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For immediate release.
September 26, 2002
Contact: Jesse Rutledge, N.C. Center for Voter Education,
(919) 839-1200

Public Financing for Judicial Campaigns Clears N.C. House, Makes History

RALEIGH – The North Carolina House today passed the Judicial Campaign Reform Act, which, pending the Governor’s signature, will make North Carolina the first state in the country to adopt full public financing for appellate-level judicial election campaigns. The North Carolina Senate passed the package last fall and is expected to accept the changes made in the House version.

“The citizens of North Carolina should know that the state legislators who supported this proposal did the right thing on campaign finance reform,” said former U.S. Senator Robert Morgan, now Chairman of the N.C. Center for Voter Education.

“Judges will no longer be forced to raise money like politicians,” Morgan stated. “The legislature has moved, correctly, to make sure that money and politics have no place in a court of law, and to ensure the continued fairness and impartiality of our justice system.”

The package of reforms approved by the state legislature contain four major elements:

- Full public financing in the general election for qualified candidates who agree to fundraising and spending limits
- A shift to nonpartisan elections, similar to the system used at the trial court level
- A reduction in the individual contribution limit to all appellate-level judicial candidates to $1,000 (from $4,000)
- Creation of a state voter guide with information about appellate-level judicial candidates

“Partisan politics have no place in a court of law, and likewise they have no place in judicial elections,” Morgan added. The changes in this reform package mean that all North Carolina judicial elections will be non-partisan. Separate legislation in recent years had previously switched the trial benches from partisan to non-partisan.

All of the reforms will take effect in the 2004 election cycle and will have no impact on the seven appellate-level judicial elections on the ballot in November 2002.

Across the country, 87% of state judges, in 39 states, face some sort of election. North Carolina will become the first state in the nation to offer full public financing for its top courts, amid increasing concerns that many state judges face election systems laden with pitfalls that could potentially compromise their appearance of fairness and impartiality.

“The creation of a public financing option in North Carolina means that candidates for these offices will no longer be faced with the burden of having to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from attorneys and interest groups,” Morgan noted. “Instead, funding will come from a neutral and impartial source, erasing the appearance of impropriety that many North Carolinians find so troubling.”

The House version of the legislation must now be reconciled with the Senate version. The Senate is expected to agree to most of the changes made in the House, either through a straight concurrence vote or an expedited conference committee. A uniform package would then move to Governor Mike Easley for his signature. Supporters are confident that the Governor would sign the reform bill into law, noting that the reform package is overwhelmingly supported by North Carolinians, according to recent polling.

A public opinion survey commissioned by the N.C. Center for Voter Education in the Spring of 2002 found that 70 percent of North Carolinians favor the reform package. Survey results also indicate that 89 percent of those surveyed would prefer nonpartisan judicial elections and 91 percent support the establishment of a state voter guide.

Over 1,000 attorneys across the state, including the current 12 immediate past presidents of the North Carolina State Bar, and retired members of the N.C. Supreme Court, signed support statements for the public financing reform proposal. Public financing of judicial races is also supported by national groups like the American Bar Association, the Committee for Economic Development, and the Justice at Stake campaign.

National reform groups across the country have been watching developments in North Carolina, hoping that a breakthrough in the Tar Heel state could potentially spur other states to follow suit. Public financing bills for judicial offices have been introduced in Wisconsin and Illinois, and a similar proposal may be introduced in Georgia.

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