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For immediate release.
February 6, 2002
Contact: Jesse Rutledge, N.C. Center for Voter Education,
(919) 839-1200

ABA Joins Center For Voter Education in Backing Public Financing

RALEIGH – The North Carolina Center for Voter Education applauded a decision yesterday by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) House of Delegates to urge states that elect judges, such as North Carolina, to consider public financing of judicial campaigns. The ABA was meeting in Philadelphia for its mid-year gathering, where it approved and adopted a recent report from its Standing Committee on Judicial Independence to support public financing.

The ABA is the largest voluntary professional membership association in the world, and its support for public financing as a means to reduce the influence of money in judicial elections will carry tremendous weight in legal and legislative circles.

“The ABA’s support for judicial election reform brings additional momentum to an effort already well underway,” said Robert Morgan, the Chairman of the Board of the N.C. Center for Voter Education. Morgan is a former U.S. Senator and N.C. Attorney General, and has been a leading spokesman for judicial reform in North Carolina.

“The cost of running for a seat on the Supreme Court of North Carolina is getting too high. We must adopt a public funding system to erase even the perception that justice could be for sale to the big campaign contributors and special interest groups,” Morgan warned.

A.P. Carlton of Raleigh, the former chair of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Judicial Independence and president-elect of the ABA, remarked in a statement to the press:

“Public funding is one solution states can use to enhance public trust in our courts. It can reverse the corrosion that taints our courts when judicial candidates must turn for campaign contribution to the very individuals and organizations that have an interest in the outcomes of cases those candidates may decide as judges.”

Carlton continued: “Special interests are pouring millions of dollars into judicial campaigns because they want judges to serve their interests, not the public interest. As more and more judges face skyrocketing campaign costs, more and more people believe justice if for sale.”

The N.C. Center for Voter Education supports reforming the North Carolina judicial campaign system by establishing public funding for judicial candidates who refuse special interest money and accept strict campaign spending limits. A bill that would do just that was passed by the N.C. Senate in November. The bill -- the Judicial Campaign Reform Act -- is due for consideration by the N.C. House when the state legislature reconvenes for its short session in May.

The Center is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization based in Raleigh that is committed to improving the state’s judicial selection process and ensuring impartial justice in North Carolina. To that end, the Center supports solutions that will reduce the influence of both money and politics in the judicial selection process. Earlier this week the Center launched a two-month radio advertising campaign designed to increase public awareness of the need for judicial campaign reform.

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