THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020569
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
New Republican legislative leaders will get their first taste of the pitfalls that go along with the power this weekend, if a group pushing for campaign finance reform pickets a GOP fund raiser.
Charging that the event is an attempt to ``sell access'' to the next speaker of the House of Representatives, the coordinator of the N.C. Alliance for Democracy said Thursday the fund raiser would set a troubling precedent.
``Under the principle of one-man, one-vote, we are all human beings and we all have the right to equal access to our lawmakers,'' Peter McDowell, alliance coordinator, said in an interview Thursday from Raleigh. ``This type of event gives special access to those who are able to pay $2,000.''
McDowell was at the legislative building Thursday for a meeting of a study committee that is reviewing election laws.Last month, the Republicans accused House Speaker Daniel T. Blue of selling access to his office by inviting business leaders to join an advisory group, named the Speaker's Business Council, and give $1,000 each to legislative candidates.
Now that the Republicans are set to take power in the House, McDowell said, the GOP is about to do the same thing with a fund raiser Saturday at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel for GOP legislative candidates.
The Republicans are asking for $2,000 for four tickets to a reception and one ticket to a private, 90-minute meeting with the legislature's new Republican leaders. For $1,000, guests get two tickets to the reception only.
``They're the same thing,'' McDowell said of Blue's business council and the GOP fund raiser. The business council ``was selling access to the speaker. This fund raiser is an attempt to sell access to the next speaker.''
But a spokesman for the new House Republican leadership on Thursday disputed that comparison.
``This is a legitimate fund raiser, set up by the state Republican Party to help retire campaign debts,'' said Don Follmer, spokesman for Rep. Harold J. Brubaker of Randolph County. Brubaker is expected to replace Blue as House speaker in January. ``No access to the speaker is being put on the chopping block for sale. The comparisons are far-fetched,'' he said.
Follmer said the fund raiser is different because one arm of the Republican Party - and not the speaker's office - is sponsoring the event. Brubaker and other Republican leaders were simply asked to attend, he said.
The fund raiser's sponsor, the N.C. Legislative Trust, helped raise $200,000 for Republican challengers in last month's General Assembly elections.
McDowell said he hopes the alliance, a coalition of 29 groups that lobbied last year for changes in the state's campaign finance laws, will persuade the Republicans to cancel the fund raiser - just as the invitation to join Blue's business council was rescinded after it was criticized.
The alliance will picket the event if the Republicans don't cancel the event, McDowell said. by CNB