Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, who last month accused blacks of living off entitlements they get from supporting Democratic candidates, is at it again.
Now James is trying to neutralize the Black Political Caucus' influence in the November
school board race.
James is accusing the Caucus of illegal practices because of its handling of donations, including a $7,500 from the NAACP in 1998.
However, the caucus corrected the errors, which are not unusual and no attempt was made to hide the
contributions in question, said Yvonne
Southerland, deputy director for campaign reporting with the N.C. Board of Elections.
Caucus Chairman Eric Douglas said the caucus has
complied with the elections board's request to return the improper donations.
"We were donated an excessive amount of money and the rules state there was a limit," Douglas said. "When I found
out what the limit was, I immediately took action . You give it back. That's what I did."
Copies of checks provided by Douglas show that the caucus wrote checks on Sept. 15 for
$4,500 to the Committee for Our Transportation Future; $3,500 to Charlotte entrepreneur Lisa Crawford and $1,000 to Andrew Reyes, chairman of the Mecklenburg Democratic Party.
James said he demanded the donations be returned because he doesn't want the BPC, which he calls an "arm of the Democratic Party," to prevent the election of Larry Gauvreau, a white
plaintiff in this year's anti-busing lawsuit.
In e-mails to several news organizations, including The Post, James asked the state board of
elections to investigate the caucus, which he blames for the defeat of conservative candidate Linda McCall in the Mecklenburg County commissioners' races in 1996 and 1998..
James began the barrage on Sept. 9 with a letter to local and state elections offices.
Southerland said the elections office was in the process of a routine audit of 1998 campaign
finance reports when James requested copies of the Black Political Caucus contributions.
The report has been available to the public since the end of January, Southerland said.
It is one of about 15,000 political contribution reports that elections officials must review each year. The reports come from political parties, candidates and political action committees. The
Black Political Caucus is a PAC.
"We wish people would ask before they get into trouble, because of negative advertising (in
recent election campaigns)," Southerland said. "It is very frustrating. People file complaints and go to the media before the complaint gets here. They are using the media and us as well in the process."
To stifle such political shenanigans, Southerland said elections officials "often...wait until another reporting period, when these kinds of complaints come up."
"People active in the election process get into a rush and don't pay attention," she said. "Money gets deposited by more than one individual. The treasurer is trying to prepare a
report without complete information. We spend half of our time helping those who are required to file to file according to requirements. The other half of the time (is spent) seeing
that the public gets the information in the report so they can make informed decisions."
"Disclosure is the purpose," she said. "When you see it openly on a disclosure report, you
have to think it is ignorance or not being informed."
James' complaint challenged the legality of $7,500 received by the caucus from the NAACP
after the civil rights group's 1996 convention in Charlotte. That contribution was questioned by the elections board in 1998 and the caucus returned the money. To do so, it took a $7,500 contribution from Crawford.
Part of the confusion over the $7,500 was the money came from the Blue Ribbon Committee which coordinated the NAACP convention in Charlotte. The national NAACP did not
consider it a national office contribution, but state elections officials disagreed because the money was apparently received from corporations, which are not allowed to give money to PACs.
Another part of James' complaint was that the caucus could not take more than $4,000 from an individual, so the caucus had to return $3,500 to Crawford from the $7,500 she gave to cover the NAACP funds.
James also complained about $4,500 it received from the Committee for Our Transportation Future, which supported the transportation sales tax referendum last year. The rules say a
PAC cannot accept contributions from a temporary PAC, Douglas said.
The Black Political Caucus also returned $1,000 to Democratic Party Chair Andrew Reyes,
who gave the caucus $5,000 of a $25,000 pledge. The $5,000 was $1,000 more than the individual contribution limit per election cycle. Douglas said the money was returned when
state elections officials notified them of the violations.
Returning the money is not going to deter the caucus from doing all it can to help re-elect
school board members Arthur Griffin and Wilhelmenia Rembert in November, Douglas said. Both are African American and supported the school system during the desegregation trial.
"The Black Caucus will still play a significant role in getting the black vote out on behalf of Arthur and Wilhelmenia in the November elections," Douglas said. "We will play our usual
role in getting the black vote out."
"Bill James' mission is to destroy any and everything that is black," Douglas said. "Audits are
standard procedure. When you get audited, they give you a letter back letting you know what's wrong and they tell you what you need to do to correct the problem. Bill James took it
upon himself to play the role of auditor and I hear he needs a job anyway. This is Bill James' way of attacking any and everything that's getting out the black vote, because it is the black
vote that has kept his cohorts out of office."
James admits as much.
He credits the caucus with the defeat of Linda McCall in the 1996 election, claiming that
shifted the "balance of power from Republican to Democrat." McCall lost to Becky Carney by 2,960 votes according to James. Jim Richardson beat McCall again in 1998.
"Douglas says the donations were honest mistakes and that James, a conservative Republican, is trying to drain the BPC';s resources in advance of the upcoming school board elections,"
James said in an e-mail post to The Post. "Yes, I am trying to drain the Black Political Caucus of its illegal resources so this money is not used against Republicans in the 1999 as it was in 1996 and 1998."
