For Release:
As legislators consider
ways to wean themselves from lobbyists’ gifts and campaign donations, a report
released today highlights the impact of North Carolina’s first program that
rewards candidates for obeying various “public trust” conditions and
fund-raising limits.
The General Assembly
adopted the program in 2002 as a way to reduce the practice of judges accepting
campaign donations from attorneys and others who may appear in their courts.
The report says that
since the program’s adoption:
•
20 of the 28 candidates in the 2004 and 2006 general elections for the N.C.
Supreme Court and Court of Appeals have met the program’s conditions and
received “clean” public funds for their campaigns.
•
On average, their campaigns rely on attorneys and special-interest groups for
less than 14% of their non-family funds, compared to 73% for candidates in
2002, before the reform.
•
The program’s participants span the political spectrum, including incumbents
and challengers, men and women, blacks and whites, Republicans and Democrats.
•
Thousands of registered voters – more than 4,000 in 2006 – are providing the
modest qualifying donations that authorize the candidates to qualify for the
public funds, the report says.
“There were lots of
questions about whether this program could work,” said Bob Hall of Democracy
North Carolina, the nonpartisan watchdog group that produced the report. “But
it’s proving very popular with candidates, valuable for voters, and even
effective against high-spending opponents who don’t like the public
accountability rules built into the program.”
The report notes that
Supreme Court Chief Justice Sarah Parker received an extra $54,595 last week
for her election campaign in response to her opponent’s significant private
fund-raising. She agreed to a spending limit for her campaign and raised
several hundred donations from registered voters to qualify for a grant of
$216,650 for her general election campaign.
But her opponent, Rusty
Duke of
“Rescue funds are an
important safety feature,” Hall said. “Without them, a candidate would be
handicapped for agreeing to stop fund-raising after qualifying for public
funds.”
Parker is one of eight
candidates for the N.C. Court of Appeals and Supreme Court who qualified for
the benefits of the program this year, the report says.
At the end of May, those
eight candidates received grants of between $144,500 and $216,650 for their
campaigns – and agreed to take no funds in the general election from
special-interest groups, attorneys or anyone else.
Four other candidates for
the state’s top courts, including Duke, either did not try to qualify or were
unable to collect at least 350 donations from registered voters, the minimum
needed to demonstrate broad public support under the program’s rules.
The report points out
that the program is “engaging a remarkably large number of people in judicial
elections.” All eight of the qualifying candidates this year raised at least
$10 from more than 500
“This is essentially a
sweat equity program, not a giveaway,” said Hall. “It allows the candidate who
focuses on building grassroots support to leverage the approval of hundreds of
voters into access to enough ‘clean’ money to run an effective campaign.
Because the investment from registered voters is pivotal – through qualifying contributions and the Public Campaign Fund – this
is called a ‘Voter-Owned Elections’ program.”
In the 2004 election, 12
of the 16 candidates used the program, including four of the five winners. The
report says that special-interest groups and attorneys supplied less than 14%
of the funds raised by those 12 candidates (excluding money provided by the
candidate’s family).
By contrast, candidates
in the 2002 appellate court races raised 73% of their campaign funds from
attorneys and political committees. More than half – 55% – came just from
attorneys.
Hall noted that a
lobbyist making a case – and a donation – to a legislator presents similar
conflict-of-interest issues to the relationships between attorneys and judges.
“Regulating these relationships is important, but regulations have a limited
value unless you offer public officials an alternative source of financial
support so they don’t need the self-interested money,” he said.
As a result of a series
of scandals in recent months, legislators are debating what type of gifts
should be banned from lobbyists and whether a ban on lobbyists making, or
raising, political donations would stand up to a constitutional challenge.
Another bill in the state
House (H-1851) would begin a pilot program that offers a public financing
option to candidates running for the state legislature in two House districts
and two Senate districts. Its provisions are modeled on the program for
appellate court elections. In addition, it provides rescue funds to a qualified
candidate who is attacked by a 527 committee or
similar electioneering group.
The bill was one of 10
recommended by the House Select Committee on Ethics and Governmental Reform,
which began meeting after the House Speaker became embroiled in lobbying and
campaign-finance controversies.
Several other states
provide a public-financing option for legislative candidates, including
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CLICK
HERE for the full report on the Judicial Public Financing Program, 2004 -
2006.