Chapel Hill Shuts Down Matching Funds For Local Elections

CHAPEL HILL – Municipal election candidates counting on a bonus round of public campaign funding no longer have that option. The state has declared Chapel Hill’s practice unconstitutional with just weeks to go before early voting begins.

Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos sent an e-mail to town officials last Thursday saying: “The State Board of Elections today directed that the rescue fund portion of the town’s Voter Owned Election program not be continued.”

The elections board’s attorney, a staff member of the N.C. Attorney General’s Office, recommended an end to the rescue fund. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision concluded that a similar Arizona law was unconstitutional, Karpinos wrote.

Chapel Hill’s voter owned election program is a pilot project approved by the General Assembly. Town Council had hoped it would become a trend statewide. Wilmington, Greenville, and Raleigh have passed resolutions urging lawmakers to allow all municipalities to create such a program.

Under the program, Chapel Hill candidates who restrict private campaign funding receive $3,351 in town funds to run for Town Council, $10,053 for mayor. The program includes a one-time bonus for any candidate whose privately financed opponent spends 140 percent of the amount awarded.

The elections board barred the rescue fund after a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Arizona’s public campaign financing law.

“Arizona’s matching funds provision substantially burdens the speech of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups without serving a compelling state interest,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

“I disagree with the court’s narrow majority, but am glad they stated very clearly that providing candidates with a public financing option is constitutional,” said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina. He helped to design Chapel Hill’s program, which is up for state sunset review after the Nov. 8 election.

“The lack of a rescue fund provision in the Chapel Hill program doesn’t make it useless,” Hall said. “Candidates will enroll, seek out qualifying donations from voters, and receive small grants authorized by those voters. It’s a good program and should continue.”

Duke University political science professor Mike Munger, a former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate, praised the Supreme Court and state decisions.

“Here’s the problem: If the government gets to choose sides, then the government is running elections,” Munger said. “And how can state-run elections be a check on the state?

“If a candidate is especially charismatic, attractive, or good-looking, she/he may have an advantage over her/his opponent,” Munger added. “One could imagine that a very persuasive speaker, with good ideas, would put the opponent at a particular disadvantage. Saying that some kinds of advantages are OK – persuasiveness – and others are not – spending – does not solve the problem either. The government cannot take sides, period.”

Before the elections board imposed the ban, John Locke Foundation director of legal and regulatory studies Daren Bakst sent a letter (PDF) to the board, noting that Chapel Hill would violate the U.S. Constitution if it issued the resuce funds.

Attempts to contact Karpinos, Town Manager Roger Stancil, and state Board of Elections officials for comment were unsuccessful.

“For those people who have chosen what they call voter owned elections, they’re going to have to decide if they’re going to withdraw from voter owned elections or plug along” with them, said Town Councilman Matt Czajkowski, who is running for re-election and financing his campaign privately.

Czajkowski lost to current Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt two years ago. Kleinschmidt opted for public funding. Czajkowski did not. When Czajkowski’s fundraising triggered the rescue fund mechanism, Kleinschmidt received a cash infusion that some political observers believe allowed him to win the mayoral race.

“Obviously, I’m on record many times saying this program doesn’t serve any benefit for Chapel Hill,” Czajkowski said. “I don’t have any glee that the state Board of Elections has ruled the rescue portion of this as being unconstitutional.”

Dan Way is a contributor to Carolina Journal.