Raleigh lawyer Gene Boyce has a long history of using lawsuits to challenge North Carolina public policy.

Boyce is best known for his handling of a lawsuit aimed at the state's disparate tax treatment of government pensions. The suit led to a $799 million award for 380,000 government retirees in the late 1990s.

Boyce and fellow lawyer Keith Vaughan also successfully challenged a state intangibles tax placed on out-of-state stocks between 1990 and 1994. The lawyers eventually won $440 million for taxpayers.

More recently, Boyce and his son, Dan, were less successful challenging an income tax hike on North Carolina's wealthiest earners passed by the General Assembly in 2001. Boyce contended the tax hike, which became effective during the middle of the tax year, was unconstitutional because it was passed retroactively. The courts didn't agree, and the state Supreme Court rejected an appeal earlier this year.

The Boyces' latest lawsuit steps outside of tax policy, attacking legislative action of a far different sort -- the phased-out video poker ban approved by lawmakers earlier this year.

The ban begins taking effect in October, when the number of machines that can be operated at any one location goes from three to two. The new law calls for the machines to be completely banned by next July.

The Boyces filed the lawsuit on behalf of machine owners and video poker players. It contends that the ban creates a gambling monopoly for the state and deprives machine owners of their constitutional right to just compensation for the taking of private property.

Nearly a decade ago, then-chief Deputy Attorney General Eddie Speas said that Boyce had "tilted at more than a few windmills."

Perhaps. His spectacular court wins have been accompanied by losses. Besides the challenge to the 2001 income tax hike, Boyce lost a lawsuit contending that the state's formula for spending tobacco company settlement proceeds was illegal.

Speas, though, may not be the best person to question Boyce's judgment. In many of those tax cases, he was the one in court arguing against Boyce.

Nevertheless, when lawyers dip their toes into political waters, they must be prepared to deal with court decisions that have a political dimension.

In the lawsuits that Boyce filed on behalf of taxpayers, the politics ultimately played in his favor, especially at the appellate court level.

State Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges are elected just like the governor and legislators. To think that those elections and thoughts about voter sentiment never play any role in any of their rulings would be nave.

And government pensioners, some of them struggling to get by on a fixed income, are an obviously sympathetic class of plaintiffs.

Boyce's latest plaintiffs may not prove so sympathetic. The state's video poker industry and its chief political defender, House Speaker Jim Black, are under federal investigation.

It's not the ideal atmosphere in which to be challenging public policy created by the duly elected representatives of the state.

Scott Mooneyham writes for Capitol Press Association. Contact him at smooneyh@ncinsider.com