Elections board delays hearings

The State Board of Elections has pushed back hearings into possible election law violations regarding contributions by people in the video poker industry to the political campaigns of House Speaker Jim Black and a key ally, former Rep. Michael Decker of Forsyth County.

Elections director Gary Bartlett said today that the board will hear those allegations at a hearing that will start March 21. He said the investigation into those contributions is taking more time than staff had originally anticipated.

The hearings had been scheduled to start Thursday.

The board will still meet on Thursday, but it will only take up issues surrounding contributions made by the state optometrists' political action committee to the campaigns of two state lawmakers from Hertford County -- Rep. Howard Hunter and Sen. Robert Holloman. Testimony -- and evidence from a prior hearing showed that both lawmakers had received checks from optometrists who had left the payee and date lines blank.

Both Democratic lawmakers represent districts that include the home of the PAC's secretary-treasurer, optometrist M. Scott Edwards of Murfreesboro.

The prior hearing revealed a system of nearly blank checks of $100 or less from the optometrists' PAC to lawmakers. Black, a Democrat from Mecklenburg County, testified that he helped steer thousands of dollars in optometrist contributions to Decker's campaign after Decker had pledged to support Black for another term as House speaker in 2003. Black said that in three cases he filled in Decker's name in payee lines of checks that went to Decker's campaign.

The board has asked Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby to investigate Decker and Edwards for possible violations of election laws. It has yet to make a determination regarding Black and the optometrist's PAC.