As odd as it sounds, North Carolina's ethics law allows high-level state appointees to serve on the boards of for-profit

[caption id="attachment_3796" align="alignright" width="256"] North Carolina State Capitol. Image by Abbylabar (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

For the past decade, North Carolina has spent heavily on subsidies, abandoning its previous economic stinginess. In an encouraging new reversal, the Tar Heel State is returning to its old ways. In a just completed short session, the state legislature took two important steps to limit giveaways: it ended one of the country's biggest film tax credit programs and it defeated a proposal by Gov. Pat McCrory and Secretary of Commerce Sharon Decker to create a deal-closing slush fund. The defeat of the fund also meant the rejection of an expansion of several existing subsidy programs and a special deal for a paper mill.

Not everything coming out of the session was positive. Lawmakers moved ahead with an ill-conceived plan to privatize job recruitment functions of the state's Commerce Department. The plan was approved despite warnings of problems with similar quasi-public agencies across the country and despite revelations by the N.C. Policy Watch that the Partnership’s CEO lacks experience in economic development and led his company into bankruptcy.

It was the second attempt by the Governor and Commerce Secretary to pass this bill. During the previous legislative session, a similar proposal failed when an amendment that would lift the state moratorium on hydraulic fracturing was added to the bill (the North Carolina chapter in our Creating Scandals Instead of Jobs study has more details on that plan).

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[caption id="attachment_3596" align="aligncenter" width="300"] PHOTO BY ALAN DIAZ / ASSOCIATED PRESS[/caption]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been spending much of his time lately traveling to other states with the overt aim of luring their companies and thus poaching their jobs. In the run-up to his recent trip to Missouri, Gov. Jay Nixon and other state officials have been seeking to turn the tables on Perry.