Don Beason has resigned from the state lobbyist association.
Beason sent a resignation letter to the group dated Aug. 1, said Susan Valauri, president of N.C. Professional Lobbyists Association.
In the letter, Beason again apologized for a "serious error in judgment" and withdrew from the association, Lynn Bonner reports.
In a state sentencing hearing last week, disagraced former House Speaker Jim Black identified Beason as the lobbyist who loaned him $500,000 in June 2000.
Valauri would not say whether anyone had filed a complaint against Beason seeking to get him kicked out of the association.
"Since he is no longer a member of the association, we no longer have any jurisdiction," she said.
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Re: Beason quits lobbyists group
I hope this is not the end of the N&O's coverage of this issue.
This man is the reason that we needed to pass ethics legislation in NC last year.
He is the lobbyist who delivered cash in brown paper bags to legislators.
He is the lobbyist who brown-nosed the Capitol Press every Tuesday at lunch...buying their lunches to make sure they never wrote a negative article about him or his clients. Maybe that's why they "speculated" it was Lynwood Mercer (a dead man), rather than the guy that they eat lunch with every week - and the guy everyone else in the lobbying world knew was the $500k man.
He is the lobbyist who regulary paid for the tabs at legislative meetings in Asheville or Greensboro so that he was welcomed into the legislator's offices when he had an issue. (check out the N&O archive for articles on this issue).
He is the lobbyist who can be traced as the root of almost every problem any lobbyist in Raleigh has had when one of his/her bills have been "killed" or "changed" behind closed doors...and it happend both in the Senate and House.
He is the lobbyist that had a standing dinner every Monday night at the Glenwood Grill with President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and Senator David Hoyle...and whatever other Senators he needed to strong-arm...until the ethics laws changed and took away that "in".
He is the lobbyist who has been seen around town - breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks - with the former chief of staff of Co-Speaker Morgan, and the current Finance Counsel...I wonder why bad bills for his clients never appear in the Senate Finance Committee?
Wow...I wonder why the N&O and every other new source in the state hasn't at least done a check of their own news archives for stories on Beason over the last week or two. It's not like he was an "unknown source" before Jim Black was convicted.