A year that began with a cold shower of scandal in the General Assembly ends, in a warm, dry December, on formal charges of still more corruption in the legislature.

In February, the scandal centered on Democrat Jim Black of Matthews. After pleading to state and federal charges, the former four-term House speaker is serving a five-year sentence in a U.S. prison.

Now the object in the justice system's headlights is state Rep. Thomas Wright of Wilmington, an eight-term Democrat, former committee chairman and key ally of Jim Black.

Indicted Monday by a Wake County grand jury on six corruption counts, Wright is presumed innocent. But his situation is an embarrassment to the legislature, to his party and to the public. With his credibility and effectiveness under such a cloud, it's high time he resigned from the House.

Current Speaker Joe Hackney took a big step in that direction yesterday, saying a special session of the legislature to consider expelling Wright could well be in order. Wright already has become a legislative ghost. This year he missed more votes than any other rank-and-file House member. (That didn't prevent him from picking up the standard $104 per diem payment for days he was absent.) He's being investigated by the legislature's Joint Ethics Committee, and his campaign committee has been suspended by the state.

Following the money

Now, if convicted on the six felony counts, he could face a state prison term of up to 11 years, becoming the latest in a line of North Carolina political figures to spend time behind bars, reflecting, presumably, on greed and abuses of power.

For the public, the issue is graver still. Can we still expect honesty from North Carolina legislators, long considered relatively free of the outright corruption that taints so many statehouses?

The jury is out. But the indictment's theme is a pattern of buccaneering conduct by an officerholder seemingly bent on financing his personal life and political goals with other people's money. A key date is May 15 of this year, when the State Board of Elections referred Wright's case to Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby. Having gone over allegations against him at a hearing, the elections board said Wright should be investigated for perjury and for accepting illegal campaign contributions.

Monday's indictments -- five counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice -- are an outgrowth of that referral. Wright is accused of misusing more than $350,000 he had collected from banks, corporations and campaign contributors. In one instance he supposedly secured a $10,000 line of credit for a foundation he led, then withdrew the money for himself. In another, he's charged with raising $8,900 in donations for the foundation from corporate donors, then keeping the money.

Through the cracks

The two big-dollar allegations, however, center on Wright's persuading then-state official Torlen Wade to write a bogus letter to help Wright secure a bank loan for $150,000, and on Wright's pocketing $185,000 in campaign contributions between 2000 and 2006, without reporting any of the money.

The letter affair is troubling all around -- even if Willoughby apparently decided that Wade will not face charges -- but, charitably viewed, might be related to a public purpose (a museum marking the Wilmington race riot of 1898). But what possible justification could a lawmaker have for not reporting campaign contributions totalling $185,000? Bad bookkeeping? Bad memory?

Perhaps, but if you don't report the contributions, you don't have to say how you spent the money (until late last year legislators could spend duly reported campaign contributions as they wished). And when your personal shopping is alleged to have included a trip to a lingerie shop, that's convenient.

All the legal charges are a matter for judge and jury. But Wright's colleagues should promptly render their political judgment on a legislator whose honesty commands no confidence.

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