N.C. elections board chairman Larry Leake offered extensive closing comments this afternoon, just before he and his colleagues voted unanimously to refer information about the campaign finances of N.C. House Speaker Jim Black to the Wake County district attorney.
We’ll excerpt some of those comments in a series of posts:
This is probably the most difficult issue that I have had to deal with in my tenure on this board. I have sat here and dealt with a friend and a peer who — if you will — grew up with me in the Young Democrats of North Carolina who this board probably set in motion her now being in the federal penitentiary. That was not an easy issue, but to me this is an even more troubling and difficult issue.
I recognize there are arguments … that can be made as to the law. I differ pretty sharply with Mr. Wallace (Black’s lawyer) on the facts. With due respect to him, I don’t really find his argument credible as to the facts. I believe that Speaker Black and the Black committee would have to know that this effort was going on by the Black committee and by the Optometry PAC — really in conjunction with each other — to raise monies to assist allies of the speaker.
As to the issue of whether that violates North Carolina law, I believe that the giving of blank checks with the ability of that individual who is the recipient — trying to use a neutral word, the recipient — of the check — just the paper for the moment I’m talking about, not the money — with no restrictions or limitations on how that money is to be expended constitutes a contribution to that individual and his campaign committee.
I believe that the campaign committee and the speaker clearly knew they were getting the checks. They clearly knew they were going to have the ability to expend those monies as they — or he — saw fit. I believe that when the passing on of those blank checks without disclosing the receipt of those checks [happens], that that is a violation of our law becsuse it does not provide the disclosure that our law is designed to do.
