And another hit for Mo Green.
I swear I meant to check the status of CMS lead counsel Regina Bartholomew yesterday. But today I see that Ann Doss Helms was way ahead of me.
She reports that Bartholomew has still not taken the NC Bar exam, let alone become a member of the state bar.
““I don’t think it’s hindering my ability at all to do my duties,” Bartholomew told Helms. This from the author of a legal memo on political activity by the school board which did not mention NC state law.
It was never clear how a year-long search by CMS landed on Bartholomew one year ago, resulting in a 6-3 board vote to hire her to replace Mo Green as CMS’ top attorney. She had served in the highly politicized role of general counsel for the Orleans Parish School Board and ran as a Democratic candidate for Congress while on leave from that post in 2006. At the time of her hiring last July she was widely expected to make another run for political office in New Orleans.
But the lure of a $140K job with CMS must have been too great, even if it meant agreeing to become of a member of the NC Bar by this September. Now that is impossible. Helms notes that Bartholomew did not take the just concluded Bar exam and the next one is not until February. As a result, Bartholomew must ask the board to waive the provision in her contract that required her to be a member of the bar by September.
That will happen next month and the board will say yes. The alternative is to admit that Pete Gorman, Mo Green, and a board majority made a mistake in hiring her. That never happens.
Instead CMS will quite publicly say that sticking to your word, studying, and preparing for a test only matters sometimes. Only when you do not have the raw political power behind you to change the rules after the fact.
Bonus Observation: I think I pointed out Green’s culpability for the Bartholomew hire to the folks in Gboro, but I honestly do not remember. Suffice it to say they convinced themselves they were hiring some reformer in Green, and that was that.
