Dec. 22, 2006
’06 was the ‘Year of the 527’
By Chris Heagarty
RALEIGH - State Democrats must have thought Christmas had come early, when in the last week before the election over a quarter-million dollars of TV advertising aired to the benefit of three of their four Supreme Court candidates. All three won, though one very narrowly.
This present was delivered by FairJudges.net, a so-called 527 group, and was funded by Democratic Party committees, attorneys, labor groups and big campaign contributors.
The money it injected into the race was strategically timed so that the opponents of the candidates the group supported couldn’t respond. Even worse, two of the opponents abiding by voluntary fund-raising limits to run clean campaigns were denied the matching funds they’d expected to help respond to such an attack.
But come 2008, these same Democrats will find that the Election Day gift they opened wasn’t an early Christmas present at all, but Pandora’s box, unleashing a torrent of special-interest money into our judicial elections.
All the evidence points to a growing influence of these shadow committees over our elections, starting with their roles in the 2004 and 2006 Republican primaries that unseated several veteran lawmakers.
Called 527 groups in reference to the IRS code granting them their tax status, these organizations have taken over judicial elections in other states. In West Virginia, a millionaire with cases pending before that Supreme Court hid behind an innocently named 527 group and spent $1 million to slander an experienced judge, suggesting he would be “pro child molester.” In a rural Illinois Supreme Court district, almost $10 million was spent.
But that didn’t deter the FairJudges.net crowd, who decided that gaining a competitive edge through these last-minute advertisements was good for democracy.
Now, however, they had better pay attention because their actions have awoken a sleeping giant, one that sounds like it’s ready to beat them over their heads with the club of even bigger money.
An army of lobbyists for North Carolina’s business community are being instructed on how to get around existing limits on campaign finance laws to influence legislative and judicial elections using 527 groups. And the Democrats’ Fairjudges.net has given them a blueprint of exactly how to do it.
Few state judicial elections are as bad as those in Michigan. In 2002, Tar Heel lawmakers who reviewed the slanderous ads paid for by “independent” groups in Michigan were moved to reform our state’s election laws, in hopes of keeping similar negative, money-driven campaigns out of North Carolina.
In 2006, business lobbyists were treated to a seminar on how to overcome the “challenges” of campaign finance laws by the leader of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, one of the architects behind some of the worst judicial campaigns in America.
Among the bits of advice offered in the seminar:
“Play the campaign finance arena aggressively. File complaints, request declaratory rulings, litigate if necessary.”
“Business Advocacy is more than lobbying the legislature. If your state elects Supreme Court Justices, you should be involved.”
“In today’s arena you need more than a PAC to affect the outcome of elections ... [you] need an Issue Advocacy Component. Issue Advocacy allows you to raise corporate funds in states that prohibit corporate contributions to candidates and PACs.”
And whom do they name as their principal targeted political opponents? The FairJudges.net contributors: unions and trial lawyers.
One of North Carolina’s former chief justices once warned that 527 special-interest groups would wreck judicial elections, and usher in multi-million-dollar campaigns. That same former justice served as the chief spokesperson for Fairjudges.net.
For the short-term gain of helping some candidates who might just have won on their own merits, he has blazed the trail for groups that would be completely hostile to the candidates his group endorsed, and who would increase campaign spending many times over. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As 2006, the “Year of the 527,” comes to an end, let’s hope that Santa brings our legislators the wisdom to rein in this political beast, before our judicial elections resemble the nasty cutthroat contests of the Rust Belt.
Chris Heagarty is the executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, a Raleigh-based nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving elections in North Carolina.
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