Sam Ervin did it. Bob Orr is trying. But it was easier for Ervin.

Older North Carolinians remember Ervin as the wise, folksy chairman of the Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal in 1973 and 1974. Some may not know he was an associate justice of the N.C. Supreme Court immediately before entering the Senate in June 1954.

Since then, no other member of the state's highest court has gone on to hold a top political office. That makes Orr's run for governor unusual, but also intriguing. Maybe North Carolina needs a leader whose professional life has been devoted to upholding the law. ...

Orr is wise and folksy in his own right, but the similarities to Ervin are far from exact. He's a Republican; the late senator was a Democrat. Ervin was appointed to the Senate, filling a vacancy created by the death of Clyde Hoey. He had to win election to a full term five months later, but having the Democratic nomination in those days meant victory was certain. If Orr wins the Republican primary, he'll be an underdog against a strong Democrat, probably Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue.

And Ervin did have experience in political office, if only a little: He was appointed to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946 to serve the final year of brother Joseph Ervin's term after his death.

But, prior to 1954, Ervin was known primarily as a judge in his native Burke County and then for six years on the Supreme Court.

Orr served eight years on the N.C. Court of Appeals and 10 years on the Supreme Court, resigning in 2004 to become director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law. In that position, he's challenged the legality of how the legislature created the state lottery and the economic incentives granted to Dell.

Orr won four statewide judicial races, which means he had a successful campaign organization, said Hunter Bacot, an associate professor of political science at Elon University. But most people who vote in judicial races don't know the candidates very well. Running for governor means "campaigning at a different level," Bacot said.

Orr hopes his record as a judge earns credibility with voters at a time when political scandals have sent several North Carolina politicians to federal prison. Other leaders, like the current governor, haven't had much to say about the erosion of the state's reputation for honest government.

"It's disheartening that we haven't heard more," Orr said Monday. Confidence in government requires "elected officials, beginning at the top and working down, to try to do the right thing. ... It's not that hard to do the right thing, or shouldn't be anyway."

On the bench, Orr said, it's essential to examine all sides of an issue and come to a conclusion based on what the law says -- even if it doesn't conform to personal preference.
The problem in politics, he said, is the "end-justifies-the-means philosophy. You convince yourself that your continuation in power is the best thing for the people, and therefore you cut corners."

Bacot thinks voters may forget these scandals before next year. But he sees Orr's work battling economic incentives and the lottery as strengths in his bid for the Republican nomination. How those issues play in the general election, if Orr gets that far, might be a different matter.

Orr calls the lottery bad public policy, putting the state in league with an industry that is "fueling a generation of gambling addiction," but he stopped short of saying he'd move to kill it as governor.

"It wouldn't be at the top of the list," he said. "Public education and refiguring how to fund public education has to come first."

That sounds like a political answer, tempered by recognition of the lottery's popularity.
Then Orr offered a reminder that he's attacking the lottery -- or at least the dubious way it was enacted -- through the courts: "Who knows if we'll have it by then?"

Sam Ervin also put his faith in the rule of law, as a judge and senator. Does that mean voters are ready to elect another judge to a political office? The jury is out until 2008.