* A proposed ban on sending text messages while driving, already watered down from the original proposal, is struggling in the legislature.

* The Arc of North Carolina says Gov. Beverly Perdue's budget "could have been worse" for the mental health and developmental disability community.

* Democratic Rep. Larry Womble of Winston-Salem wants companies that do business with the state to disclose their historical ties to slavery.

* Republican National Committee member Ada Fisher thinks chairman Michael Steele should step down, but she's not happy her e-mail was leaked.

* Former state Sen. Fred Smith, who once pondered a run for the job himself, has endorsed Woody White for chair of the N.C. Republican Party.

* Republican National Committee member Ada Fisher of North Carolina calls for Michael Steele to step down, criticizes his language.

* Former Cumberland County Schools Superintendent Bill Harrison sworn in to new seat, elected chairman of the State Board of Education. 

* Greensboro News-Record columnist Doug Clark says Gov. Beverly Perdue has a "special obligation" to see that lottery money doesn't go into the general fund. 

Dr. Ada Fisher is again taking a stand in the race for a new Republican national chairman.

As one of three black members of the Republican National Committee, the Salisbury doctor is in a rare position for the GOP as it figures out how to respond to the election of Barack Obama.

Earlier this month, Fisher announced her support for South Carolina chairman Katon Dawson in his bid for the head of the national party, despite a controversy over his membership in a country club that doesn't admit blacks.

Now she has criticized another candidate for the top post, Chip Saltsman, for distributing a CD as a Christmas gift that included a song by Rush Limbaugh called "Barack the Magic Negro."

"Racist actions and deeds have no place in the party," she wrote in an open letter to Saltsman. "The lack of sensitivity in understanding the historical election we just had and the challenges this nation faces as we must bind our wounds as well as bring our people together requires that we set aside our biases and search out those constitutional principles inherent in our nation's foundings and our parties operation which must undergrid us as we move forward."

The statement after the jump.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Just 36 African-American delegates are at the Republican National Convention this week. Four are from North Carolina.

So it was no surprise that the delegation tackled race at this morning's breakfast, especially in a year with an African American on the presidential ballot — albeit for the other side, Barb Barrett reports.

State GOP chairwoman Linda Daves told delegates the party should do more to reach out to African Americans, but she praised the black attendees in the delegation. Among them are Tim Johnson, chairman of the Buncombe County GOP party, and Ada Fisher, who has just been elected to the Republican national committee for the state.

Also attending as a guest is William Owens, Jr., of Fuquay-Varina, who stumped at this morning’s breakfast for his new, $17 book, "Obama: Why Black America Should Have Doubts."

"I want to say to my white Republican brothers and sisters, if you ever want to understand why African Americans are supporting Obama, you should read this book," he told the group. Owens said that once America deals with racism, then blacks can get past a "victim mentality."

Former Sen. Bob Dole also was at the breakfast, and he reminded reporters that he was the Senate majority leader when the Martin Luther King bill passed declaring a national holiday.

"That wasn't Ted Kennedy; it was Bob Dole," Dole said. But he, too, said the Republican party needs to do more to recruit people of color.

"We can't be one color, one ethnicity," Dole said. "This party, we've got to be a party of diversity."

A former Republican Congressional candidate says a fundraising firm cheated her.

Dr. Ada Fisher, a Salisbury doctor who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Rep. Mel Watt in 2006, told the liberal Web site Talking Points Memo that Washington-based BMW Direct sent her checks too late and kept much of the money.

"They sort of — what shall I say? — screwed me," she told the Web site.

According to the piece, BMW Direct raised more than $400,000 for Fisher during the election cycle, but only about $30,000 made it back to her for use in her campaign. But she said she did not know then that many of the key vendors were run by BMW employees.

"They make it seem like each of these people is a private entity. But as you listen more and more and you get smarter, you realize they all work together," she told the site.

A spokesman for BMW told the Web site that Fisher's case was unique because she started late, but he argued that the direct-mail effort still helped build name recognition. In June, Fisher was chosen for a North Carolina seat on the Republican National Committee.

In recent days, Talking Points Memo has been investigating the firm's fundraising for longshot candidates. 

Republican delegates elected retired Salisbury doctor Ada Fisher to the Republican National Committee on Saturday.

Fisher, 60, could be the first black Republican elected to the committee from North Carolina, Jim Morrill reports.

She ran unsuccessfully in 2004 and 2006 for the 12th Congressional District and for the U.S. Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2002.

Her election follows the election last weekend of South Carolina Republican Glenn McCall. Fisher and McCall will be two of three Republicans on the Republican National Committee when it reconvenes.

Fisher upset establishment candidate Mary Frances Forrester, the wife of Sen. Jim Forrester.

"We're going to have a look that reflects the party and the people," Fisher said.