Posted on 01/07/2006 10:15:43 AM PST by Prospero
The Example of Frank Ballance
By Joel Raupe
For a year now, recommended reading for all state legislators has been the federal indictment of former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance of Warren County. For those voices crying in the wilderness about a real “culture of corruption” among Raleigh’s elites, the charges laid out by the Grand Jury could include the best descriptions and definitions of “what not to do” as an elected representative of American citizens.
Once again, I urge everyone, our elected officials, potential candidates and all our citizens to read it thoroughly. Not only will you easily understand why Frank Ballance deserves to go to prison, the details of his thefts of your money, you will also understand the arrogance and the presumption of some who hold power, the contempt some lawmakers have for law and justice, and how low an opinion some of them have for the people and for public trust. The legal language in the indictment is only somewhat tedious, and the reward for reading all the way through to the “counts” against Ballance is an almost entertaining, certainly tragic, view of plain stupidity.
We owe a debt to former Congressman Ballance, in a strange way, because he was not a model of the theory held by some schools of economics that says increasing the complexity of our Public Law creates “smarter criminals.” If you’ve lost your outrage over ethical lapses among public officials, the Indictment of Frank Ballance will return it to you fresh.
A few years ago, then North Carolina Senator Frank Ballance stood on the state Senate floor and spoke for the Democrat majority in opposition to a Republican state budget amendment offered by Senator Ham Horton (R-Forsyth). Horton’s amendment would have cut funds for the state’s uncounted thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) not complying with reporting and auditing regulations already required by law.
This public defense of funding things already outside the law could, in itself, have been listed among the “counts” against Frank Ballance. Had he rose before the roll call to abstain from the vote that “tabled” Horton’s amendment because of his clear “conflict of interest,” he might have drawn a lighter sentence. As it was, and as many still similarly situated continue to believe, he thought he was invisible. Interestingly, if only because his own state funded front NGO, the Hyman Foundation, was set up to provide counseling to drug addicts, many illegal drug dealers suffer from this same state of mind just before they are caught and jailed.
Horton’s modest proposal was defeated along Party lines.
Ballance was already using NGO’s in Warren County as his own “little launderette,” diverting funds from one to another to support his mother, cutting checks for a daughter for services never delivered, and, among other stupid things, to buy an expensive vehicle for his son, a sitting District Court Judge who will soon accompany his father to federal prison. One remarkably obvious thing is how Ballance‘s actions were not even close to being clever. His actions demonstrated what little regard he had for the possibility of being caught.
A smarter criminal, or lawyer and lawmaker, would have been more discrete. Either he was dumb as a bag of hammers or he felt beyond the reach of the state’s law enforcers. And he may have been, after all, since he was a celebrated member of the Democrat Oligarchy, the club that runs the attorney general’s office and just about everything else in state government.
In the end, it took federal investigation and indictment to bring Senator Ballance’s crimes to light, petty and stupid as they were. His true crime, screaming out from among the list of tax evasions, obstructions of justice, frauds and thefts, etc., detailed in that indictment, was “to deprive the State of North Carolina and its citizens of their right to have public officials perform their duties free from improper influence, corruption, and conflicts of interests…”
What becomes clear after reading their indictment is the fact that he drew their attention primarily because he carried out these crimes in a blatant violation of his responsibilities as an elected official sworn to uphold the Public Trust.
“Frank Ballance used his position as a member of the North Carolina Senate…to obtain millions of dollars…” His crimes were real and staggering, and the victims were the “citizens of North Carolina.” It’s shameful that it took the federal Justice Department to prosecute his crimes and defend the honor of our state and our people.
According to the Feds, violation of the Public Trust was his most egregious crime. Evildoers and their wannabes in Raleigh take note.
This past summer, as the General Assembly passed yet another astounding budget and expansion of state spending and taxes, Senator Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) suggested to Senate majority leader Tony Rand (D-Cumberland) it might be more proper to take the surplus is state revenues and “return it to the taxpayers.”
“We are the taxpayers,” Rand responded, speaking from a mindset similar to that still held by his unrepentant former colleague and now convicted felon Frank Ballance.
Specifics of the indictment of Frank W. Ballance, Jr. (September 2, 2004) can be found in the Archive section of the North Carolina Senate Republican Caucus website – www.ncsenategop.com.
Joel Raupe, CEO of Dynamic Virtual Interiors Company, was administrative assistant to the N.C. Senate minority leader 1999 – 2005.
ping
Thanks for the NC Ping. The indictment of Ballance makes "entertaining" reading, in a weird and disturbing way. Cooper ought to be indicted, too.
BUMP
And for another thing -- it gripes my butt how the elite rail about "proper diets" and thinning foods -- when the price for "such foods" are so darned COSTLY in NC. Yes, I was spoiled rotten in CA -- but only in regards to the prices of vegetables and fruits. The latter are uber expensive here. And it seems most folks I meet work 3 part-time jobs, just to get by. And they don't complain. They just "get 'er done".
I'm suspecting way big crookery in NC in re taxations. I just can't see where the money is going. There aren't as many unions here in NC as the "multitude and plentitude" of unions in CA -- there's where so much of the "taxes" go in CA -- it supports the ruling party -- AFL-CIO/Unions.
Where the heck does the money go, here in NC?
Rant (/off).
I'm ready for the data. What's Cooper's deal?
Simple enough. He should have prosecuted Ballance instead of having to have the feds come in here and clean up the act. But they are both part of the same DemoRat Oligarchy.
Add to that the two biggest Congressional scandals of the past 50 years.
Abscam (Democrats)
Keataing 5 (all Democrats plus slight involvement of McCain)
House Post Office Scandal (Democrats)
Make That THREE
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