RALEIGH — As was entirely predictable, the new public-financing fund set up for the 2004 elections for appellate courts in North Carolina is not panning out. Too few attorneys have chosen to give $50 to the fund when renewing their legal licenses. Too few North Carolina taxpayers have chosen to check the box on their income-tax forms directing $3 into the fund.
So now, say some legislators and self-styled advocates of “campaign-finance reform,” there won’t be enough money to fund adequately both voter guides and the judicial campaigns this year. They are talking about such options as compelling attorneys to fork over the $50 and compelling taxpayers to add $1 million or more to the fund.
Funny how this “voluntary” financing system has so quickly turned into something entirely different, and outrageous.
Proponents of the 2002 judicial-campaign measure argued that voters needed assurance that their judges were not for sale. Perhaps they do, but I doubt seriously that voters believe the proper answer is to force them to support candidates with whom they may well strongly disagree on key public-policy issues.
For some “reformers,” I simply do not believe that combatting voter misperceptions was their only motivation, or even the most compelling one, for the changes. A piece of evidence I would offer is that the 2002 measure eliminated partisan affiliation from candidates for appeals court and the Supreme Court. This seems to me to be a transparent response to steady Republican gains in these races, which both sides attribute in part to the party labels, though perhaps for different reasons. Democrats say they have been the victim of party-line voting trends that have nothing to do with the courts, such as Republicans pulling straight-ticket levers and some Democrats ignoring down-ballot races altogether. Republicans argue that their party’s message on crime and legal issues resonates with voters who may not know the specifics of constitutional interpretation but do generally favor a conservative approach to law enforcement and the role of courts.
There certainly are good arguments against holding partisan elections of judges. But when you think more carefully about them, they are really arguments against any kind of judicial election. Few voters recognize the names of even longtime incumbents on the court, or could offer any specific issue or quality distinguishing one candidate from another. Partisanship is actually better than the alternative, which has all but a few legal insiders and interest groups choosing their judges on the basis of some vague name-recognition or guesswork.
The 2002 reforms were wrong-headed and should be repealed, not made worse by legislative efforts to coerce North Carolinians to pay for judicial campaigns. Let’s have the real debate about the real issue, elections vs. appointment of judges, rather than enacting special-interest legislation (Democrats and organized lobbies will benefit from nonpartisan elections right at the expense of Republicans and ordinary voters) and then pretending we’ve accomplished some great and noble aim.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.