There's was a noticeable verbal play at work when State Board of Elections member Bill Peaslee began his questioning of former N.C. Democratic Party Executive Director Scott Falmlen.

Peaslee, at right, is a former high ranking official within the N.C. Republican Party. And Peaslee repeatedly referred to Falmlen's party as the "Democrat Party," as in:

"Did the Democrat Party at any point arrange for travel for Gov. [Mike] Easley?" Peaslee asked.

"Not that I'm aware of. No sir," Falmlen answered.

Dropping the "ic" from "Democrat," of course is often meant as a little tweak. It serves as a reminder that the Board of Elections is a partisan body with three Democrats and two Republicans.

And to be fair, Bob Cordle, a Democrat pictured at right, has earned some attention this week for the tone of his questions. Columnist and Dome's distinguished colleague Rob Christensen noted that Cordle's questions have coddled witnesses all week.

Board Chairman Larry Leake, whom some Republicans had criticized for holding a fundraiser in 2000 for Easley, continued his persistent and professional questioning. The same could not be said for Bob Cordle, whose unfettered flattery of all Democratic witnesses, including Easley, is cringe-inducing.

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Fate, and the federal prison system, have reunited former Speaker Jim Black and Kevin Geddings, who are now both residents of the Federal Correctional Institution in Jessup, Ga.

Geddings went to Jessup to serve a four-year prison term for fraud charges stemming from his appointment to the nascent lottery commission in 2005. He did not disclose on his state ethics form that lottery companies had paid him thousands in consulting fees in the years leading up to his appointment. Black appointed him.

Black meanwhile, was recently moved to Jessup from a prison in Lewisburg, Pa. Black was sentenced for accepting thousands of dollars in illegal payments while speaker of the state House.

Black is scheduled for release in 2012. Geddings is scheduled for release next year.

Presumably, as a guy who has been at Jessup longer, Geddings is in a position of some relative stature. Perhaps he can find a position to appoint Black to.

Hat tip: J. Andrew Curliss

Does Tom Fetzer want to put the N&O out of business?

Democratic consultant Gary Pearce wrote on his Talking About Politics blog that the candidate for state Republican chairman "has a gimmick in his campaign: help put The News & Observer out of business."

The gimmick comes from an e-mail from Fetzer to supporters.

In it, he says he would call on individual donors to pledge $365 a year to the local party for "A Dollar a Day Keeps the Democrats Away Club."

I know that sounds like a lot, but not if you break it down this way: 1) just drink one less cup of coffee or one less Coke a day, or, 2) better yet, read the newspaper online and give the money to the party rather than giving it to the newspaper so they can spend your money to beat Republicans.

In an item on the gimmick, Dome's friends over at TriPol wondered about four state Democrats who did jail time.

"You have to wonder: Do Jim Black, Meg Scott Phipps, Frank Ballance and Kevin Geddings — all Democrats imprisoned after newspaper investigations — get Fetzer's joke?"

To be clear, Fetzer did not single out the N&O in his e-mail.

The N.C. Assocation of Educators hired a former aide to Gov. Mike Easley as its executive director.

Scott Anderson, who went to work for the National Education Association after he left Easley's office, was caught up in the lottery scandal and former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings 2006 fraud trial, Lynn Bonner reports.

Sheri Strickland, NCAE president, said she thoroughly checked into Anderson's involvement with Geddings and the lottery and shared everything she found with the NCAE search committee.

"The legal and ethical implications were vetted through NEA at the time," Strickland said, and she found nothing about Anderson's involvement that would disqualify him from holding the NCAE job.

NCAE had 166 applications for the job, Strickland said, and Anderson stood out for his knowledge of the state and his work for Easley.  NCAE signed Anderson to a two-year contract. He started work March 1.

More after the jump.

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Republican lawmakers want the state to be honest about the lottery's results, and they're not talking about the odds.

GOP lawmakers often introduce bills with little chance of passage but to make a point of protest. This bill, however, might stand better-than-average odds of surviving. The legislation proposes changing the N.C. Education Lottery to the N.C. State Lottery.

The bill quickly follows Gov. Beverly Perdue's proposal to use lottery money to balance the budget, a bait-and-switch that lottery opponents predicted when the numbers game passed amid guarantees that the gambling revenue would pay for education.

Convicted felon but then-Lottery Commissioner Kevin Geddings proposed the "education" middle name before he was forced off the commission and convicted of lying on his state disclosure form about previous work for a lottery company.

But why stop there? The lottery doesn't have to have such a pedestrian name. 

Dome invites readers to offer their own ideas for the N.C. (Fill-in-the-Blank) Lottery.

Roy Cooper says he investigates corruption too.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general e-mailed Dome today to note that the State Bureau of Investigation, which he oversees, also played a role in the corruption cases mentioned in a recent N&O article.

In a sidebar to the story, we had written that the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's office brought down a number of prominent Democrats in recent years, including Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, former Speaker Jim Black, U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance and lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings.

Spokeswoman Noelle Talley said that the SBI was involved in those cases and more than 450 public corruption cases over the past eight years.

"Keep in mind that under state law, our office can take over criminal prosecution of cases when requested to by local District Attorneys," she wrote. "We are often asked by DAs to prosecute cases against public officials including sheriffs, judges, state legislators and others."

She added that Cooper has pushed for the legislature to give his office the power to convene investigative grand juries in public corruption cases.

As we noted, federal prosecutors have more powerful grand juries than state and local prosecutors.

If the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District were a hunter, he'd have some nice trophies.

Over the past eight years, federal prosecutors based in Raleigh have taken down some big Democratic game as part of their anti-corruption efforts.

A short list:

Meg Scott Phipps. The former Agriculture commissioner spent three years in prison for fraud and extortion over inappropriate use of campaign funds.

Jim Black. The former longtime speaker of the N.C. House is serving time for taking $29,000 in bribes from chiropractors who wanted him to push legislation.

Michael Decker. The former state representative is serving time for taking more than $63,000 in cash and campaign checks from Black to switch parties.

Frank Ballance. The former Congressman is serving time for diverting $100,000 in public money he helped direct to a nonprofit to his law firm, church and family.

Garey Ballance. The son of Rep. Ballance, a Democratic district court judge, served time for failing to report money he received from his father to buy a Lincoln Navigator.

Kevin Geddings. The former state lottery commissioner is serving time for failing to disclose that he worked for a lottery vendor when he took his seat.

The U.S. attorney's office may have also helped investigate former Rep. Thomas Wright, who was found guilty in state courts of improperly spending campaign donations, though it has never confirmed or denied the assistance.

Not all of their targets were Democrats, either. Federal prosecutors also put former state GOP chairman and former U.S. attorney Sam Currin in prison for laundering money for a client.

Former N.C. lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings will appeal his case further, his lawyer said Tuesday, a day after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court upheld Geddings' public corruption conviction.

Geddings will appeal his case to the full nine judges on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the fourth district, based in Richmond, Va., according to Jonathan Edelstein, his lawyer, reports Mark Johnson.

"There are several issues of importance in this appeal that have been the subject of a judicial conversation all over the country," said Edelstein, of New York, "in terms of limiting the scope of honest services fraud."

Geddings was convicted in 2006 of a federal charge of depriving the public of his honest services. He concealed that he had done thousands of dollars worth of work for a lottery vendor when he accepted a seat on the state lottery commission in 2005. He did not disclose the work for Scientific Games on his state ethics form.

He is serving a four-year sentence at a federal prison camp in Jessup, Ga. On Monday, a three-judge panel from the fourth circuit rejected arguments that Edelstein made before them in February that the honest services law was being interpreted too broadly. He emphasized that Geddings did not try to profit from his lottery commission post and that he did no work for the
company after joining the commission.

The next step for Geddings is to ask all nine of the fourth circuit's judges to hear the case, which Edelstein said he would do. Another lawyer in the case, Gene Matthews of Columbia, S.C., spoke with Geddings, who asked for the further appeal, Edelstein said.

"If necessary," he said, "we may end up going (to the Supreme Court of the United States)."

Jeff Taylor wonders which blogs staffers for Gov. Mike Easley feared.

The Charlotte blogger notes that the recently released notes from a May 29, 2007, meeting of public information officers and the governor's press office specifically mentioned blogs.

"emails -- more & more public records requests (blogs?) be careful w/emails; delete emails to & from gov office every day," read the notes from Diana Kees, public information officer at the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

There is now no doubt that officials in the governor's office moved to destroy emails rather than leave a trail of "sensitive" information available to — whom?

Bloggers.

He notes that the sentencing of Jim Black and Kevin Geddings and the investigation into then Rep. Thomas Wright began around then.

At least one reader pointed out that Dome began on April 16, but we're doubtful that it was us. Readers, any ideas what Easley's press office was worried about?