Judge Nixes North Carolina’s Matching Election Funds Program

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A federal judge has struck down portions of North Carolina’s voluntary public financing program for appellate court candidates.

The program was designed to provide extra funds to participants when they’re outspent by candidates who opt not to abide by limits in favor of private financing.

U.S. District Court Judge Louise Flanagan agreed with lawyers for two political committees linked to the anti-abortion group North Carolina Right to Life. They argued the matching fund provisions were similar to those in an Arizona program thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

Candidates who participate in the public financing program get “rescue” funds when they start getting outspent. The North Carolina Right to Life committees said they hadn’t contributed to any judicial campaigns since 2006 for fear the donations would trigger matching funds for opposing candidates.

Lawyers for the state said the lawsuit was moot because the State Board of Elections already had decided in December not to offer matching funds to judicial candidates.

But Flanagan disagreed, writing that the General Assembly hasn’t yet repealed the law at issue “and aside from its stated intention not to abide by the matching funds provisions, nothing appears to stop the (elections board) from changing its policy.”

The N.C. Right to Life committees say the funds infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens to unfettered political speech.

“The court finds that the North Carolina matching funds statute is unduly burdensome and not sufficiently justified to survive First Amendment scrutiny,” Flanagan wrote in an order filed in the federal courts for western North Carolina.

The lawsuit doesn’t eliminate entirely the popular public financing program for candidates in the nonpartisan races for state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. The program gives candidates who accumulate a number of small individual donations the ability to receive public funds in exchange for fundraising restrictions.

The lawsuit also doesn’t apply to public financing during the 2008 elections for candidates for state auditor, insurance commissioner and superintendent of public instruction, which fall under a separate program.

But that program is in danger of running out of money.