Jan. 10, 2005
Publicly Financed Campaigns on Agenda
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH - Some ideas are ahead of their time.
North Carolina received national attention for its new system offering public money to judicial candidates who refuse special interest dollars and big checks from people who appear in their courts on a regular basis.
But it’s not the first time North Carolinians tried to use public funds to finance campaigns as an alternative to the growing amounts of special interest money flowing into candidates’ coffers.
Authorized by the 2002 Judicial Campaign Reform Act, the public finance system for appellate judges is voluntary and 12 of the 16 candidates chose to participate this year. They limited their own fund raising in exchange for the public assistance.
That’s a solid endorsement in regard to candidate participation. Both Democrats and Republicans accepted public money, and their numbers suggest that candidates for other offices would also join such a system. The Act also authorized spending for a voter’s guide, and public reaction to the guide generally has been favorable.
But well before the state changed who pays for judicial elections, the interest in public campaign financing had surfaced at the level of municipal elections.
The Town of Cary adopted public financing several years ago, following a very expensive election.
“What prompted the issue in Cary,” recalls Jack Smith, a long-time City Councilor, “was almost $1 million being spent on a Cary mayor’s election. That’s for a job that pays about $14,000.”
Smith voted for a public financing ordinance and signed up for it. The system worked as designed through one election.
But the State Board of Elections filed suit. The courts ruled that the ordinance was flawed and that cities were no different from other contributors. They could provide only $4,000 in public monies per municipal election to a candidate.
Those Cary candidates who had accepted public funds had to pay back any money over $4,000, which didn’t make for happy campaigners.
Smith believes that Cary voters were satisfied with the public financing concept and notes that no one from his city filed a complaint. Polling done by the N.C. Center for Voter Education showed more voters for the program than opposed to it.
There also has been interest in Asheville and Chapel Hill for public financing, but no action has been taken. Municipal leaders must have the legislature’s approval to proceed, much like enabling legislation for local sales taxes.
House Democratic Majority Leader Joe Hackney of Chapel Hill expects his municipal officials to ask for such legislation in the 2005 session. But he’s a realist and can count votes.
“There are about 40 or 50 of us for it in the House,” Hackney estimates. But he isn’t confident of wider support, especially among House Republicans.
There was enabling legislation introduced in the 2003 session, and it was adopted in the Senate. The proposal promised to fix Cary’s law and gave authority to the first four municipalities of 30,000 or more in population to experiment with public financing.
“The Senate adopted the changes, but the legislation failed in committee [in the House],” recalls Hackney.
Interestingly, opposition to such legislation comes mostly from the homebuilders lobby. That group also happens to be the largest single source of campaign money in local elections.
Elsewhere in the country, two states -- Arizona and Maine -- have moved ahead in what they call “running clean.”
According to the nonprofit organization Public Campaign, almost 80 percent of state legislative candidates in Maine participated in that state’s publicly financed campaign system.
In Arizona, 60 percent of House candidates and almost 40 percent of Senate candidates “are running clean.” There was an effort to ask voters to repeal the Arizona finance plan, but the state courts ruled the repeal effort unconstitutional.
The city of Tucson has used public monies to finance municipal races for years, and candidate participation in legislative races continues to grow.
“About 15 states have different types of [public financing] programs. Most of them are matching programs,” says Bob Hall, research director for Democracy North Carolina, a non-profit election watchdog group in Carrboro. “We have a program [the Judicial Campaign Reform Act] in place. It is working and needs people to support it through the income tax check-off.”
As for local governments and public financing, Hall and others see no slowdown in the “huge amounts of money” now required for competitive municipal elections.
A champion for campaign finance reform is former state Sen. Wib Gulley of Durham. He sponsored the 2003 bill and said at the time, "This is enabling legislation and it’s for local governments who might want to try this. They are our laboratories for democracy.”
The 2004 elections give public finance proponents a new day in the laboratory. In looking at the 2005 legislature and prospects for enabling legislation, House Majority Leader Hackney says, “I’m for it. It will spread incrementally. I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Barlow Herget is a former Raleigh city councilman and writes the Follow the Money column for the N.C. Center for Voter Education.
3933 Arrow Dr.
Suite 101
Raleigh, N.C. 27612
877.258.6837 (toll free)