News-Record.com

The bosses have me tied up in "training" this morning (Wednesday). Really, they have to tie me down to make me sit still in some of these things.

Anyway, while my brain is out being washed, talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic...let's say legislative elections.

Take a look at the lists here and here and/or here and tell me what you think of the upcoming races.

What looks like the best contest to you? If you had the opportunity, what questions would you like to ask the state or federal candidates? Is anyone getting a free ride that you would have liked to have seen challenged?

Keep in mind, I'll mainly be writing about and for people in Guilford County (Davidson, Forsyth, Randolph, Rockingham) and the surrounding area, but if you want to chat about the four-way GOP primary out in Cherokee, no one here will stop you.

Update: News release here. AP story here. Audio below.

Gov. Mike Easley held a news conference today. The main thrust was to announce he had appointed Judge Robert Farmer as head of the state's ethics board. Farmer is currently undertaking a rewrite of the state's lobbying laws.

Easley also said he had asked Farmer to look at all the various ethics and lobbying reform proposals that have come up in the past few months, and try to mesh them into one comprehensive proposal.

You can listen to the pre-scripted announcement by clicking here. This is a link to a real audio file.

Of course, if you want to hear the fun stuff and good quotes, I recommend this link to the second half of the news conference. (Also a real audio file.) This second link has Q+A time with us scrubby media types. Some highlights:

• Easley doesn't like the feds' proposal to sell thousands of acres of national forest in North Carolina.

  "The reasons for selling it to me seem pretty silly," Easley said. Although he didn't sound enthusiastic about the option, if it came down to it, Easley said, the state may look at buying the land from the feds rather than letting it go into private hands.

• "It's not over until it's over and I've seen a lot of deals fall through at the last minute." Yeah, he's talking about the NASCAR Hall of Fame locating - or not - in Charlotte.

• Quote of the Day: "The people have a responsibility to look at the candidates who run for office and see if their conduct meets the standard we want in this state. Voters ultimately make that decision. On the other hand you cannot legislate ethics or morality. But you can make it hurt for people who don't demonstrate good ethics and morality. And Judge Farmer has been one who has shown over the years who has shown over the years that if you don't see the light, he can make you feel the heat." (Comes about 16 minutes and 11 seconds into the audio.)

• Not the quote of the day: "I think there's more than enough blame to go around. What we're looking for right now is solutions."

• Listen for: a press aid to say "last question." There will be about five or six questions after that.

The Elon Poll of political opinion in southeastern states is out today. Click here if you want to read the whole thing.

The focus this time around was on President Bush and his job approval rating. I'm still digesting the whole thing, but the headline seems to be this:

Question: Do you [approve or disapprove] of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?
Strongly Disapprove 36.0
Disapprove 16.1
Approve 23.7
Strongly Approve 19.2
Don't Know 4.2
Refused .8

The numbers for North Carolina:
Strongly Disapprove 39.2%
Disapprove 13.6%
Approve 23.3%
Strongly Approve 18.4%
Don't Know 5.2%
Refused .3%

You know the drill...read and then discuss via the comments link below.

Pawn shops and check cashing operations will be among the businesses that will be licensed to sell lottery tickets in North Carolina.

So?

That was the start of a conversation I had with myself earlier this week. Are these two types of businesses all that much different from the convenience stores and groceries that would be the bulk of lottery retailers?

After asking around for a story scheduled to run Sunday, (Update: Click here for the story) there are at least two schools of thoughts on the matter.

One is that because pawn shops and check cashing operations - in general - cater to the poor, and lottery advocates have pledged the state game won't market to the poor, having the lottery sold in those locations is an inherent conflict.

That view is summed up by Bill Rowe of the N.C. Justice Center. From the story:

“I think it’s unfortunate because there was a great deal of debate about not marketing the lottery to poor people,” said Bill Rowe, general counsel for the N.C. Justice Center, a progressive think tank that lobbies state government. “It doesn’t take much to connect the dots. If you’re pawning your possessions for money or don’t have enough money to have a bank account, it’s probably not a great idea to spend your money on lottery tickets.”

Others have a different view. Why should the state discriminate against any sort of business? From the story.

Jim Greene, the owner of Coins & Stuff on Lexington Avenue in High Point, describes his business as mainly a jewelry store. But he does hold a pawnbroker’s license and makes small loans by holding jewelry and coins as collateral.

Greene said he saw no reason he shouldn’t have a lottery terminal. When asked whether he would sell a lottery ticket to someone who had just pawned an item or taken out a loan, he said he would.

“If they’ve got the merchandise and want to pawn it, what they do with the money is their business, not mine,” Greene said. “If they don’t play here, they’ll play somewhere else.”

If you have a chance, read the story. And then discuss below.

From the in-case-you-missed it files:

• Did you come to chat about the lottery? Click here to talk about whether pawn shops ought to be able to sell lottery tickets... or head over to Doug's joint.
• Local candidates are raising money to run for office. Incumbents have a big lead in the money chase. In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
• N+O writes about religion and politics here and here. More here.
• John Ross Hendrix, a Republican candidate for the 13th Congressional district, dropped by this old blog to share his thoughts on former Winston-Salem council member Vernon Robinson jumping into the race. Among them:

  Neither I nor anyone else living in the 13th district want this kind of "courage" and "practicality" in the face of heavy odds representing us. I will never be accused of "cherry picking" a contest to enter and I will always chose to represent the people of the district where I LIVE. "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my" have invaded my turf. I will defend it to my last dime, even if I have to pawn the computer from which this message is sent.

• If you missed my colleague Nate DeGraff's story on racism preserved in deeds, go read it now. And be sure to check out the multimedia presentation.

Gov. Mike Easley is escaping Raleigh today and is scheduled to be in Greensboro.

According to the news release, Easley's supposed to show up at "7628 Thorndike Road" at 2p.m. Curiously, it doesn't say who Easley is coming to see.

Ooo, mysterious. Because no reporter (or say, anyone with an internet connection) would have access to a reverse-search directory.

Oh, wait, yes we do.

That address belongs to RF Micro Devices. Now that the local governments have pitched in, it's a safe bet that Easley is coming to town to deliver the state's goody-bag of economic incentive stuff.

I'm told our crack business team is all over this and will report accordingly for tomorrow's paper.

Update: Our biz team is on top of things.

Want to gripe, cajole, coax, praise or plead with your friendly local state legislator in person? Guilford County residents will have two chances to do so this spring.

• March 30, 6 p.m., in Greensboro at the Melvin Municipal Building – the place most folks would call city hall. Directions here.
• April 13, 6 p.m., at High Point City Hall, , 211 S. Hamilton Street.

The shindigs are being organized by Rep. Maggie Jeffus, who this year is the chairman of the Guilford County delegation in the General Assembly. A release announcing the forums reads:

“This hearing titled, Take It To Raleigh, will provide an opportunity for the delegation to receive input from citizens about their concerns and issues, as well as provide opportunities to receive input from local municipalities and other entities representing Guilford County”, said Representative Maggie Jeffus, Delegation Chair.

…

Citizens are encouraged to come to either location to share their thoughts with the Guilford County elected members of the North Carolina General Assembly. Speakers will be given a limited time and are asked to call (919) 733-5191 to sign up. Organizations and individuals who need additional information are asked to contact Representative Jeffus’ office.

Having attended a number of these things over the years, expect a pretty packed house, although not over-flowing. Various groups will organize legions of presenters to get around the time limits imposed (usually in the 3-to-5 minute range) and to try and impress with numbers.

Some local government types will come out as part of a pro-forma thank you and to offer gentle nudges on certain issues. And there will be the odd assortment of folks who wanted to get something off their chest and saw the opportunity to do it.

All in all, short of shelling out for a spot at a fund raiser (or stalking the delegation like I do for my day job), this is one of the public’s best opportunities to get face-to-face with those who represent them in Raleigh.

Click here for today's Inside Scoop column, which has a bunch of state news in it, including House Speaker Jim Black heading to town later this month.

Yet more results from the Elon Poll, this set focusing on North Carolina issues.

Among the results:

• 78 percent of respondents to this survey agreed or strongly agreed that an increase in the minimum wage was needed. That tracks pretty well with other poll data that we've seen.
• Tar heels are all over the map on Speaker Black. Oddly enough, I think the most significant number in that part of the survey may be the 31 percent of respondents who didn't know enough to answer whether they had confidence in him or not. That tells me that the Speaker's troubles are far from achieving universal penetration in the public consciousness.
• 60 percent of North Carolinians favor changing the state's gas tax law so it doesn't rise and fall with fuel prices.

Click here to download the whole poll result.

And now for a nickel’s 2.8-cents worth of political analysis:

On that last question I mentioned, only 8 percent agreed with getting rid of the gas tax totally. That second number reinforces a notion I’ve had for a while: the gas tax may sound like a good campaign issue but it’s not.

For better or worse, the most effective campaign issues are simple (we will do X, we will get rid of Y). This poll pretty clearly says promising to get rid of the tax altogether isn’t a good move. So a candidate would be stuck saying, here’s how I’d change the tax. That strikes me as a pretty nuanced sort of pitch.

That could fly for the primaries where your audience are the most politically conscious and active voters. But the Republicans have been talking up the gas tax as if it might be a potential wedge issue come fall.

The general election has a broad audience, and I’m not sure a line that says, “we’re going to CHANGE the way we tax gasoline,” is the most effective way to go. I guess a candidate could pledge to stop INCREASES in the gas tax, but given the increments involved (2.8 cents a gallon last time), that doesn’t seem to be the strongest rallying point.

But maybe I’m wrong…in fact, I’m sure my GOP-leaning friends and colleagues would say I am. Have your say in the comments section below.

I sat down Friday afternoon with Rory Blake, the Democrat who is running against Howard Coble for North Carolina's Sixth District congressional seat.

Update: Click here for Sunday's Q&A from the paper. I'm not sure what's up with the formatting for online, since the Qs and the As aren't marked differently.

The print product will be is a Q&A style article, scheduled to run in Sunday's paper. But because I like my readers (all dozen of you) I'll let you listen to the audio version of the interview right now.

I'll post a link to the article here once it runs. Blake is 55 and a retired pharmacist.

There's plenty in the audio that won’t make the print story. For example, you'll find this exchange toward the end of the first audio take:

Q: Is you're campaign going to have a strong online component?

A: "We're working on that now ... It's a given. We're going to have everything that we can have to communicate our messages. In fact, that's how we're going to get our way out of the deficit. We're going to find new ways to innovate and reach the goals we need to."

Blake said his campaign website will be www.blake06.com, which should start as a static site soon. And, he said a blog would be in the website's future.

A couple housekeeping notes, I don't have the nice transitions you'd get with someone who does radio for a living. The tape picks up and ends abruptly, with a lot of the awkward introductory cut off the end and beginning.

Also, I plan a similar Q&A session with Coble for Monday and will offer it up for Tuesday's paper.

Now for the sound. There are two audio files:

• Click here for the first part of interview. This part of the interview covers mainly tactical and political issues, such as his status as a candidate who doesn't live in the district.
• Click here for the second part of interview. These are the more issue-oriented questions, covering the war in Iraq, the prescription drug benefit, etc...

As always, discussion welcome via the comment link below.

A round up of stuff you may have missed while you were hopelessly glued to the ACC tournament or catching up on work this morning:

• My interview with Rep. Howard Coble’s challenger Rory Blake is here. An interview with Coble should be forthcoming later today.

• "Talking About Politics" talks about Richard Morgan and the primaries.

• The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog interviews John Edwards.

  An excerpt:

  Are you running for president or not?

  You waited this long to ask that question? I have not decided anything about that. I'm trying to make sure Elizabeth is well. I'm trying to do everything I can about poverty in the country and that's where my focus is. I'll figure that out later.

  
  You know, I've seen or heard at least four or five pretty lengthy interviews with Edwards since the New Year. In all of them, he strikes me as tackling policy issues much more head on than he did during the 2004 presidential campaign. (Maybe that's a freedom that comes from not being a Senator any more?)

  So his answer to the "are you running" question has had me scratching my head every time. He sure acts like he's running, or at least is trying to position himself to run. He's maintaining a deliberately high profile to keep his name in the national news. Heck, this latest interview with "The Fix" was even done with the premise of him being a potential contender in 2008.

  So why beat around the bush?

That's it for now. As always, the comment link is open.

Following up on my interview with Rory Blake, I had a chance to chat Monday with the man he hopes to unseat, Rep. Howard Coble.

Coble turns 75 this week and is making his 12th run for Congress this year.

As with the other story, we're planning a Q&A style piece for the print edition, but those who want can listen to the bulk of my interview with Coble can do that right here and now. (Coble did go off the record right at the end with something, so you won't get that.)

As always, full disclosure requires me to say I'm not a broadcast guy. My voice is grating, I stutter when asking questions and I don't think in sound bites. Ergo, this isn't going to sound pretty like a radio interview.

And also by way of full disclosure, Coble tends to be a bit more free-form in his answers than your average-stay-on-message politician and there are lots of segues in our conversation. So if you're following along with the tape and the story, you'll notice I had to reorder the Qs and As a bit to make them easier for readers to follow along. And as always, there are things in the interview that didn't make the paper.

Now for the audio files:

• File A: Coble talks about the political makeup of the NC Sixth Congressional District, Rory Blake’s residency ("I’m not going to make that an issue"), donating his papers to UNCG, and just how long he plans to keep running for office. (About 9 minutes.)
• File B: Coble talks about the Medicare prescription drug benefit: "I think it was a plan generously laced with good intentions, but also generously laced with confusion." (About 2 minutes.)
• File C: Coble talks about the Patriot Act reauthorization ("I don't believe it’s been abused"), port security and the now defunct (probably) Dubai ports deal. (About 7 minutes).
• File D: Coble talks about the NSA's warrantless wire tapping. In short, Coble said it wasn't a problem. (2 minutes)
• File E: Coble talks about his ambition to be House Judiciary Committee chairman, the federal budget deficit, the war in Iraq and a bill that he's co-sponsoring aimed at reducing prisoner recidivism. (About 9 minutes)

Now, a few questions for you:

• I did this interview over the phone, is the audio tolerable or does it annoy you too much?
  
• These two sessions were something of an experiment for me. Do you find the audio useful or should we concentrate on chugging out print pieces?
  
• Are there any state or federal candidates that you would particularly like to HEAR from, as well as read about in the paper?

You know the drill: the comments link below is open.

A couple folks have sent me this story and others like it from Ohio in recent days.

The main thrust is this: A bunch of memory cards that are used as part of ES&S's optical scan voting equipment malfunctioned when tested in Ohio.

ES&S is the lone vendor of voting equipment here in North Carolina. So, one might ask, are the same problems happening here.

First off, this is an issued with the optical scan machines - those where voters mark their choice down on paper and then those papers are counted by an automated scanner. The Direct Record machines, the ones where you plug you mark your choice on a little computer screen, are not affected by this particular issue.

Different counties are using different equipment. See the SBOE's list of who is running what by clicking here.

In the News & Record's greater coverage area, only Rockingham and Randolph counties use the optical scan machines.

Randolph County's election folks were out today when I called.

In Rockingham County, Deputy Election Director Denise Armstrong told me that her office had not tested the equipment locally. However, she said that it had undergone testing at a state warehouse in Goldsboro.

The state election folks haven't gotten back to me yet, but the folks at ES&S did.

ES&S Spokeswoman Jill Friedman said that the malfunction described in Ohio had to do with some faulty PCMCIA memory cards. Laptop computer users may recognize them as the same size and shape as their modem cards.

In the case of the voting machines, they're used to store vote counting data.

ES&S doesn't make the cards themselves, but buys them from a third party. Well, that third party shipped ES&S a bad batch. The main problem has to do with a tiny battery used in the circuitry not performing up to snuff.

So are any of them here?

Maybe.

Friedman said that none of the cards shipped to Rockingham and Randolph were part of the affected batch. She said it was unclear how big the affected batch might be and declined to put a number on it.

She was able to say about 30 cards shipped to three different counties in North Carolina were affected. Those counties were: Wake, Durham and Forsyth Counties.

"In each of those instances, we're working to acquire the cards and replace them," Friedman said.

She said that none of the cards in North Carolina had tested as bad, but they're being replaced out of an abundance of caution.

I'll update this post if and when I hear more.

Update: State Board of Elections Deputy Director Johnnie McLean got back to me today (3/15). Her account matched up with what ES&S told me yesterday.

She said that the all voting machines go through two levels of testing before they are put into action during an election. One level happens at the state's Goldsboro warehouse and then they are tested again by the counties that are to use them.

This notice went out from the House Select Committee on Ethics and Government Reform earlier this week:

The Committee requests public comments on issues of governmental ethics reforms including executive branch ethics, legislative branch ethics, lobbying law, campaign finance and election laws. Comments should be limited to five (5) minutes or less and a copy of remarks presented is requested to be delivered to the Committee Clerk in writing either electronically prior to the meeting (preferred) or at the meeting. Persons interested in speaking should contact Committee Clerk, Jason Cannon, at 919-715-1812 or jasonc@ncleg.net. Please be advised: depending on the number of requests, the number of speakers may be limited.

Day: Friday, March 24, 2006
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Location: Room 544, Legislative Office Building in downtown Raleigh.

If you want to tell the boys and girls at the legislature how they should be behaving, here’s your chance.

I'm not usually one for press releases, but this one from Rep. Howard Coble's office just begs to be shared.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.)----The member of Congress who is so unfazed by Hollywood celebrities that a chance meeting with actress Melanie Griffith - whom he did not know - became the talk of Capitol Hill a few years ago, will have another opportunity this week to test his pop culture awareness. Actress, singer, TV reality star, and pizza saleswoman Jessica Simpson is scheduled to visit the office of U.S. Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) on Thursday, March 16.

Jessica Simpson will be on Capitol Hill Thursday as an ambassador for Operation Smile, which provides free surgeries for poor children with cleft palates and other facial deformities. Congressman Coble, a longtime supporter of Operation Smile in North Carolina, will meet with Simpson in his office in the Rayburn Building on Thursday at 10 a.m.

For the past three years, Jessica Simpson has been Operation Smile's International Youth Ambassador and traveled last October with a medical team to Kenya. Following her meeting with Rep. Coble, Simpson is scheduled to participate in a news conference for the charity elsewhere on the Hill.

Simpson, who is 26, will be visiting Rep. Coble just two days before his 75th birthday. No word yet if the pop singer will serenade the birthday boy or if he will be able to name any of her songs, movies or television shows.

Coble was given the nickname of Hollywood Howard a few years ago by his House colleagues when word leaked out that he met actress Melanie Griffith while she was on Capitol Hill. It was so obvious to the actress that Coble did not know who she was, that she sent a handwritten note to his office later that day giving him some additional information about her career. Obviously not offended by the chance meeting, Griffith signed her note with a large heart.

Okay Doug, Ed and whoever else was worried about this, I have an answer.

Someone in the administration made a math error.

For those of you not in the loop, Gov. Mike Easley has protested the planned sale of federal forest land in North Carolina. In a letter to the Bush administration, Easley said that the sale of 9,828 acres would amount to nearly 9 percent of the federal forest land in the state. Whoever did that math was a decimal point off - the sale really amounts to nearly 1 percent of federal forest land in the state.

Seth Effron, a former News & Record staffer from back in the day who is Easley's deputy press secretary, says that a corrected letter is being sent to Washington, D.C. and that a correction is being sent to the Associated Press, which wrote the story most our readers saw.

However, Effron said Easley was still opposed to the sale.

You hear the one about a reporter who wasn't allowed into a press conference because he showed up late?

Really.

I've been delinquent in posting about this. Luckily, my colleagues in the press corps have:

• Charlotte Observer editorial.
• Asheville's Kerra Bolton.
• Winston-Salem's Paul O'Connor.

For those too lazy to follow the links, the O'Conner summarizes thusly:

Reporter Scott Mooneyham was running late for Gov. Mike Easley's press conference Thursday morning a week ago. He went through two security checkpoints in the Capitol and then opened the door to the governor's office.

Seth Effron, the governor's newest press aide, was standing inside, and when Mooneyham entered, the two made contact. Mooneyham says that Effron fairly aggressively tried to push him out the door, backing into him as a basketball player would to position for a rebound.

For those enticed to follow the links, there's little that I can add to all that wit and wisdom, other than to say I wish any of that surprised me.

(We pikck up the Steve Wood story below, but first an UPDATE via our friends at the AP:

The campaign of House Speaker Jim Black appears to have violated campaign contribution limits to other candidates in five instances for the 2004 primary, investigators for the State Board of Elections said.

State law limits donations from one candidate's committee to another to $4,000 in each election.

The election's board staff found that Black's campaign donated $8,000 during the 2004 primary season to the campaign of Rep. Earline Parmon, D-Forsyth; $8,000 to Rep. Mary McAllister, D-Cumberland; $6,000 to Rep. Earl Jones, D-Guilford; $5,000 to Charles Monroe Buchanan, R-Mitchell; and $4,500 to Rep. Alma Adams, D-Guilford.

Now, as for Wood, you ever feel like there's more going on than you can say?

That's pretty much the case with this story about Steve Wood and 50 other folks being called to testify at the State Board of Elections inquiry into Jim Black next week.

There are a couple big questions hanging out there.

Will anyone else from Guilford County and/or the Triad be among the 50 or so called to chat with the SBO next week? (I'd put my money on yes, but my $5 is tied up in an ugly-looking NCAA bracket right now.)

I expect a full list of those called to come out Monday.

Also, why Wood?

I can't say for sure, but I have a few more observations that didn't make the story. You can decide for yourself whether they amount to a working theory or not-so-much as a hill of beans.

As I mention in the story, in 1999, Wood broke with fellow Republicans and backed Black for Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful and influential posts in the state. Black won the post.

This earned him the ire of fellow-Republicans, who tossed Wood out of the GOP caucus. Then Rep. John Blust ran against Wood in the Republican primary. The campaign was nasty.

Wood's campaign finance reports, available from the state board’s internet site, are not always easy to decipher and seem to be missing some information. The data available paint a picture of a candidate who sometimes loaned himself money to run for office and didn’t fund raise aggressively.

However, during his primary run against Blust, reports showed Wood received at least $1,450 from chiropractors and their political committee and at least two other donations from optometrists. Like the optometrists, chiropractors have been a key base of political funding for Black.

Sound familiar?

Although the sequence of events is not as clear cut and does not involve as much money, this pattern is similar to one seen with Forsyth County Republican Michael Decker.

In early 2003, Decker switched from the Republican to Democratic parties.

The move cost Republicans a slim majority they held in the House and helped keep Black in the Speaker’s office. Decker’s campaign finance reports show that he received more than $40,000 in donations during the time of that switch from chiropractors, optometrists and other groups with ties to Black.

Could Wood be an early, watered-down example of what made Decker infamous? $1,450 and change hardly seems like enough money to motivate someone, so I’m not sure I buy it on that basis alone. But I could be missing something.

One more piece of data: Several people who served in the GA at the time told me Friday that Wood and Decker were pretty tight allies back in their legislative days.

Bottom line, we'll have to wait until next week to find out for sure what's up here.

A couple stories from me that may interest you state-government wonks this weekend:

• No, I really can't sell you a lottery ticket. But these people would be happy to come March 30. Among the retailers hoping to sell for the state gambling enterprise: beauty supply stores, a paint ball supply shop and one place that has named itself "The Lotto Shop."
  
• House Speaker Jim Black's latest fund raising problems involve two local legislators. Reps. Alma Adams and Earl Jones, both Greensboro Democrats, took too much money from the Speaker during the 2004 primary period.

This week coming up in Raleigh is going to be a busy one. A few of the coming attractions: the lawsuit seeking to derail the lottery is scheduled to be back in court Monday, the State Board of Elections continues its hearings into Black's fund raising practices on Tuesday and the lottery commission is scheduled to meet by phone on Tuesday morning to, among other things, name a vice chairman.

Come to think of it, with a bunch legislative committees scheduled to meet, Tuesday is shaping up to be just a ridiculous kind of busy for us scrubby media types here in Raleigh.

Have a good rest of your weekend everyone.

I'm just back from the Superior Court hearing on whether the lottery was passed in a constitutional manner.

Basically, the oral arguments were a good summary of the case.

Former Supreme Court Judge Robert Orr, arguing for the NC Institute for Constitutional Law, told the court:

• The lottery is a tax, a revenue raising bill, as defined by the state constitution.
• Such bills need to be heard, voted upon, and have their votes recorded on three separate days.
• Neither the reading on three separate days nor the recording of votes happened.
• The court should declare the law unconstitutional.

Best quotes:

• "If this is an education lottery, I would submit to you this 35-cents is the education tax," referring to the 35-cents on the dollar from lottery tickets that supposed to go towards education.
  
• "A ruling that the lottery act is not constitutional does not mean North Carolina will never have a lottery," suggesting that the General Assembly could hold a special session and pass it again.

Norma Harrell, a Special Deputy Attorney General for the state, said:

• The lottery is not a tax. Playing is voluntary.
  
• Since it's not a tax, the three day provision doesn't apply.
  
• And, oh yeah, Orr and company waited too long to bring the suit.

Best quotes:

• "A tax is a forced contribution to government. No one is force to contribute here...you don't have to buy a lottery ticket."
  
• "There's no tax here, it's just a charge for purchasing a ticket."

Judge Henry Hight said that he would decide the case by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, Lottery Director Tom Shaheen, who watched the festivities in court, said after the hearing that his crew would continue pushing forward with work to get things up and running by March 30.

Stay tuned.

In case you haven’t heard, the judge in the case seeking to stop the lottery has chucked out the lawsuit.

I heard that news as I say in the State Board of Election hearings regarding House Speaker Jim Black and possible violations of campaign finance laws.

The thrust of this morning’s case revolved around folks from Rockingham County (the city not the county) involved in the video poker business. Specifically, the board appeared to be trying to determine if people were recruited to allow their names to be used on campaign donation forms and checks even if they weren’t actually the ones making those donations.

In a few instances, it was apparent that board members thought they were being lied to.

“I’m going to ask you not to let that table become the liar’s table. Coincidences don’t just keep happening,” elections board chairman Larry Leak said to one witness who was frustrating him.

No sign of Steve Wood yet, but it’s early in the afternoon.

At 2:12 p.m., the hearings have picked back up, and I’m tuning back in.

Update: The days hearings ended without any current or former legislators being called to testify. I'm writing a story for tomorrow's paper with at least some of the details from today.

Day 2 of the the State Board of Elections hearings concerning Speaker Jim Black’s fund raising just got fun.

We’re hearing testimony that allies of Black were asked to donate to former High Point Rep. Steve Wood because Wood, in 2003, was going to support Black for Speaker that year. Wood, according to the testimony so far, backed out of that deal and the checks were never cashed.

And yes, Wood is in the house, apparently waiting to testify as of 3 p.m.

More to come later, but I have to pay attention now.

I’ll be sitting in on the last day of the hearings revolving around fund raising and House Speaker Jim Black.

Yesterday, things took and interesting turn when High Point’s Steve Wood got into the mix.

The board is scheduled to clean up any lingering testimony, hear arguments from lawyers for Black and take some action this morning. That action could include referring people for prosecution or instructing the campaign committee to return some money.

It sounds like the traveling circus in Research Triangle Park (nowhere in downtown Raleigh was available for the hearings, I’m told) should be back in downtown by afternoon. I’ll try to check back in then.

I'm back in beautiful downtown Raleigh (motto: under construction...permanently) after the State Board of Election hearings wrapped up in RTP earlier this afternoon.

For the AP’s early take click right here.

The bullet points are these:

• Black’s campaign didn’t violate the law when they raised money on behalf of Steve Wood but didn’t pass it on to the High Point representative.
• The video poker and optometrist trade groups made have violated some laws and will have to give up some cash and prepare for a visit from the Wake County district attorney.
• Black’s campaign was also referred to the Wake County DA due to its dealings with the optometrists and efforts to funnel money to ally Michael Decker, a former Forsyth County representative.

As board chairman Larry Leake noted, just because someone is referred for criminal investigation doesn’t mean the DA will find enough evidence to pursue prosecution.

On the other hand, it ain’t a good thing, especially for the Speaker, who was probably hoping that us scrubby media types would have a reason to stop writing about this particular topic.

Two stories from me over the weekend:

• The lottery's long strange trip to reality nears completion.
• The ethics board rules against a Greensboro electrologist.

By the way, for more stuff on the lottery: click here. Later on this week I'll be posting a list of local folks who will be selling lottery tickets on opening day.

Some other items from around the state that may interest you:

• I've seen stories that say North Carolina's lottery won't make as much money as South Carolina's. Here's one that says SC will lose money to NC.
  
• More on the lottery from the Charlotte paper.

And finally, some items about our favorite House Speaker:

• Carter Wren weighs in on Jim Black. "But even if Black wins – and survives – I think one thing is certain. He cannot continue to do business as usual in the State House. This is not a scandal where he can keep his head down and in six months go back to doing what he’s always done."
• Guarino weighs in on the same topic: "For local Democrats in the state legislature tied to Black-- Pricey Harrison, Earl Jones, Alma Adams-- a campaign issue has been handed to any opponents they may face in the future."(Link fixed, 3/27/06 9 a.m.)
• Green dog dems on the same topic: "Ask the Speaker to step down now; elect a real reformer to the chair; and fight for the strongest ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance reform legislation possible."
• Charlotte's Jim Morrill and Mark Johnson on the same topic: "Black is the first sitting N.C. House speaker faced with possible criminal prosecution and the state's highest-ranking official sanctioned by the elections board since then-Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, also a Democrat, in 2002."
• Prior posts re: Jim Black from me here.

I've fielded several requests for a listing of who is selling lottery tickets. Here are couple different lists that may help:

• Click here for a partial list of lottery retailers, including those in Alamance, Davidson, Forsyth, Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham Counties. (This is a Microsoft Excel file.) This list includes only those counties and only those retailers who were approved for sales as of the date I got this data. A few more may have been added since, but this is probably the best I can do for a listing of who will be selling on opening day.
• If you can't read the Excel table, here's the same file in MS Word, with a few bits of data scrubbed out to make if format nice.
• If you really want to dive into all this, click here for a list of all retailers that have applied. (Microsoft Excel file) This is the whole state and the listing includes both people who have been authorized to sell and those who have not.

WARNING:These aren't huge files in the grand scheme of things, but if you're running dial-up, they'll take you a while to download.

By the way, if you're looking for the lottery's own home page, you can find that by clicking here.

By way of the AP, the Attorney General's office has turned down a request from Speaker Jim Black’s legislative office for more funds to help defray the cost of complying with federal grand jury subpoenas.

In case this point is unclear (and I do think it has gotten muddied in a few reports) Julie Robinson, Black's spokeswoman wrote to me this evening:

"...the Speaker has never requested or received any state funding to cover any of his personal legal bills. The previously approved $30,000 by the Attorney General's office was requested by Dianna Jessup, legal counsel for the Speaker's office, on behalf of the Speaker's staff due to the fact that the AG's office said that they would be unable to represent our office as it usually would do in such state matters."

Also emerging Monday is the fact that Black has started a legal trust fund. The typical short hand for such an account is a "legal defense fund," but Ken Bell, a Charlotte Attorney for Black (who also happens to be a registered Republican), said that term isn’t accurate because "We don't consider ourselves to be in a defensive posture."

Bell told me that the trust has been around for "several weeks" and is being administered by Stan Campbell, another Republican and former Charlotte city council member.

"It hasn't been a secret at all," Bell said. "A lot of people support the Speaker and think he’s been treated wrongly."

The trust, Bell said, could go to pay for any number of legal expenses, such as representing Black before the BOE last week.

I asked if the trust might pay for the work and copies from the legislative staff, and Bell said, "The state is supposed to pay for that." Yes, he was aware of the AG’s decision and, as you might imagine, thought it was a bad one.

"Under normal circumstances, the AG would represent a member’s office if they got a subpoena like that" from the grand jury, Bell said.

Left unsaid was there is nothing quite normal about these circumstances.

By the way, it seems that such legal trust funds are outside the oversight powers of the State Board of Elections, or at least occupy a pretty murky gray area. State elections director Gary Bartlett was concerned enough to write to Black and Senate leader Marc Basnight about the issue last year after seeing it crop up several times during election disputes.

I remember there was some talk in early 2005 of setting up a similar trust for Steve Troxler in his protracted election dispute over the Agriculture Commissioner race. I’m not sure if one ever got set up there.

According to Bartlett’s letter, something similar was also considered by one or both of the parties in the disputed Superintendent of Public Instruction race between Democrat June Atkinson and Republican Bill Fletcher.

Of course, the mother of all such legal trust funds (in halfway recent memory anyway) was the one set up for former President Bill Clinton who said he did not…well, you know.

One question (probably one of several) re: Black’s legal trust I don’t have the answers to right now: I don’t know how much money is in the trust account.

As always, the comment lines are open…just click the link below.

Gov. Mike Easley was out announcing the state was acquiring some 77,000 acres of land down east from International Paper today. (Click here for the news release.) That was all well and good, but you know us scrubby press types had other things on our minds.

Specifically, we wanted to know what Easley thought in light of last week's SBOE hearings, during which Black's case was referred to local prosecutors.

(Click here to listen to all the back and forth from Easley and the fourth estate re: Black. It's an MP3 file, about five minutes. The audio quality is not the best, but it’s audible.)

When asked his opinion, Easley replied in part:

"I don't see a need to rush to judgment. Let's hear from the people who are experts in the law and find out what they determine the case to be."

He also said there was "some unsettled law" surroudning the case.

If some of this sounds familiar, it should.

Easley did acknowledged that Black has been a key legislative ally and all this, um, stuff swirling around won't help keep the legislature focused on things the governor considers a priority.

According to a big red box on the News & Record homepage, our great server migration has begun. Think of this as a sort of electronic cattle drive, with the cowpokes trying to herd thousands of individual pages and pieces of content from one place to another.

The good news, I’m told, is that our new servers will allow us to do some kind of spiffy stuff. The bad news, of course, is that things can get messy during the transition.

I expect the main problem most of our readers will face will be broken links. If you run into issues, drop me a line via the comments section of at mbinker@news-record.com.

Thanks.

Update:For the next couple days, if you're trying to follow old links (from here or anywhere else) to N+R stories, well, you're out of luck. But come Thursday morning, I'm told the links should magically work again. Ain't technology fun?

One thing that has been blown up but good by the great server transition has been my links to audio files.

Those searching for the latest Easley on Black take can find that by clicking here.

Remember the lottery lawsuit? You know, the one a superior court judge chucked not too long ago?

Well, that decision is being appealed. From my e-mail to your eyeballs:

NOTICE OF APPEAL IN LOTTERY CASE FILED

RALEIGH - The N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, at the request of the Plaintiffs and with approval of its Board of Directors, has today filed a Notice of Appeal to the N.C. Court of Appeals from the Orders entered by Judge Henry Hight in the Lottery Act litigation. We anticipate that the N.C. Justice Center on behalf of the Plaintiffs/Intervenors may file a separate Notice of Appeal later this week. As soon as the Record on Appeal is filed, it is anticipated that a Petition for Discretionary Review will be filed on behalf of the Plaintiffs and Plaintiffs/Intervenors with the N.C. Supreme Court requesting the Court to take the case and bypass the Court of Appeals as well as to expedite the briefing and argument schedule.

“As we have indicated from the beginning of this litigation, we feel that there are vitally important constitutional questions relating to the passage of the N.C. Lottery Act that need to be resolved with finality by our state’s highest court.” said NCICL’s Executive Director Robert Orr. “With the lottery beginning in N.C. this week, the need for the quickest possible resolution of these issues is imperative. Millions of dollars will have been taken in by the state and debts incurred by the state to pay winners, while the appeal process moves forward. The constitutional issues involved not only affect the Lottery Act but potentially impact legislative enactments in the future.” he added.

“While disappointed in the Trial Court’s decision, we still feel strongly about the merits of our constitutional arguments and look forward to presenting them at the appellate level.” Orr said.

So it turns out there's a game or gambling thingy starting tomorrow (Thursday) here in North Carolina.

In case you didn't see prior posts on the topic, here are links to Excel files listing where people will be selling lottery tickets in:

(For those who can't get at an Excel file, click here for an MS Word file of retailers in Guilford County.)

• Alamance County.
• Forsyth County.
• Guilford County.
• Randolph County.
• Rockingham County.
• the whole state.

Please note, thoses lists are subject to change, but they're about as current as they get as of this afternoon.

If you spot something interesting going on with the lottery as it starts up, drop me a line: mbinker@news-record.com

So the lottery started and North Carolina hasn’t slid into the ocean yet or anything.

Here’s a link to our early morning coverage of the lottery opening. (Link subject to expiring due to the ongoing server transition.)

Meanwhile, Sen. Phil Berger of Eden says:

For some time now the Education Union (North Carolina Association of Educators), Governor Easley, and the Democratic Legislative Leadership have sold the idea of a Lottery to North Carolinians as a panacea that will cure all of the problems facing our public education system. March 30th is the first day of what represents the fruits of their labor, and time will tell whether the lottery will live up to the expectations which have been created.

North Carolina's public education system has high dropout rates, poor test scores, low teacher pay, and all too often inadequately prepares students for the 21st century economy.

It is my great hope that the start of the lottery will finally force the Governor and the Democrat controlled General Assembly to shift their focus from gimmicks and inflated promises to real solutions to the substantial problems facing North Carolina's public education system.

As always, the comment link is open.

Update: Your odds of winning? Well, I'm told by weather folks that your chance of getting hit by lightening is 1 in 3 million on average, so you're still doing better than that if you're aiming for the $100,000.