Quote :

"Black files for re-election to his House district Feb 21, 2006 CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, filed Tuesday to run for an 11th term representing his Charlotte-area district. Black's re-election filing comes as the speaker has been surrounded by questions for months related to how the lottery law got passed, a federal grand jury seeking documents from his office and a State Board of Elections hearing into his campaign finances and donations by his fellow optometrists. Black, 70, already has a Republican challenger: political newcomer Hal Jordan, 46, a software sales representative for IBM, filed as a candidate for the 100th District seat last Friday. The speaker has more than $1 million in his campaign account, and his district is heavily Democratic. An elections board investigator said earlier this month it appears Black's campaign and other optometrists may have broken the law through a practice in which donors wrote incomplete checks, but a donation's recipient was filled in at a later date. The board hasn't completed its investigation. Black has said the check-writing practice is legal, but he proposed a list of reforms Monday that would include banning those kinds of donations. "

OK.. Jim needs some campaign slogans...who better to help him out than the SB gang.

"Black in '06 - He'll Stop People Like Him!"

"No Optometrist Left Behind!"

2/21/2006 10:48:56 PM

Black `06 - Proving the value of seniority every day

2/21/2006 10:53:16 PM

"Black '06 - No one cares about state government anyway"

2/21/2006 10:57:48 PM

Black 06, thank goodness for gerrymandering

2/21/2006 10:58:41 PM

Black 2006 - Hindsight is 20/20

2/21/2006 11:04:09 PM

^winner

2/21/2006 11:11:35 PM

Quote :

"political newcomer Hal Jordan"

Holy Shit... the Green Lantern is running for public office!!1

2/21/2006 11:32:02 PM

Quote :

"Black 2006 - Hindsight is 20/20"

Quality.

2/22/2006 1:01:03 AM

"Jim Black - Better or Worse?"

2/22/2006 1:23:53 AM

Quote :

"Black has said the check-writing practice is legal, but he proposed a list of reforms Monday that would include banning those kinds of donations."

Sure why not. He's 70 and has already done it enough to be set for the rest of his life. That and any reform put up to vote probably wouldn't pass anyway.

2/22/2006 8:52:07 AM

Quote :

"Eye exam requirement draws suit State school boards association, local boards sue to block mandate for kindergartners MARK JOHNSON charlotteobserver.com RALEIGH - The N.C. State School Boards Association and 11 school boards across North Carolina, including Hickory and Newton-Conover, filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block a mandatory comprehensive eye exam for kindergartners that begins in the fall. The school boards and the association contend that the new mandate violates the state constitutional guarantee to a free education. Children may not attend school without proof of the exam, which can cost $120 or more. "You have a child who does not have that eye exam, and we're told we cannot admit them," said Randy Isenhower, chairman of the Newton-Conover City School Board. "And I don't think that's right." The school boards plan to seek a preliminary injunction to halt the exam rule until the case is heard in court. Seven counties in North Carolina have no optometrists or ophthalmologists to perform the exams, according to the school boards. House Speaker Jim Black, an optometrist, included the eye exam requirement near the end of negotiations over the state budget last year. Black argues that the standard vision screening performed by pediatricians and other services does not catch all eye ailments. Misdiagnosed children then suffer in their schoolwork, he said. "It only makes sense that we would want to make sure that vision problems would not prohibit them from getting a good education," Black said in a previous statement that his office reiterated Tuesday. Black included $2 million in the budget to cover the cost for some lower-income families. Families with higher incomes will have to use their insurance or pay out of their pocket. Black has promised to perform some exams for free and encouraged his fellow optometrists to do the same. He also has pledged to loosen some of the law's requirements, including adding a six-month grace period during which children can attend school if they have not received the exam. "Tens of thousands of children will have medically unnecessary tests performed on them," Ann Denlinger, superintendent of Durham County schools, said at a news conference Tuesday. The eye exams must be performed by an ophthalmologist or an optometrist. The state optometric society and some of its members have given Black thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in recent years. A top investigator for the State Board of Elections alleged earlier this month that Black's campaign and the optometrists' society violated state campaign law with a system of using partially blank checks. Optometrists would write out a check, leaving the name and date blank and to be filled in by an officer from the optometrists' PAC or, in at least three instances, by Black. The state medical society, the state society of eye physicians and surgeons and the school boards argue that the tests are expensive and unnecessary. "Not every child needs a comprehensive eye exam, and not every child can afford one," said Cynthia Hampton, a Henderson ophthalmologist and past president of the state society of eye physicians and surgeons. Kindergarten is not the most opportune time in eye development to identify a problem, the doctors at Tuesday's news conference said. While a small number of children's eye problems slip by vision screenings, those can be caught by teachers or parents who notice a child having any of a variety of difficulties and refer the youngster to a comprehensive eye examination, the doctors said. Leaders in the state Senate have vowed to try and repeal the eye exam requirement when the General Assembly session begins in May."

I guess Black picked the wrong venue tohelp out his eye-glass pals. Perhaps he could've passed a law that said everyone applying for a driver's license required a complete eye exam.

With Black's desire to help his medical co-horts, we should breath a sigh of relief he isn't a proctologist.

2/22/2006 11:03:44 AM