RALEIGH — Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law Thursday a bill that will make it a felony for public officials to financially benefit from their titles, going against some legislative Democrats and a North Carolina's NAACP leader who opposed the legislation.
Legislators introduced the bill this year in response to a 2020 investigation by North Carolina State Auditor Beth Wood that found a Rocky Mount city council member hadn't paid his utility bill since 1999. That investigation also found that city officials broke rules and spent thousands of dollars inappropriately.
The city councilman, Andre Knight, is Black, and North Carolina NAACP president Rev. Anthony Spearman called the legislation racist. Spearman implied that Wood, who has championed the legislation this year, had an "ulterior motive" for pushing it. (Spearman was later defeated for reelection as NAACP president)
Knight, who owed more than $47,000 in utility bills, is also president of the Rocky Mount NAACP — one reason Spearman may have weighed in.
Cooper's move to sign the legislation, despite Spearman and other Democrats' opposition, comes after an unusually fierce and public debate among Democrats pitted Wood against 52 Democratic legislators who voted to oppose the measure. Cooper opted to back Wood and Republican sponsors of the legislation in their efforts to increase transparency in local government.
"Taxpayers deserve accountability and transparency from all public officials," Cooper, who is from Nash County, said in a release.
Audits required
In addition to criminalizing elected officials who use their position for their own personal financial gain, Senate Bill 473 will give the Local Government Commission more leeway to enforce that towns and cities conduct annual audits, as required by state law. If the state auditor investigated a municipality and issued a report with findings anytime after July 1, 2018, the commission can require that the municipality select a certified public accountant to conduct an annual audit.
As currently written, state law has no teeth to enforce municipalities follow that law, Wood said.
"There are council members who are not making their local governments get an audit done. Some are as late as eight years," Wood said in a committee hearing in late November. "There's no consequences to the council members for allowing this behavior to go on and on and on."
In that same committee hearing, Democrats peppered Wood and the bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Lisa Stone Barnes, with questions. One Republican characterized Democrats' questioning as "cross-examining" the auditor.
One Democrat asked if the bill targeted the city of Rocky Mount. Another implied that it did and questioned Wood's motives for championing the legislation.
Barnes and Wood said the legislation does not target Rocky Mount, as there are numerous other towns across North Carolina with issues that will be addressed in the now-law.
"There has to be some consequences for these local government, local elected officials who are abusing their positions," Wood said.
One House Democrat, Rep. Shelly Willingham, of Rocky Mount, asked Wood if she had abused her position as state auditor.
Politicians and nonprofits
The law will also block public officials who also serve on nonprofit boards from voting to award contracts to the organizations they serve.
However, the law carves out an exemption for public officials who serve in municipalities of less than 15,000, as public officials are more likely to serve on nonprofit boards in smaller towns. If too many public officials have to recuse themselves in a vote, a vote could be not held at all. That situation is more likely to occur in smaller municipalities.
The enforcement for that provision, in addition to the provision criminalizing officials who use their positions for financial gain, will not be retroactive. Both provisions become effective Jan. 1.
The provisions could not be used to prosecute officials investigated in Rocky Mount. Still, several Democrats questioned whether those provisions could be applied retroactively.
"It seems unfair, punitive and really nonsensical to say that you didn't break the law back then, but we're going to change the law so that you would have been breaking the law back then for a law that didn't exist in 2018," said Rep. Amos Quick, a Democrat who represents Guilford County.
The bill passed over those objections, which Wood said were based on a misunderstanding of the legislation.
"I need somebody to publicly get this thing right," Wood said in an interview with The News & Observer after the House floor vote. "Because everybody that spoke today has it wrong."
