May 2, 2005
Lessons in ‘Voter-Owned’ Campaigns
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH - Pop quiz time. Without looking, can you name the N.C. state auditor? How about the commissioner of insurance? The treasurer? Commissioner of labor? If you got four out of four (Auditor Les Merritt, Commissioner Jim Long, Treasurer Richard Moore, Commissioner Cherie Berry) then you’re ahead of most voters.
If you don’t know who these folks are, you should. And if you don’t know how they have to raise campaign funds, you should. Running a statewide campaign costs a lot of money, and candidates for these offices raise less than candidates for governor and U.S. senator. As a result, most folks know little about them.
People had the same problem with the judges that run for statewide office, but the legislature addressed that with the landmark Judicial Campaign Reform Act. Now, people perhaps pay more attention to judicial candidates than they ever have before.
New legislation builds on the successful lessons of that model. In an encouraging sign of bipartisanship, HB 1563, titled the Voter-Owned Elections (VOE) bill, was introduced by four legislators from both parties: Representatives Martha Alexander, D-Charlotte, Walter Church, D-Valdese, Beverly Earle, D-Charlotte, and Tracy Walker, R-Wilkesboro.
Judges running for statewide office in 2004 were given the option of abandoning the unseemly task of begging for big money and limiting their campaign spending in exchange for limited financial aid like that proposed in the VOE program. Most of them chose to participate. They also got to appear in a state voter guide mailed to all North Carolina households.
The new legislation offers to extend public campaign financing to the Council of State offices of secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, labor commissioner and insurance commissioner starting in the 2008 election. It would not affect the races for governor and lieutenant governor.
There is one big difference between this proposal and the Judicial Campaign Reform Act: funding.
Public funds for the judicial campaigns come from revenues designated by voters on their tax returns. A voter who marks the check-off box tells the state to set aside $3 from the general fund for judicial races.
Sponsors of HB 1563 will not tap into the judicial campaign fund. Their proposal adds a small, one percent surcharge on the fees collected by the different Council of State agencies.
For example, the Secretary of State’s Office collects fees from security dealers and lobbyists. The Labor Department charges elevator and boiler inspection fees.
The surcharges collected by the different offices will be forwarded to the Department of Revenue on a monthly basis where the money will be deposited in the “Voter-Owned Election Fund.”
Like the judicial system, the VOE plan limits the amount of money candidates will spend. They can spend only the amount of money distributed by the fund and the amount they have collected to qualify. How much money candidates can draw from the fund will be based on how much was spent in the two previous elections. Candidates qualify to participate by being able to raise a threshold amount of money, in small contributions from many donors. The purpose is to weed out serious challengers from the crackpots and eccentrics.
Like the judicial races, voters typically pay little attention to Council of State candidates. Unless a celebrity such as racecar driver Richard Petty is in a contest, the media, especially television, cover the elections sparingly.
Chris Heagarty, executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, notes the link between people with business connections to a state office and how dependent candidates are on their money to run for office.
“Most folks have a hard time even naming some of these commissioners and secretaries. Very few average voters contribute to their campaigns,” Heagarty says. “The only people that seem interested in funding these statewide campaigns are the groups these candidates are supposed to regulate if they win.”
Thus, it is difficult for candidates to raise money, and more worrisome, it drives candidates to those very people and businesses that have a special interest in the office. Former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, now in prison, turned to State Fair vendors that do business with the commissioner’s office for illegal cash in her 2000 campaign.
Seems a little bit to me like the fox guarding the hen house. Another lesson learned.
Some might wonder why we don’t just go ahead and appoint these officials, like most states do. But voters seem intent on keeping their right to vote, even if they don’t know who they are voting for.
Supporters of the VOE system argue it can offer the best of both worlds: providing the funding needed to educate voters about Council of State campaigns, while preventing the real or perceived conflicts of interests that can occur when only the special interests care about these elections.
Sounds good to me. Class dismissed.
Barlow Herget is a former Raleigh city councilman and writes the Follow the Money column for the N.C. Center for Voter Education.
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