Matt Smith? Meet Jason Saine.
Jason Saine‘s time in elected office was bad for North Carolina. But it was good for this website. He gave us so much head-shaking, exasperation-inducing material to work with.
Only in North Carolina – nay, only in the NCGOP – could a guy who can’t even properly document his own campaign spending be appointed the chamber’s top budget and finance guru. Saine’s attempts to keep his own campaign records failed so miserably and gave us so much black comedic material that a well-known NCGOPe hack eventually took over the task of managing the budget chairman’s campaign finances.
One of our biggest stories involved Saine spending more than $19K in campaign funds on clothing. This revelation raised a lot of eyebrows and questions. Come on — the guy dressed like he shopped at Goodwill. What actually cost $19K?
Saine appeared to be buying his clothes, all of his meals, his personal IT, dry cleaning, miscellaneous plane tickets and luxury hotel stays with campaign money. His district was merely a few hours drive from Raleigh.
A Cabarrus County senator had recently been indicted (and convicted) for using his campaign fund as a personal piggy bank. Surely, Lincoln County’s *favorite son* was going to be called upon the carpet too.
But, no. The state board of elections, at the time, was ruling that things like clothing purchases were valid campaign expenses. Campaign money, the alleged watchdogs explained, can be used for anything needed as part of the job of legislating. *And legislators need clothes — and Hardee’s biscuits, right?*
I guess no one thought about how it looked to have the daily expenses of legislators basically subsidized by lobbyists — who tend to be some of the biggest donors to people at Saine’s level in the House.
Well, we recently heard that Saine and some others might be the subject of a criminal probe by the North Carolina SBI and “other [investigative] entities”.
Meanwhile, we also have a slate of *conservative* judges hand-picked by Raleigh power-brokers to be shoved down our throats in November.
One of the foursome – Matt Smith of Union County – has a primary on March 3 against Judge Michael Byrne. *If the state party had its way, you’d never know it.*
(We hear Craig Collins is breathing easier this go around. He won’t be facing Hasan Harnett again.)
Smith, who – according to his website — has practiced law for eighteen years, is apparently following in Jason Saine‘s footsteps. According to his website, Smith is currently a Superior Court judge. One would think that – with more than two decades in the law — Smith would have more than a few suits and other respectable pieces of wardrobe laying around the house.
But he apparently, like Saine, has decided to use campaign funds to buy some new clothes.
Granted, he didn’t shell out as much as Saine did with Tom James (and Belk). But how about setting some kind of limits on what these elected folks can spend this money on? Lobbyists and other special interests account for most of the revenue flowing into these campaign accounts. When you think of campaign expenses, your mind usually wanders to signs, ads, hats, T-shirts, bumper stickers and the like. Not three meals per day, personal cell phone bills, plane tickets, dry cleaning, hotel bills, and new clothes in your closet.
This c’est la vie position on use of campaign funds kinda thwarts the original intent of campaign finance laws. Isn’t this basically just a slight variation on the tried-and-true envelope-full-of-cash in the jacket pocket in a quiet, out-of-the-way backroom?
It’s much nicer and cleaner to give the electeds a little cash so they can buy what they need to be *comfortable* while they work — and remember who gave them that cash when the time is right.
