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Senate leader Marc Basnight said he has told Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue that Transportation Board member Lanny Wilson would be a good pick for transportation secretary.

Wilson would be no stranger to Perdue. He is one of a handful of board members who were also fundraisers for her gubernatorial campaign. Two other transportation board members who raised money for Perdue resigned during the campaign. Thomas Betts pressured a city official to raise money for Perdue and Louis Sewell steered roadwork to commercial properties in Jacksonville that he or his son co-owned.

Perdue pledged to use executive orders to take much of the specific road-building decisions away from transportation board members, who are appointed by the governor.

Basnight said that Wilson's fundraising activities wouldn't raise any problems with him running the transportation department.

"I wish she would appoint him. I asked her to," Basnight told reporters Thursday. "I think Lanny would be outstanding.

"He never wants anything for himself. Never has. He's a fundraiser because he cares. And there's not a governor in this country that I'm aware of who will not appoint people who raise money for them," Basnight said. "I would not shy from it. Now she may well do that. She never did listen to me."

Efforts to reach Wilson Thursday afternoon failed. A message to a Perdue spokesman was not immediately returned.

More reasons for Basnight's support and why he wouldn't change the board after the jump.

Beverly Perdue said Wednesday that she would strip most specific decisions from the state Board of Transportation.

Perdue was speaking to The N&O's editorial board and she outlined eight executive orders she would issue on inauguration day.

Perdue said she would be able to use an executive order to convert the transportation board, which now approves contracts, spending and projects, into a panel focused on long-term planning.

"I want to take the money out of the board. I want to transform the way DOT does business," she said.

She would not promise to ban fundraisers from the board, saying her proposals would make their influence moot. Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican nominee for governor, has said he would not appoint any of his fundraisers to the board.

Two board members — Louis W. Sewell Jr. and Thomas Betts Jr. — who are also Perdue fundraisers have resigned from the board this year.

"It seems to me the best way you can tell what someone is going to do in the future is to take a look at what they're doing right now and what they've done in the past," said Jack Hawke, a strategist for McCrory's campaign. "The lieutenant governor has used the Board of Transportation as her finance committee."

More, including Perdue's other proposals, after the jump.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue followed through on her pledge earlier today and identified Board of Transportation members who are fundraisers for her campaign.

They are Lanny Wilson of Wilmington, Louis Sewell of Jacksonville and Marvin Blount of Greenville. Thomas Betts Jr. of Rocky Mount was previously a board member, but he stepped down last month after a fundraising scandal, Dan Kane reports.

Perdue's campaign also challenged state Treasurer Richard Moore to disclose more than the name of his fundraisers on the board. She wants him to disclose his Wall Street fundraisers, and support a ban on fundraising by those who have business with the treasurer's office.

"Richard Moore says we should ban contributions from DOT board members, but not from people who do business with the Treasurer's office—maybe that's because he’s raised more than $1.5 million from them," said Perdue spokesman David Kochman. "Richard Moore's attacks are the height of hypocrisy."

Moore has said that board members should not be fundraising for the governor.

But his campaign said today that doesn't apply to those who have raised money for Moore in the current campaign—including board members Alan Thornburg and D.M. "Mac" Campbell. Moore could reward them and other fundraisers with board seats, said Moore's campaign manager Jay Reiff, but once on the board they would have to stop fundraising.

"He was going to break that cycle," Reiff said.

Kochman found that stand just as hypocritical. "It's another example of do as I say not as I do," he said.