State Treasurer Richard Moore, who has overseen the sale of $5.5 billion in bonds since he took office in 2001, has steered much of the lucrative legal bond work to the law firms of lawyers who have helped finance his political career.

Moore has raised at least $215,525 from some of North Carolina's elite law firms, including donations from some of the biggest names in state politics, according to a review of campaign finance reports filed with the State Board of Elections.

Moore, a Democrat and two-term treasurer, said he sees no problem in accepting contributions from lawyers whose firms have gotten state business. He said his main interest has been in shifting the legal bond work from Wall Street to firms in North Carolina.

"There are no conflicts," Moore said in a recent interview. "The state of North Carolina has got good value and services from these folks. If they have chosen to be politically active, that is their decision. I think you'll find those firms are politically active with every single statewide officeholder, or many of them."

Moore's political fundraising has come under greater scrutiny as he prepares to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2008. Early last month , Moore held a news conference to respond to reports that he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from money managers whom he chose to invest in the state's $74 billion pension fund.

Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Carrboro, said the way bond business is handled appears to be a conflict of interest.

"It's a ridiculous system -- a treasurer raising money from people he's doing business with," he said. "It is, at best, an awkward situation for everyone concerned."

Fattening the kitty

North Carolina state treasurers have long been tempted to use their financial connections to fatten their political kitties. Longtime state Treasurer Harlan Boyles raised political contributions from Wall Street executives who managed the state's bond business. He also escorted North Carolina's Democratic nominees for governor around Wall Street -- including Hunt in 1992, Bob Jordan in 1988 and Rufus Edmisten in 1984 -- to help them raise political contributions. One of the big issues in the 1948 gubernatorial race was Treasurer Charlie Johnson's parking the state's money with Wachovia, whose executives were supporting him, rather than spreading it to other banks.

North Carolina is not an isolated example. Wall Street's involvement in the pay-to-play culture resulted in the industry's passage of a rule in 1994. The rule bars local government bond dealers -- securities dealers, usually connected with banks and brokerage houses, that market bonds -- from accepting a public contract within two years of having made a political donation to that public official.

Since 2001, Moore's office has handled the sale of about $5.5 billion in bonds to construct buildings on college campuses, prisons, water and sewer lines and other improvements. Moore decides which bond lawyers are hired to make sure the bonds are legal, valid and binding and to verify their tax status. Moore has paid out $2 million in fees for bond counsels since taking office, according to records in the treasurer's office.

Under Boyles, Moore's predecessor, most of the bond business went to one New York bond attorney, George Boyle. He later moved to Raleigh and went to work for the Raleigh law firm Poyner & Spruill.

When Moore was running for treasurer in 2000, he promised North Carolina bond lawyers that he would spread the legal business around.

"When I took the job in 2001, one of the things I heard on the campaign trail, as you can imagine from high quality law firms across North Carolina: 'We don't understand why Poyner & Spruill has a monopoly on this business,' " Moore said.

"I chose to go in a different direction after looking at what others states did," Moore said. "It made tremendous sense to me -- and in fact we have benefited from it. When you pass the work product around from law firm to law firm, you get a better product."

Bond counsel choices

The largest beneficiary of the change has been the Charlotte-based law firm Helms, Mulliss & Wicker. One of the partners in the firm is former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker, who joined the firm's Raleigh office after losing the Democratic nomination for governor in 2000.

The firm has received $1 million in legal fees for serving as bond counsel since Moore took office, according to records in the treasurer's office. Lawyers for Helms Mulliss & Wicker -- and their spouses -- have contributed at least $78,625 to Moore's political committee, according to campaign finance records.

Wicker said his firm received no advantage from its lawyers' donations to Moore's campaigns.

"I don't see how anybody gains an advantage where you rotate the work around," Wicker said.

Another beneficiary has been Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, the Winston-Salem based law firm that is North Carolina's largest. Womble is also politically connected with such attorneys as Jim Hunt, a four-term governor, and Burley Mitchell, a former state Supreme Court chief justice. Both practice at Womble Carlyle, and both have contributed generously to Moore.

Womble lawyers received at least $182,847 in fees for legal counsel on the sale of bonds. Seventy-nine lawyers for the firm contributed at least $76,938 to Moore's political campaigns.

Mitchell said that business from the treasurer's office was not contingent on political contributions.

"He has never to my knowledge, nor has anyone speaking for him, indicated to us in any way that the business we get was dependent on the contributions or our raising money for him," Mitchell said.

Mitchell, who does not handle bond work, said many Womble lawyers are politically active and contribute to numerous campaigns of both Democrats and Republicans. Mitchell said he hosted a fundraiser for Moore because, like Moore, he is from the Oxford area and has known the Moore family all of his life.

Moore's office noted that the firms that have received work from his office have done extensive legal work for bonds issued by North Carolina cities, counties, airports, public hospitals and other public bodies.

Underwriter's lawyers

Bond underwriters -- the private financial institutions that sell the bonds -- also hire lawyers who often have close political connections to Moore. Moore does not control their hiring. The lawyers are hired by the underwriting firms, but the firms may see some advantages by giving their legal work to politically connected lawyers.

For example, John T. Bode, a partner in the law firm of Bode Call & Stroupe, is a longtime fundraiser and relative of Moore. He has worked as a bond underwriter counsel for the N.C. Housing Finance Agency and earned at least $140,000 in legal fees.

Robert Kucab, director of the agency, has said he was directed to drop the longtime New York law firm that had handled the agency's work and give it instead to Bode's firm. That order, he said, came from Joe Stewart, who was Moore's deputy chief of staff and chief political operative at the time.

The political nature of the legal bond business was evident in March, when the state Department of Transportation approved the sale of $919 million in bonds to speed up construction of 40 federally financed road projects.

Named co-counsel for the bond sales were two firms whose partners include Wicker, the former lieutenant governor, and former House Speaker Dan Blue. The bond underwriters -- chosen by the financial underwriters -- included firms in which the partners included Bode, the Moore ally, and state Senate Majority leader Tony Rand.

Moore said he runs the most "transparent" office in state government, allowing the public to easily see who is contributing to his campaign and who gets the state's business. He said that the performance of his office can easily be measured.

Moore said that the political donations don't influence who gets the state's legal business.

"I'll take the old Ronald Reagan line," Moore said. "When people are giving to my campaign, they are signing on as an endorsement of me. It's not the other way around. I'm not endorsing them."

(Researcher David Raynor contributed to this report.)