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Public Financing Not So Radical Anymore

By Damon Circosta
Published: Feb. 2, 2009

RALEIGH - In 2002 North Carolina became the first state in the nation to pass full public financing for statewide judicial offices. At the time there was concern that the negative, high-dollar judicial campaigns sweeping across the country would find a home in North Carolina. Public financing was seen as a way to keep judicial campaigns from becoming a special-interest slugfest where wealthy donors would fund judges who might side with them in court.

At the time the General Assembly enacted it, public financing was a radical idea. Only a few states had experimented with it, and the program was not all that well understood. In less than a decade, public financing has become more mainstream. In the three election cycles it has been an option, public financing has been used successfully by judicial candidates from all backgrounds and political affiliations. In the most recent election, 11 of 12 candidates ran under the program. In fact, the program has been expanded to include more offices. States from Maine to Arizona now have public funding of campaigns.

While public campaign financing is nowhere near universal, it has become more accepted each election cycle. How does a program like this move from novelty to normalcy? Certainly the passage of time plays a key role. But more important than years rolling by are the positive reviews from the people who use it. Candidates who run under the program and voters who pay attention to these elections appreciate public campaigns. The races become less about chasing funds and more about ideas.

State Appeals Court Judge Robert C. Hunter, who ran under the program in 2006, likes to talk about his campaign in terms of the people he met on the trail. “Public financing let me go places and talk to voters throughout the state. I wasn’t stuck behind a desk dialing for campaign donations,” Hunter says.

Though official records aren’t kept on these sort of things, Hunter thinks he is the first appellate judge to campaign in all 100 counties. He attributes his ability to campaign so widely to the public campaign program.

Wayne Goodwin, the recently elected state commissioner of insurance, tells a similar story about his experience with public campaign financing. In 2008, the program was expanded to include the office of insurance commissioner. Both Goodwin and his opponent, Republican John Odom, opted to run under the public financing system.

The two may have set a record for most one-on-one debates between insurance commissioner candidates. Public financing created a cease-fire in the campaign fundraising arms race. This armistice in the money chase created the time and opportunity for candidates to hit the road and debate each other. All said, there were more than 20 joint appearances in forums and debates. As such, the race for insurance commissioner was more about issues and less about money than any race in recent memory.

When candidates like Hunter, Odom and Goodwin have positive experiences, they tend to share them with others. Any idea, be it public campaign financing or a new apple pie recipe, enters the mainstream in the same way: through positive shared experiences.

This isn’t to say that public financing doesn’t have detractors. It does. But as the amount of positive experiences increases, the wariness and hesitation decreases. Such has been the case with public financing. In just a matter of a few years, an idea that was once considered cutting edge is now becoming more accepted. Once radical, now mainstream.