There's a bad recession on, but there's a lot of billable hours being added up in the State Board of Elections hearing room.

Whatever comes of the Gov. Mike Easley hearings, the proceeding has given a boost to a bunch of lawyers.

Gov. Mike Easley has his lawyer, Thomas Hicks (pictured at the far right). Hicks worked as a prosecutor under Easley when Easley was a district attorney in Bladen, Brunswick and Columbus counties.

Jim Cooney (pictured next to Hicks) is representing the N.C. Democratic Party. Cooney represented exonerated Duke University lacrosse player Reade Seligmann and former death row inmate Alan Gell.

John Wallace and David Long are representing the Easley campaign.

Ruffin Poole, a lawyer himself, came with his attorney, Joseph Zeszotarski.

Car dealer Robert F. Bleecker testified with his lawyer, Dan Boyce, sitting behind him. There are at least a half dozen other lawyers or paralegals in the room.

Correction: Post now includes correct information about where Easley was a District Attorney.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper has decided not to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr next year, dissapointing Democrats who saw him as potentially their strongest candidate.

"While I am honored by the encouragement I've received, I don't want to go to Washington and serve as a U.S. Senator at this time," Cooper said in a statement. "I am committed to public service and I want to serve here in North Carolina rather than in Washington."

Cooper, a three-term attorney general, has been aggressively recruited by both the state and national Democratic parties to challenge Burr.

He met earlier in the week in the White House with President Barack Obama.

Cooper, 51, is a former legislator who has an image as a moderate, anti-crime Democrat. His popularity rose after he dismissed rape charges against three Duke lacrosse players in 2007 in a case that drew national attention.

He had seriously considered running for governor in 2008.

Although North Carolina has tended to vote Republican in U.S. Senate races in recent decades, last year's resounding defeat of GOP Sen. Elizabeth Dole by Democrat Kay Hagan, has given Democrats reason for optimism.

Cooper's decision was made before he was to begin a trial, in which he is defending himself from a slander suit brought by his Republican opponent in the 2000 attorney general race.

The trial involved charges by Dan Boyce that Cooper maligned him by incorrectly stating that Boyce reaped big legal fees from a lawsuit involving tax refunds.

Full statement after the jump.

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Why might Roy Cooper wait to announce a Senate run?

Both Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza and Democratic blogger Senate Guru have recently speculated that the attorney general will announce in the next few weeks.

We at Dome maintain our stance on the utility of such speculation, but we thought we'd lay bare some of the reasons you're hearing the rumor and why it's probably just that.

* The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wants a candidate. The national group had a good week slamming Sen. Richard Burr and would love to start on a high note. By leaking the rumor, it indirectly puts pressure on Cooper.

* Cooper likely wants to wait. After an eight-year legal battle, Cooper will face a trial in a defamation lawsuit over his campaign ad against Dan Boyce on May 18. If he announces now, the trial will be even more high profile.

In short, you're likely to continue hearing periodic rumors of an impending announcement from Cooper over the next few weeks.

But unless you hear that a Rocky Mount auditorium has been booked, it's just speculation.

The 2010 Senate race is heating up.

With Democrats coming off one of their best election cycles ever, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr already has two potential opponents: Attorney General Roy Cooper and U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler (and maybe outgoing state Treasurer Richard Moore).

To prepare, Burr has stepped up his press efforts in recent weeks.

And today, his office unveiled a revamped official Web site that features a blog, a podcast and video. 
The site has been redesigned and streamlined and is, to Dome's eyes, more attractive than the usual Senate Web page.

Meantime, MMI Marketing, a Raleigh public relations firm, has been sending Dome lengthy e-mails about Cooper's years-long fight against a lawsuit filed by his 2000 Republican opponent, Dan Boyce. 

"It will be interesting to see if N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper will argue something to the effect that he is above the law in his own lawsuit when it goes to trial on May 18, 2009," reads a typical sentence from an e-mail sent yesterday.

Burr's office has no connection to the Cooper lawsuit, but it is a sign that some Republicans are keenly interested in the state attorney general.

The judge in Raleigh lawyer Dan Boyce's eight-year-old defamation lawsuit against Attorney General Roy Cooper has set a trial date: May 18, 2009.

The two men opposed each other in the 2000 race for attorney general. Boyce, a Republican, lost, and Democrat Cooper won his first term as the state's top lawyer. Last week he won a third term. During the 2000 campaign, Cooper ran an ad criticizing Boyce and his law firm for seeking a large fee in a class action lawsuit against the state.

Boyce sued for defamation over the ad. He argues that he didn't work on the case highlighted in the ad. His father did. Boyce worked on a similar case. He also points out that his firm didn't exist at the time of the class action case in the ad and that his name was not on the filings. Cooper's lawyers contend that Boyce didn't distinguish between the cases in his campaign.

Boyce's case against Cooper could set a national precedent on whether a candidate can be sued for a campaign commercial.

Roy Cooper is still fighting a lawsuit from 2000.

The state's attorney general, currently running for a third term, is defending himself against a defamation lawsuit filed by his Republican opponent in 2000.

The lawsuit centers on a campaign commercial from that year and could set a national precedent over whether a candidate can successfully sue an opponent over a political ad.

The ad criticized Dan Boyce and his law firm for seeking a large fee in a class-action tax case against the state. Boyce argues that he didn't work on the case; his father did.

His father, Gene Boyce, said Cooper's lawyers are responsible for much of the slowdown.

"They know how to drag a case out," he said. (Char-O)