NC Senate bill would cut cronyism in appointments to the UNC Board of Governors
State Sen. Jim Perry is in his first full term as a senator and his greenness is showing. Apparently he hasn’t yet learned that the University of North Carolina Board of Governors is supposed to be stocked with the politically connected, including lobbyists.
Perry, a Lenoir County Republican, has offered a bill that would bar the legislature from appointing its own members, state employees – including UNC employees – and lobbyists to the 24-member board that oversees North Carolina’s 16 public universities. And, by the way, their spouses would be barred, too.
“Doing this would enable us to avoid any appearance of potential conflicts and prevent good ideas from being discounted because of assumptions of someone’s motive,” Perry said.
At least one member of the UNC System Board of Governors supports Perry’s proposal, and he’s one who knows how the legislature works.
Leo Daughtry, a Smithfield Republican who served in both the state Senate and House, said, “I think probably it’s a good idea not to have lobbyists on the board. There can be a perception of a problem.”
A perception of a problem is already there. Bob Hall, a longtime good government advocate, described it well in The News & Observer report on Perry’s bill.
Hall said lobbyists “get appointed because they developed a cozy relationship with legislators. They’re a part of the good ol’ boy network and become enmeshed in that good ol’ boy system. Legislators can feel better putting them on the board as a bit of reward but also a safe appointment that they know won’t rock the boat. The whole thing is just very incestuous.”
Like most public university boards, politics has always played a role in who gets appointed to the UNC Board of Governors. But since Republicans took control of the General Assembly a decade ago, the appointments have become extremely partisan.
The board’s members – all appointed by the Republican-led legislature – now include three lobbyists and conservative zealots bent on exorcising the university’s liberal spirits and meddling in campus concerns. The result hasn’t been governance, but chaos, including secret deals on moving the Confederate monument Silent Sam, restricting a campus civil rights center and running off UNC System President Margaret Spellings and the chancellors of UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University.
Perry is new to the legislature, but hardly a neophyte. He was politically nimble enough to get appointed to the Senate after Sen. Louis Pate retired because of illness and he went on to win election handily in 2020. He’s a strong fundraiser and the majority whip.
It’s unusual for a member of the majority to suggest narrowing the range of political rewards that can be offered. Perry deserves credit for making a genuine appeal to lower the board’s partisan tone and increase its public credibility.
That’s a change that’s needed.
William E. Kirwan, a former chancellor of the University System of Maryland and a consultant with the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, told The Chronicle of Higher Education last year that politics is increasingly coloring the judgment of university boards, and not for the better. “There has always been political influence,” he said. “But it has moved, at least to some institutions, to a very troubling degree.”
Kirwan added, “I recognize the danger of romanticizing the good ol’ days, but it’s certainly my perception that boards had a clearer understanding of their proper roles.”
Perry’s bill would be a big step toward reminding members of the UNC Board of Governors – and those who appoint them – of the board’s proper role.
