CORRECTION

An article Sunday on the City & State section front about efforts to change how campaigns are funded in North Carolina incorrectly characterized the goals of Democracy North Carolina, a campaign watchdog organization. The group wants to encourage a system in which candidates collect small checks from individual voters. Those checks then would qualify the candidate for ample public funds to run for office. The aim is to create an alternative to campaigns financed by special interests.

******

Bob Hall trained a bulky video camera on the witness stand and watched optometrists from across the state come forward, compelled to talk under oath about money they funneled to House Speaker Jim Black and his allies.

The nervous eye doctors, as well as Black, were brought there in large part because of Hall, a one-time civil rights activist turned crusader for changes in how money dominates politics.

It was a formal complaint by Hall, as research director of a Carrboro campaign watchdog group called Democracy North Carolina, that led to the hearings last week by the State Board of Elections.

By the end of three days of testimony, an elections board investigator had outlined multiple violations of state elections laws involving Black, one of the most powerful political figures in the state, and his fellow optometrists.

And there was the beginning of talk within the state's political ranks about one of Hall's favorite subjects: The need for reforms.

Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat who is in his fourth term as speaker, said as much even as he defended his own actions, which a state election official later said were not lawful.

"I expect when the General Assembly finishes with this, we'll be doing it differently," Black said during nearly two hours of testimony.

Within four hours of the first witness taking the stand, a broad coalition of groups calling itself the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying Reform had issued a news release.

"The longstanding, unpublicized practice of how lobbyists solicit big bucks for legislative campaigns has been brought to light," it said, pushing for a ban on campaign contributions by lobbyists.

By the next day, Black indicated it could be a big year for reform in Raleigh, with lobbying, ethics and campaign finances at the top of the agenda when the legislature convenes in May.

The changes are sparked by controversies about the state lottery's startup, the creation of state jobs, the entertaining of lawmakers and last week's testimony on campaign finances.

Politics and money

On Thursday, Black talked under oath about how vast amounts of money are needed in elections. Cash for a campaign, Black told elections officials, scares off competitors, rewards close friends and finances victory.

Black said everything he does takes into account a coming election -- either for his House seat or to retain the speakership.

Hall, 61, said he felt sad watching Black defend his actions.

"I admire him as a political leader," Hall said. "And I had the feeling there, well, I just felt like it is a system that is corrupting good people. ... When you are put into that environment, I think it's chewing up good people."

Black's office hasn't always spoken so warmly about Hall.

After Hall issued a news release in December detailing thousands of dollars that Black received from video poker interests and referred to Black as the industry's "grand protector," Black's press secretary, Julie Robinson, responded bluntly.

"It must be fund-raising time again for Bob Hall and his organization since he's issued yet another inaccurate press release that attacks the video poker industry," she said in an e-mail message.

She went on to dismiss Hall's report as "nothing more than a baseless rant about a legal industry."

Elections officials take his work more seriously.

"Bob Hall is in our offices sometimes as much as our staff," said Kim Strach, the election board's deputy director for campaign finance. "We are grateful for the work he does."

Strach led the investigation of Hall's complaint and, with other top elections officials, at times conferred with Hall in the midst of the hearings, whispering about testimony or looking into laws.

The latest controversy over optometrists popped up late last year, as Strach followed the money trail on video poker.

Elections officials uncovered a practice, detailed in testimony last week, in which optometrists broke up substantial pledges to their political action committee into small, incomplete checks that were later controlled by others.

Strach called the actions illegal, and the board voted to ask prosecutors to examine the cases of two men involved -- former state Rep. Michael Decker and the leader of the optometrists' political committee.

Testimony is expected later this month or early in March on video poker allegations, and officials said the case surrounding Black's actions remains open.

Hall says he wants the abuses he uncovers to change the system so there will be no need for more hearings.

Democracy North Carolina is an eight-person operation whose major financial backers include the Z. Smith Reynolds and Carnegie Corporation foundations.

Changing the system

Ultimately, the group wants campaigns to be publicly financed in the state. Its goal is to force candidates to collect small checks from individual voters, checks that then would qualify the candidate for ample public funds to run for office.

Hall and his associates describe such a system as "voter-owned" elections. The aim is to obliterate campaigns financed by special interests.

But Hall, who is often seen in a flannel shirt with glasses dangling from his neck, understands that smaller steps are more likely.

Out of the latest abuses, he would like to see changes that make the worst offenses felonies instead of the misdemeanors they are now.

He will also push for full public disclosure of campaign donations, not just donations of more than $100. During his testimony, Black indicated that might be necessary or prudent.

Hall is not an unlikely figure in the midst of reform efforts.

One of four siblings raised in Florida by his mother, a church secretary, he went to college at a small Presbyterian school in Memphis, Tenn. He majored in math and religion.

He was active in integration efforts in the early 1960s, then ended up with the Institute for Southern Studies in Atlanta. He started its magazine of culture and politics, the Journal of Southern Exposure, and eventually branched off into examining politics and money while living in the Triangle.

He has played a role in stirring up other political scandals of recent years -- helping to outline the role of special-interest money in road-building, hog farming and U.S. Senate races.

He said he uses fifth-grade math and persistence to add up the numbers.

"It's research for a good cause and, of course, there's certainly a moral thrust to what we do," he said. "We all want to leave something behind."