Well, Well — our Lady of Suspended Elections has been caught illegally receiving confidential employment data before its official release date.

From what I read, it seems to me her staff is attempting to create spin for the employment numbers ahead of their release. One has to wonder if her bid for an unemployment bailout is tied in.

From Carolina Journal, via Zero Hedge:

“RALEIGH — Since as early as January 2011, and perhaps before then, Gov. Bev Perdue’s press office has received access to confidential employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics hours if not days before its scheduled release, quite likely in violation of federal law. The governor’s staff used its early access to massage the monthly employment press release that reported jobs data to the public.”

Also:

“While the operation may sound like a harmless effort to add political spin to the release of jobs data, sharing confidential BLS estimates while they are protected by an embargo violates a federal law barring the early release of employment data. This is no small matter: A conviction for breaching the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 carries a fine of up to $250,000, up to five years in prison, or both.

The data, including monthly estimates for current job totals, the labor force, and the unemployment rate, are produced by BLS with some minor assistance from the Labor Market Information Division of DES.”

Zero Hedge notes:

“Furthermore as it turns out, this is not the first time the North Carolina governorship has been caught red-handed.”

“Former Gov. Mike Easley’s administration received an early briefing on the employment reports from ESC staff for several months in 2003 and 2004, if not longer, but those briefings apparently stopped after CJ learned of and reported on them in 2004.”

Her predecessor, Easley, landed himself in jail and I doubted she fell far from that tree. I was right.

Perdue is already in hot water with three of her staff under indictment. At least one donor has already been convicted of campaign violations with regard to flights Perdue took. A timeline list of them can be found here.

I am a bit bemused she has decided to run for re-election given the campaign finance issues or that she’s vetoed more bills than any other NC Governor so far and the GOP majority legislature has overridden about six of them.

Add those tidbits to her incredible call for the suspension of Congressional Elections for two years and well…What exactly are you going to run on again, Bev?  Want to revise that Ethics Pledge perhaps?

Update: Gov. Sugar Dumplin decides not to run.

Perdue, a former school teacher, said her decision was about protecting public education from spending cuts by the GOP-led Legislature. She said in highly partisan times, her re-election bid would “only further politicize the fight to adequately fund our schools.”

Freezing teacher pay is not a “cut” and that one was all you, Bev.