RALEIGH -- North Carolina's system of publicly financed elections for judges and other office-holders is deeply flawed, a lawsuit contends, and portions of it should be struck down to protect free speech rights.
A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of two political action committees that support anti-abortion candidates contends that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision shows that North Carolina's system of public financing relies on unconstitutional favoritism in the form of matching funds. Under the law, candidates who participate in the public financing program get "rescue" funds when expenditures by privately financed opponents go above a certain amount.
"North Carolina's 'beggar thy neighbor' approach to free speech - burdening the speech of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups to increase the speech of others - is a concept 'wholly foreign to the First Amendment,' " the lawsuit states.
The complaint also challenges the state's requirement that privately funded candidates and groups making contributions must file additional paperwork when they spend money.
The lawsuit says the two Greensboro-based political action committees - both run by N.C. Right to Life President Barbara Holt - have not contributed to any judicial campaigns since 2006 for fear that those contributions would trigger matching funds for opposing candidates.
"As a result of North Carolina's matching funds provision, their willingness to engage in protected political speech has been chilled," the lawsuit says.
A call to James Bopp Jr., the Terre Haute, Ind.-based lawyer representing the PACs, was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Bopp filed a similar lawsuit in 2006, but the District Court ruled for the state - a decision backed up by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. What's changed since then is the Supreme Court's ruling this year in a case from Arizona, in which the nation's highest court struck down a matching funds program similar to North Carolina's.
North Carolina's law applies primarily to candidates for judicial office, although in 2008 it was expanded to include state auditor, insurance com mis sioner and super intendent of public instruction.
