RALEIGH - It’s one of the great ironies of modern government that some of the loudest critics of public bureaucracy are often among its chief architects.

Think about it for a minute: One of the chief functions for many public bureaucracies is to mete out public resources and to make sure that no one receives anything to which they are not entitled. Especially in the last few decades as conservatives have raised heck about supposed abuses of every public program from “welfare” to Medicaid to Food Stamps to school lunches, large new bureaucracies have arisen to carefully assess and re-assess every application for assistance and monitor every program beneficiary to make sure that no one receives a penny more than the law allows.

Such bureaucracies can produce mixed results. It’s bad when deserving people are denied essential services or benefits because they didn’t dot an “i” or cross a “t” to the satisfaction of an officious bureaucrat or when we spend more on bureaucracy than we would save if a handful of poor people got a free doctor’s visit or school lunch for which they were technically ineligible.

On the other hand, it’s good if bureaucracy assures that laws are enforced evenhandedly and helps to build and sustain public faith in government. Without functioning, rule-obsessed bureaucracies, life can quickly degenerate to the level that one sees in scores of corrupt nations in the less-developed world.

Such considerations are particularly apt right now as the North Carolina General Assembly debates establishing a new level of bureaucracy in the world of ethics. Despite the broad agreement of many progressive and conservative advocacy groups, there is much resistance to strengthening the ethics bureaucracy by many of the people most directly impacted by it - namely elected officials themselves.

Some are resistant because they genuinely have something to fear and rightfully worry about new laws cramping their style, their power and maybe even their future employment prospects.

Others, however, drag their feet not because they’re dishonest or slick operators. They resist because they themselves are basically honest and simply don’t want the hassle of the new bureaucracy.

Fortunately, for most elected officials, the ultimate political motivator is not inconvenience or the service of personal relationships, but self-preservation and a commitment to governing. Given this fact, there is every reason to believe that legislators will act before they go home this summer to pass some version of a package of ethics improvements promoted by reform groups.

At a minimum, such a package ought to include new laws on the following topics:

n Banning “pay to play” campaign contributions by state contractors to elected officials who award contracts. The ban would start from the time the request for bids is announced and last until the contract is completed.

n Closing the so-called “revolving door” by requiring a year-long cooling off period before top executive branch officials can become lobbyists and before state employees can take a job in industries they contract with or regulate.

n Extending the current gift ban ordered in October by Governor Perdue for employees in her office and in cabinet agencies to all state employees and appointees to state boards and commissions.

n Prohibiting political parties from providing unlimited campaign funds to legislative and statewide campaigns and limiting the transfer of money from one political committee to another.

n Requiring appointees to state boards and commissions to report any campaign contributions they make to appointing elected officials.

n Requiring all elected officials to file a statement of economic interest that covers their final year in elective office.

Finally, any such package that’s truly serious about making the ethics bureaucracy effective should also include a set of reforms advanced by a number of ethics experts that promotes and expands public financing of elections. This means:

n Expanding the current program that covers the races for Auditor, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Commissioner of Insurance to include the other five agency heads on the Council of State (Secretary of State, Treasurer, Attorney General, Commissioners of Agriculture and Labor).

n Initiating a pilot program for state House and Senate races that allows candidates who adhere to strict fundraising limits to qualify for public financing of campaigns.

n Authorizing more cities and counties to sponsor their own public financing programs, using their own funding. Chapel Hill has this authority and will offer public financing in its 2009 election.

All of these proposals would almost certainly expand North Carolina’s ethics bureaucracy, but as is often the case when it comes to assuring the public’s confidence in a fair, honest and unbiased government, sometimes bureaucracy can be a good thing. Let’s hope that this truth is one on which progressives and conservatives can continue to find and build common ground.

Rob Schofield is the Director of Research and Policy Development at N.C. Policy Watch.