Ask Dome: Selling your seat

"Can't state Senators now buy their seats — literally, their chamber chairs — after the refurbishing of the Senate Chamber recently? ... Does that make Senator Goodall's joke run afoul of scalping laws if not truly ethics laws?" — Dome reader Cornbread

In 2005, the state Senate renovated its chambers.

Among the purchases were 50 black leather chairs from Hickory furniture manufacturer Cabot Wrenn.

Senators had the option of getting a plain seat, which would remain government property, or purchasing a monogrammed chair they could take with them after leaving office. The chairs cost $787.95, including shipping, according to Senate clerk Janet Pruitt.

Sen. Eddie Goodall bought his chair. He recently posted an image of it on the online auction site eBay as part of a joking offer to trade his elected office for Carolina-Duke basketball tickets.

Although it is Goodall's chair, he could not really sell or trade it.

Under a state law passed in 2007, no item with a "likeness of any seal or coat of arms of the Senate" may be sold by a private individual.

In addition, the state's ethics law prohibits legislators from asking, accepting or soliciting "anything of value" in exchange for official actions.

It goes without saying that Goodall could not actually trade his post in the legislature either. Any vacancy would be filled by Gov. Beverly Perdue upon the advice of Republicans from his district.

Perdue, a Democrat and graduate of the University of Kentucky, would be unlikely to break the law in order to help a Republican legislator get tickets to a Carolina game.

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