NOVEMBER: Statewide elections give Republicans a 61-59 edge over Democrats in the state House.

2003

JANUARY: Rep. Michael Decker, a Forsyth County Republican, switches his registration to Democrat. That creates a 60-60 split and allows Rep. Jim Black, a Mecklenburg Democrat, to remain speaker for a third term, in a power-sharing arrangement with Republican Richard Morgan of Moore County.

FEBRUARY: Black gives Decker authority to hire an administrative assistant, and Decker hires his son, Michael Decker Jr. The job paid $46,000 a year.

SEPTEMBER: After the legislature adjourns, Decker switches back to the Republican Party.

2004

JULY: Decker loses by a 3-to-1 margin in the GOP primary.

2005

JANUARY: With Democrats back in control of the House, 63-57, Black wins a fourth term as speaker.

MARCH: The News & Observer reports that Black worked with the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources to create and fund a position for Decker. The money came from $15 million in reserve funds that Black and other legislators used to pay for projects in the districts of favored lawmakers.

OCTOBER: Black releases federal subpoenas requiring his office to provide documents related to the video poker industry, the activities of his unpaid political director, Meredith Norris, the creation of a state lottery and Decker.

2006

JANUARY: The State Board of Elections announces a formal inquiry into campaign committees that aided Black and Decker.

FEBRUARY: After hearings by the elections board, a top elections official says that Black and his committee violated state election laws. Testimony and evidence reveal that his fellow optometrists sent signed $100 checks, with the payee line left blank, to their PAC. The head of the PAC then distributed the checks to candidates or deposited them in the PAC's account. Black says he filled in the blank payee line on three checks from optometrists and passed them to Decker's campaign. The board asks the Wake County district attorney to investigate Decker and M. Scott Edwards, secretary treasurer of the optometrists' PAC, after both men declined to testify.

MARCH: The State Board of Elections recommends that the Wake district attorney investigate Black and his campaign committee for possible violations of state election laws connected to fundraising on Black's behalf by optometrists, and it orders Black to forfeit roughly $24,000 in illegal contributions. Attorneys for Black appeal.

JULY: Black's former right-hand man in the House, Bill Culpepper, and Norris visit the Federal Building in Raleigh, where a grand jury is hearing evidence involving Black's legislative and campaign activities.

A BRIEF LOOK AT N.C. SCANDALS

By Southern political standards, North Carolina's scandals rarely measure up. By Tar Heel standards, Tuesday's guilty plea by former state Rep. Michael Decker, who switched political parties for a $50,000 payoff, is among the biggest.

Alabama has a former governor who was convicted of taking a $500,000 bribe from former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. Louisiana has a former governor serving 10 years in federal prison for racketeering, extortion and fraud.

"In the national picture, this is a relatively modest scandal," said Ferrel Guillory, who founded UNC's Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life. "It's big in North Carolina because it's our scandal of the moment. It's also big because we've had so few of them."

Here are a handful of scandals involving North Carolina politicians:

* In 2005, former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance was sentenced to four years in a federal prison for funneling about $100,000 in public money from a nonprofit he founded to his law firm, church and relatives.

* In 2004, Meg Scott Phipps, the former agriculture commissioner from a storied North Carolina political family, was sentenced to four years in a federal prison for taking tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions. Phipps' father and grandfather were former North Carolina governors.

* In 2003, Garland B. Garrett Jr., a former state Transportation secretary, was sentenced to five months in prison for operating an illegal gambling business.

* In 1997, former Lt. Gov. Jimmy Green was sentenced to 33 months of house arrest for income tax fraud in connection with a multimillion-dollar tobacco fraud scheme.

* In 1982, former state Rep. G. Ron Taylor was sentenced to five years in prison for accepting a $1,500 bribe from an undercover agent.

(News researcher Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report)