No surprise here: A majority of N.C. voters like the state’s public financing system in judicial elections — and many want to see it expanded beyond the three Council of State races already covered.
Public Policy Polling, a firm that does a lot of work for Democratic candidates, but which also had a remarkable record for accuracy tracking last year’s state and federal elections, says 60 percent of voters like the judicial public financing program. And 71 percent say that judicial candidates who accept donations from lawyers have a conflict of interests. But about half the voters are unsure whether the program curbs corruption in the judicial system.
What’s more, about half of voters support expanding a pilot program for public financing of Council of State races — the statewide offices such as attorney general, commissioner of insurance and secretary of state; 31 percent oppose that. Last year, candidates for three such races — auditor, superintendent of public instruction and commissioner of insurance — were eligible for the public financing program.
The legislature is responding to public support for these programs as a way to boost fairness in elections and minimize the effect of large amounts of money spent to influence elections. It is considering bills to expand the system to five more races when money becomes available, as well as giving cities the right to adopt their own public funding programs.
The N.C. experiments are based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s approval in a 1976 case of publicly-funded election campaigns. That court struck down limits on what a candidate can spend, but upheld public funding programs in which candidates voluntarily agree to spending limits. N.C. candidates must agree to a fundraising limit and raise a qualifying sum in small donations.
Opponents of public financing point to another U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in Davis v. FEC striking down a provision in federal law that gave a significant fundraising advantage to publicly-funded candidates who were being outspent by campaigns not participating in the program. The provision, called the Millionaire’s Amendment, allowed publicly funded candidates to raise three times as much in regular contributions as federal law otherwise allowed — a clearly unfair set of rules without any compelling interest in preventing corruption. Indeed, it might have encouraged corruption from excessive contributions.
That feature differed substantially from the N.C. program, which has a publicly-financed catch-up fund for candidates who are significantly outspent by candidates not in the public funding program. Use of these funds means that candidates don’t have to go begging to special interests to whom they might become beholden. That’s the key idea behind public financing — and the reason why lawmakers should expand the N.C. program in state and local elections.
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