NC billboard bill advertises the influence of business interests

It is nice to have friends in high places, and the billboard industry in North Carolina has many. One is Rep. David Lewis of Harnett County, who’s chair of the influential House Rules Committee. He’s doing his buddies in the industry a favor with a bill to allow billboard companies to move signs displaced because of road improvements or changes in towns and cities to other commercial or industrial areas in the same city.

This is a ridiculous bow to an industry that’s long been operated with minimal regulation and an uncanny ability to get what it wants from lawmakers. This industry is not a charitable endeavor; it is a big moneymaker. Lewis characterizes the forced removal of signs in order for a city to make road improvements “an unfair taking of private property without just compensation.” Taking down a billboard isn’t akin to bulldozing a neighborhood to make way for a highway.

And an indication of what the industry was up to was the fact that a provision in the original proposal would have increased what the state was to pay a billboard company for signs that were displaced. That has at least fallen out.

This is a bad bill with a selfish motivation on the part of an underregulated industry, helped along thanks to a powerful legislator. The public interest is of little consequence to Republican legislators more concerned with pleasing a few business interests than with true public service.

This story was originally published June 20, 2017 at 5:00 PM with the headline "NC billboard bill advertises the influence of business interests."