Is Mike Causey Fit to Serve as Insurance Commissioner?

With only weeks to go as the countdown to Election Day continues, there are very serious questions about whether Mike Causey is fit to serve as our State Insurance Commissioner.

We've already discussed on this blog his trials and tribulations involving run-ins with Guilford County officials and his direct employment ties to insurance companies, but now there are even more damning reasons why voters would question Causey's fitness to serve in a statewide office in a position that regulates insurance and financial matters.

Since the last posting at this blog, your intrepid blogger has discovered that Mike Causey is embroiled in a major campaign finance scandal involving his current race for Insurance Commissioner.  Articles appeared all over the State about it and consequently all over the Internet.

And many of us just learned of a report from earlier this week that Mike Causey has a history of bankruptcy and federal tax liens, according to his hometown news reporter, Travis Fain of the Greensboro News and Record.

Do we need an insurance commissioner who is all twisted up in admitted errors, originally unreported contributions, unlawfully labeled candidate ads, and apparently an illegal reverse raffle being elected to statewide office? 

The word on the street is that Mike Causey's attempts at minimizing the true extent of his travails and election law violations are unraveling.  He's told his supporters and the press that the problems are much ado about nothing.  But the State Board of Elections confirmed to that Greensboro reporter a few days ago that the investigation is actually still open.  There is also serious speculation that more and more things are being found, which would explain why a supposed minor administrative procedure has ballooned.  A review of Causey's last amended reports even show a discrepancy in the thousands of dollars. It appears more and more that candidate Mike Causey has intentionally downplayed and possibly misled the State Board of Elections and the public about his campaign finance problems.  If true, then that's unacceptable.  Prediction:  Mike Causey is in hot water.

And on the subject of hot water, do we need Mike Causey's brand of doing business -- where he hides his bankruptcy and federal tax liens, declaring them of no use when considering his qualifications for statewide office?  According to that Greensboro news reporter, Causey said the issue is 20 years old and is too ancient.  Because Mike Causey says he is running as a businessman, it is fair game and very relevant for the public to know that Causey has gone from job to job to job, constantly looking unsuccessfully for election or appointment to political office over the  last 20 years, and part of that trek in the business world includes a bankruptcy, prohibition of his selling any real estate during the bankruptcy, and federal tax liens that went unpaid for a lengthy period of time. 

The word on the street is that there may be more tax questions for Mike Causey.  Stay tuned.  Prediction:  Mike Causey's hot water is getting hotter.

But that's not the end of it.

The word on the street is, on knowledge and belief, that reports of other improper personal behavior and matters involving other state laws are potentially on the horizon for Mike Causey.  Prediction:  Who knows?  But people are talking.

I suspect that as a sign of his desperation he's going to lob things against the current insurance commissioner as a means of distracting the public from his own issues.  That wouldn't surprise anyone.  The Bible tells us, of course, "physician, heal thyself" and "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

Admittedly all candidates for office, challengers and incumbents alike, are scrutinized for many, many things.  Some of the scrutiny is warranted.  Some of it is not.  Some of it is pure politics, and some of it is fiction or partial fiction.

In the case of Mike Causey, however, there are enough legitimate questions about his fitness for office to give voters a reason to pause, and to ask: 

Do we need to elect a challenger insurance commissioner with this much baggage and so many unanswered questions and growing scandals?

Isn't it instructive for all of us that voters have already rejected Mike Causey three times before for this same office in 1992, 1996 and in 2000?

There is much to learn about Mike Causey before he could ever be deemed fit to serve in elected office.


References:

http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/allegations_of_campaign_violations_persist_in_insurance_commissioner_race

http://www.news-record.com/blog/147008/entry/154461

http://beforeyouvoteihaveaquestionforyou.blogspot.com/2012/07/mike-causey-accused-of-breaking-rules.html

http://beforeyouvoteihaveaquestionforyou.blogspot.com/2012/07/should-we-elect-insurance-company.html

Has Mike Causey Drunk the Tea Party Kool-Aid?

Mike Causey is running for Insurance Commissioner of North Carolina.  For the fourth time in 20 years.

In addition to the previous expose of his work as a paid lobbyist and a 30-year insurance industry executive, there's yet one more item to add to his political resume:  He's the Tea Party candidate in 2012.

In fact, he's apparently drunk the Kool-Aid on the Tea Party.

Mike Causey has taken up the Tea Party cause and, consequently, he's been endorsed by the Tea Party groups all across North Carolina.  Readers are probably not shocked to learn that some of the Tea Party agenda is way out in deep, right field.

Some of these groups want North Carolina to create its own currency -- you know, its own money.  Isn't it unpatriotic for those people to turn their back on the American greenback?  And isn't it indicative that they and Mike Causey are, as my homebuilder and plumber friends say, a "bubble off center?"

Mike, do you think those insurance companies you want to regulate will take that "funny money" that you and many of your fellow Tea Party members are yearning for?

When Mike Causey and his Tea Party endorsers advocate for changes in insurance laws and less regulation in insurance laws, what they mean is de-regulation of insurance companies ... which means insurance companies can trample consumers and raise prices even more without a reasonable check and/or balance.  Hey, aren't "checks and balances" constitutional (and founding) principles?  You'd think Mike Causey and his Tea Partiers would understand that reasonable insurance regulations are a check and a balance.   (Even Founding Father Thomas Jefferson and fellow signers of the U.S. Constitution would agree with me.)

When Mike Causey says he wants to allow insurance companies to operate in a pure free market here in North Carolina, that means he is endorsing higher insurance rates for everyone.  That's what has apparently happened in other states that have gone the route of Tea Partiers and non-consumer advocates like Mike Causey.

Knowing the above now, my question, then, is two-fold:

What is Mike Causey thinking and what is he drinking?

Yours truly,

Trust But Verify