RALEIGH -- When former Democratic Gov. Mike Easley was being grilled about his unreported use of private airplanes last year, his campaign attorney posed this question: Why not look into the records of Easley's former Republican opponents?
This month, the State Board of Elections decided to do just that. The board sent a letter Feb. 4 to gubernatorial candidates in the 2008 and 2004 elections - Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians - asking them to provide detailed information about their use of private campaign planes.
The former candidates were asked "whether all private air travel was properly accounted for and in compliance with contribution regulations, if not reimbursed," according to the letter.
Campaign flights have become a big issue in North Carolina politics.
The elections board in October imposed $100,000 in fines on the Easley campaign organization for illegally taking free campaign flights and for failing to disclose them.
Also recently, the campaign of Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue has voluntarily reported 31 previously undisclosed flights from her campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor.
During the elections board hearings, an investigator hired by the Easley committee testified that he could find no record of two 2008 gubernatorial candidates having disclosed their use of private planes.
One of the candidates, Bill Graham, a Salisbury lawyer, used a plane that he partly owned.
Graham said his use of the aircraft was approved by the state elections staff.
"We have been on the phone with the Board of Elections as recently as a few days ago, and they said we were fine and we crossed every t and dottedevery i," he said.
The other GOP candidate, Fred Smith, a Johnston County contractor, bought a campaign plane. Smith said his campaign has filed an affidavit spelling out in detail how it handled the plane.
"We made sure everything we did was legal and proper," Smith said in a telephone interview from San Diego, where he was on a business trip.
He said he bought the plane because he had businesses to run while he was campaigning, and it allowed him to better manage his time.
The Democrats also raised questions about whether Patrick Ballantine, the GOP nominee for governor in 2004, had properly reported his use of a private plane during an eight-city campaign swing on July27, 2004. Attempts to reach Ballantine were unsuccessful Tuesday.
John Wallace, an attorney for the Easley committee, said it was "entirely appropriate that the board make this inquiry" into the GOP candidates.
The probe should look at not only unreported flights but also the source of payments for fuel and pilot salaries, he said.
