget, which was used to fund a job for Mike Decker after Decker was defeated for reelection. Morgan, as Co-Speaker, agreed to the creation of that slush fund, and participated in the fund himself.
And was Jim Black in exchange “willfully blind” as to any illegal acts by his partner, Co-Speaker Richard Morgan? We will never know, because Jim Black is not talking. At the sentencing hearing for Jim Black, the Federal prosecutors expressly noted that Jim Black did not fully cooperate in their continuing investigation.
With the partial and questionable disclosures in his book, Richard Morgan’s just highlights his failings and problems, rather than rehabilitating himself for future office.
That quote from Morgan would be laughable for its absurdity if it weren't so tragic. The truth is that Morgan wasn't worried about Black and Decker taking bribes, because Morgan was taking bribes, too:
http://www.mooregop.org/quidproquo.html
Morgan is every bit is corrupt and dishonest as Black & Decker.
Dave Burton
Cary, NC
Richard Morgan's bribe
The largest single donation Rep. Richard T. Morgan ever received came from a small Virginia tobacco company called S&M Brands, which needed a bill killed in the North Carolina General Assembly. Morgan was Co-Speaker of the NC House at that time. S&M wrote a check for $100,000 to Morgan's supposedly-independent "527 committee," the NC Republican Mainstreet Committee ("NCRMC"), and in return he killed the bill for them.
S&M isn't a party to the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, so they had a competitive advantage over the big North Carolina tobacco companies which pay into the "Golden Leaf" tobacco settlement fund. That was an advantage S&M wanted to keep. But a bill moving through the General Assembly, HB 1100, would have ended S&M's competitive advantage.
HB 1100 passed the Senate 44-to-2 on 7/16/2003, and was sent back to the House for concurrence, just before the 7/20/2003 adjournment of the 2003 Long Session. The House leadership (Morgan & Black) sent it to the Rules Committee. The House was out of session until 5/10/2004. To keep the bill from being reported out of Rules and becoming law, S&M Brands gave the NCRMC a check for $100,000. The donation was reported on 4/29/2004, which was just 11 days before the start of the 2004 Short Session. In return, Morgan ordered that HB-1100 be killed in committee.
Thanks to their $100,000 bribe to Co-Speaker Morgan, S&M kept their competitive advantage for another year and a half. But in 2005 Morgan was no longer Co-Speaker, and no longer had the ability to kill bills. So the equivalent of HB 1100 passed as part of the 2005 Appropriations Act, SB 622, and went into effect January 1, 2006.
For more details, see www.mooregop.org/quidproquo.html.
Post a Comment