In the upcoming fall elections for appellate judges, taxpayers will be forced to subsidize the campaigns of most of the candidates. Liberals will have to support conservative judges. Conservatives will have to support liberal judges.
This unethical system exists because North Carolina has a taxpayer-financed judicial campaign system. In return for capping their spending, subsidized judicial candidates receive a large lump-sum payment, courtesy of state taxpayers.
Initially, the system was to be funded through voluntary taxpayer contributions. Legislation creating the judicial campaign system even specified that no money from the General Fund would be used to fund candidates. Of course, when the voluntary contributions didn’t come in, which is consistent with virtually every public financing system in the country, the General Assembly acted unethically. It ignored the fact that it wasn’t supposed to take money from the General Fund to finance the system.
To the “reformers,” compelling taxpayers to fund speech and candidates they oppose is justified. “Clean elections” are more important than the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a driving force behind the attack on political speech, recently stated on Don Imus’ radio program: “I would rather have a clean government than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected…”
The “clean elections” movement, while not clear in its objectives, somehow wants to take money out of campaigns. Money never can be taken out of campaigns because it is the means by which political speech can exist. Money is not a necessary evil, but a necessary good that provides citizens invaluable information about candidates.
Equalizing funding levels, also a goal of many reformers, is bad for democracy. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Buckley v. Valeo, understood this: “Moreover, the equalization of permissible campaign expenditures might serve not to equalize the opportunities of all candidates, but to handicap a candidate who lacked substantial name recognition or exposure of his views before the start of the campaign.”
The judicial campaign system is set up to be so coercive that most candidates have no choice but to take taxpayer subsidies and therefore equalize their funding. For example, “traditional” candidates who raise money on their own could easily find themselves financially supporting their subsidized opponents when they spend money on their own campaigns.
Some legislators want to expand this failed and unethical system to legislative races. Why wouldn’t legislators like “clean elections?” By setting up low spending limits, the legislators can make it easier for incumbents to win re-election by making it harder for challengers to get their names and views out to the public.
However, there still are independent organizations and individuals that can engage in political speech. In other words, taxpayer financing, with all its freedom-of-speech problems, wouldn’t reduce the amount of money in campaigns because it would be spent through different means (which is a good thing).
Many legislators and reformers know that independent political speech is a hurdle to “clean elections.” In the tradition of McCain and the Chinese government, they want to restrict your speech far more. Taxpayer financing is just the first step. Next on the agenda is regulating, and if possible restricting, independent political speech. Far-fetched? The N.C. legislature already is considering a bill that would do this.
Daren Bakst is the legal and regulatory policy analyst for the John Locke Foundation.