Raleigh

Every so often, legislative liaisons become favorite whipping boys.

It's not surprising. They are both lobbyist and government employee, a combination inviting criticism from all sides.

A few dozen walk the halls of the Legislative Building. Their job is to watch over the legislation that could affect the state agencies for which they work. They essentially serve as a communication link between agency administrators and legislators.

A few years back, former state Sen. Hugh Webster, an Alamance County Republican, filed a bill that would have done away with the jobs. Like a lot of conservatives, Webster didn't see much value in having state agency employees paid by taxpayers advising legislators.

But the bulk of legislation passed by the General Assembly is narrow and technical, affecting just a sliver of the population. Narrow or broad, most legislation touches people's lives only through the agencies charged with carrying out the law.

It might be interesting, and painful, to watch legislators without liaisons' advice blunder into passing laws that wouldn't work on any practical basis.

A bill now working its way through the legislature would add these state employees to the list of people who must wait six months before becoming private-sector lobbyists.

Legislators have already created six-month waiting periods for themselves, for statewide elected officials and for agency heads appointed by the governor before any can become lobbyists.

There are good reasons for those restrictions.

For legislators, the fear is that they could be working on legislation important to a business or industry, leave office and show up the next day working as a lobbyist for that business or industry. In cases like these, it's hard not to conclude that a legislator had been working not for his or her constituents, but for the eventual employer.

For agency heads, these revolving-door prohibitions are even more important. They're meant to stop conflicts of interest before and after they leave the agency for private-sector employment.

Agency heads know how their agencies are wired. They're plugged into contracting, to regulation, to personnel. Once a private-sector lobbyist, they know who to see and what buttons to push in their old agencies to help their new clients.

House members who support throwing legislative liaisons under the revolving door restrictions might want to consider what would have happened had Republican Pat McCrory been elected governor last fall.

McCrory would have appointed a new regime of mostly Republican agency heads. Those agency heads would have dumped existing liaisons -- key cogs in a Democratic administration -- for their own people.

Under this proposed restriction, those people would have been told that their primary job skills could no longer be used to gain private-sector employment in the state of North Carolina.

Scott Mooneyham writes for Capitol Press Association. Contact him at smooneyh@ncinsider.com