Public Campaign Financing Preserves Power for the People

By Wayne Goodwin

Why do we elect so many state officials? Back in the 1700s, fear of king-picked chief executives and their great powers helped sow strong sentiments against strong state executives. Those seeds sprouted into many revisions of our state constitution, guaranteeing a weak governor and a state government with decentralized executive authority.

As our state grew, responsibility for important policy areas such as agriculture, education, labor and the regulation of insurance was divided among independently elected constitutional offices, together called the Council of State.

Former state Rep. Wayne Goodwin offers insight into North Carolina politics with his blog "Wayne's World"

Because of this division, each Council of State officer is continuously and increasingly bombarded by special interests who want to influence these policy areas. The bombardment reaches fever pitch leading up to elections, when special interests ratchet up their pitch with campaign contributions or promises of contributions to candidates they approach.

Witness recent scandals involving disgraced former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps and others during the last few years. What have these scandals done to public trust in government? It is vastly important for such officials to remain free from actual or perceived undue influence. That is why campaign reform for these offices, and others, is so badly needed.

And that is why I am grateful for those state lawmakers who had the will to pass the Voter-Owned Elections pilot project during this legislative session. This pilot program is a positive step toward making our elections for Council of State less about who has the bigger bank account, and more about who has the better qualifications.

This is not merely academic for me. It is real. As an eight-year state representative and a candidate for labor commissioner in 2004, I witnessed first-hand what our candidates for statewide office endure.

While it used to be that a candidate would visit all the county seats and the respective sheriff in each courthouse, and call on a few people in each county while enjoying an RC Cola at a country store or humpteen BBQs, today campaigning is about the money chase and spending every waking hour raising campaign contributions. Why? Because campaigns today cost more and involve expensive TV ads, countless polls and consultants in a world where fewer and fewer folks pay attention to elections.

In my own 2004 race, like other candidates, I had to lock myself in a cubicle -- a campaign "war room" -- and spend up to 12 hours daily, six days weekly, on the phone between six and 12 months, raising campaign funds.

Frankly, asking people you know, and those you don't know, to each donate thousands of dollars is distasteful ... but a necessary evil. Asking someone to donate to a charitable cause or a church or a scholarship program is one thing, but making 200 calls daily for your personal campaign's benefit decimates what a candidate should be doing -- spending time with voters.

To accumulate the amount of cash most campaigns are told they need these days, they choose to focus more often on donors of larger sums.

It should also be no surprise that many persons who donate to Council of State offices are often persons directly or indirectly regulated by those very offices, a situation which is potentially fraught with all sorts of problems. Big donors sometimes use their influence to seek tax breaks, weak regulations or favors that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

The Voter-Owned Elections pilot project could do much to solve this problem. It creates a voluntary public financing option for certain Council of State candidates. Lawmakers, current and former Council of State leaders and thousands of North Carolinians believe it is a good idea because it gives candidates a chance to forego the dreadful money chase in exchange for limited public funds to run their campaigns.

In exchange for participating, candidates waive their right to seek contributions from big donors and from political action committees. The program could increase the number of qualified candidates willing to run and enhance interaction between them and the voters.
North Carolina has a history that recognizes the value of a government based on power-sharing. Public financing of campaigns is a method that helps ensure this power-sharing continues. Let's keep North Carolina's elections voter-owned.

We all win when the public knows our politicians are not beholden to powerful special interests, but beholden to us.