In May 2024, investigative reporter Bryan Anderson named Watauga Rep. Ray Pickett as among the North Carolina General Assembly Republicans who spent a wild time visiting distilleries around Frankfort, Ky., all expenses paid (which were considerable), but paid by whom? (The trip itself was outed on Reddit by a disgruntled employee at one distillery who described the visiting legislators as a bunch of swaggering Southern yahoos disturbing the peace and vomiting in sinks.)
The answer to who paid and was it legal came yesterday when a Wake County grand jury handed down four indictments of Raleigh lobbyists who induced companies they represented to underwrite the entire trip, thus violating the gift ban in North Carolina law that's supposed to keep our legislators from being wined and dined for legislative favors. (Or "Bourbon-ed and boiled" might be the better phrase.)
After all, the pious, stated excuse for the whole trip to Kentucky was to celebrate "conservative business values," which (we've heard said by many people) are easier to celebrate in an alcoholic haze.
The charges against the lobbyists are mere misdemeanors, showing just how seriously our laws take gifting and grifting elected representatives, all of whom are scot-free in the affair. No NC lawmakers have been charged with anything, though some of them may have some 'splaining to do for not reporting everything on their disclosure forms.
1 comment:
Remember this when they come up for re-election because there’s only one way to get them out now. Protests, which no one will do.
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