Fundraising effort spurs ethics charge

An electrologist's bid to raise $100,000 to push a bill stirs accusations of conflict of interest

Last year, as lawmakers were weighing legislation to help electrologists who operate lasers to remove unwanted hair, the head of the N.C. Board of Electrolysis Examiners asked her colleagues to help her raise $100,000 to get the bill approved.

The money was to be sent to the chairman, Trudy Brown, in checks made out to her business's lobbyist, Don Vaughan of Greensboro. Brown is an electrologist from High Point who uses lasers and trains others on their use.

"I spoke with Don Vaughan today and he told me it was D-Day," Brown wrote. "We have had the legislation on hold due to lack of money. ... If every electrologist that has a laser will pay $5,000 then this will mainly pay for our bill and the rest of the money we could get from the laser companies."

Today the N.C. Board of Ethics will discuss whether the fundraising effort, and Brown's other actions to get the law passed, were a conflict of interest with her role as head of the state board, which licenses electrologists. The board will be diving into a rift between electrologists who think lasers are the wave of the future and those who think lasers should be used only by doctors and others with medical training.

The ethics board's executive director, Perry Newson, would confirm only that the complaint is scheduled for a hearing today. His investigative report recommends that the board go into closed session after the hearing, then vote in public on any findings.

Brown's e-mail message has prompted questions about the amount of money she sought and what she and Vaughan would have done with the money had she raised it. Brown said she raised only about $24,000, which Vaughan reported earning as a fee on his lobbyist reports for last year.

Brown said in an interview that she and Vaughan arrived at the $100,000 estimate, which she said was for lobbying costs. Vaughan said that he never discussed the need for $100,000 with Brown but that he did receive several checks from electrologists.

Vaughan is a Greensboro lawyer who reported representing one other lobbying client last year, the National Solid Waste Management Association, and had not registered as a lobbyist in the previous 11 years. He served as a city council member for 14 years until he lost a re-election bid in 2005. Gov. Mike Easley appointed him to the N.C. Banking Commission in 2002.

The sponsors of the bill in the House and Senate said they saw no evidence of money being spread around in campaign contributions or perks such as expensive dinners or trips -- and that they would never solicit any. Both said they were surprised by the e-mail pitch.

"I am aghast," said Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat. "I certainly have never seen anything like that."

Rep. Maggie Jeffus, also a Greensboro Democrat, said, "It's a lot of money to me, but as I have said, I have no idea what some of the lobbyists are paid or what they've done in the past, or that sort of thing. This was all new to me."

Both lawmakers filed the bill in 2005, roughly two months before Brown's e-mail request. Jeffus said she let Vaughan write the bill with legislative staff. In the session's waning days in August, the bill cleared the House by a 93-20 vote.

Brown said the bill fills a void in regulating the use of lasers. She said she and other electrologists have been using them for several years without a license. The bill would require electrologists to complete a 30-hour certification course and be licensed by the board to operate the lasers.

"All this was just really to protect the consumer and to try to move the profession forward," she said. "I really don't understand why someone would take offense to this."

But Ronda Jones, an electrologist in Forsyth County who filed the ethics complaint, said Brown was pushing for legislation that served her interests over the interests of electrologists who do not use lasers. Jones said the lasers are too dangerous to be regulated by their profession.

"This is not against the technology," Jones said, "but we are having a few bullies in our profession who are saying we're going to be doing it our way."

Brown's e-mail message tries to enlist electrologists to her cause or risk seeing the N.C. Medical Board handle regulation.

"The word is out that the Medical Board is going to require on-site supervision," Brown wrote. "It is difficult to know exactly what is going to happen. Our best protection is to have it in our Electrolysis Practice Act."

She also wrote that it cost $100,000 to get the legislation that created the state electrolysis board roughly 15 years ago.

The ethics board has no power to punish or remove officials. If it finds a conflict of interest, it could forward that finding to the official who appointed Brown to the electrolysis board, House Speaker Jim Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat.

The bill awaits approval in the Senate, which could happen during this year's session. But Hagan said she doesn't plan to be its champion.

"Right now, I don't have a lot of time to be the point person on that issue," Hagan said.