News-Record.com

If you can pull yourself away from coverage of President Bush's visit, there's other political tid bits to reckon with today.

Regular readers will recall that House Speaker Jim Black has had, at the very least, some public image problems lately. One facet of those problems, relates to Black's patronage of Mike Decker the Republican-Democrat-Republican, whose flip-floppery helped create the co-speakership situation in 2002.

Now comes Democracy-NC with the following:

Despite on-going state and federal investigators, political donations tied to the video-poker industry continue to pour into North Carolina campaigns – more than $220,000 in the last election – and continue to highlight legal and ethical controversies involving Speaker Jim Black.

That total doesn’t include the $109,000 two operators put into their own failed campaigns for the General Assembly. One loser, distributor Clarence “Bucky” Jernigan, admitted he engaged in illegal gambling soon after announcing his candidacy and the sheriff destroyed 275 of his machines.

More from the release on Decker:

Michael Decker received $11,500 from industry-related donors, including $8,000 on the day Jim Black was elected Co-Speaker – Feb. 5, 2003. “Video-poker money was the largest share of $30,000 Decker’s campaign got in the 10 days before or after that vote from donors tied to interests and individuals backing Black,” Hall said. None of the donors had ever given to Decker before.

But the really fascinating bit is this:

Hall pointed out the overlap in the money and votes on that bill. Of the 60 House members who backed the Culpepper/Black bill on its crucial second roll-call vote, 50 received video-poker PAC money. By contrast, of the 53 House members who opposed the bill, only 7 received Amusement PAC funds during 2003-2004 – and 4 of those 7 changed their votes on the final, third roll-call vote to Yes or Not Voting.

Now click here and read the whole thing. (Microsoft Word Format)