"The arms race for money that drives our campaigns threatens the concept of one person, one vote."
Letter to NC Leaders Regarding Former Speaker Jim Black
February 26, 2007
TO:
Governor Michael F. Easley
Office of the Governor
Raleigh, NC 27601
The Honorable Joe Hackney, Speaker of the House
2304 Legislative Building
Raleigh, NC 27601
The Honorable Marc Basnight, Senate President Pro Tempore
2007 Legislative Building
Raleigh, NC 27601
Dear Governor Easley, Speaker Hackney, and President Pro Tempore Basnight:
We can all agree that the recently revealed actions of former House Speaker Jim Black are shameful and bring shame upon the state. They damage the public trust and directly assault our democratic system of self-government. This, in itself, is a huge tragedy.
The bigger tragedy is that our campaign fundraising system has reached the breaking point. The pressures of the escalating money chase are ruining otherwise talented officials and causing the public to question the integrity of our state’s policymaking process. Without an alternative, we can only expect the pressures – and the damage – to get worse. In the 2006 election, more than $30 million was raised and spent in our state’s legislative elections, four times the amount in the election a dozen years ago.
Thankfully, there is a way that provides an alternative to our current campaign financing system.
Since 1999, when NC Voters for Clean Elections began, our coalition has supported a solution to the money chase based on the public financing of elections. Called “Clean Elections” or “Voter-Owned Elections,” this program allows candidates to earn the right to receive a public grant of money for their campaigns if they first gain approval from voters by collecting hundreds of qualifying contributions and if they also abide by certain public-trust conditions.
This system has already been enacted in North Carolina for our appellate judges, with success. In 2006, eight of 12 N.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals candidates (including five of the six winners) received help from the Public Campaign Fund. In 2004, when the program began, 12 of the 16 candidates (including four of the five winners) qualified to receive public funds. Several states, from Georgia to Washington, are now using North Carolina’s program as a model for legislation for judicial public financing.
In Maine and Arizona where a “Voter-Owned Elections” system exists for the legislature and governor, a large majority of state-level officials (Republicans and Democrats) earn the right to use public financing. The system has allowed candidates to spend more time with average voters, reject special-interest donations, and improve the public trust in government.
Across North Carolina, there is growing public support for this type of reform. Over 1,500 campaign donors and local elected officials in our state have signed on to “Voter-Owned Elections,” and over forty organizations, from the NC Bankers Association to the NAACP are now part of our coalition. These advocates agree that we cannot let this moment pass without reform that gets to the heart of our broken campaign financing system.
Therefore, we call upon you, as leaders of the state, to lead the effort to expand “Voter-Owned Elections” in North Carolina. Bills are being introduced this session to expand public financing to the Council of State and to create a legislative public financing pilot program. We need, and would appreciate, your leadership to help enact these measures.
In the next few weeks, we will work with our coalition partners to hold a press conference featuring former elected officials and Campaign Donors for Campaign Reform. We will organize a petition and letter-to-the-editor campaign and mobilize statewide support for “Voter-Owned” public financing.
We know that many officials legally raise large amounts of campaign money according to the rules of the current system. We do not fault them for this; however, we do expect them to use their positions of leadership to change the system.
Jim Black’s pleas expose the sordid underbelly of a broken campaign financing system. Only a reform that includes a “Voter-Owned Elections” component gets to the root of this fractured system, and only a reform that does that is worthy of North Carolina.
Sincerely,
Beth Messersmith
NCVCE Board President