The role of money in politics will likely be far from the minds of most North Carolina voters in today's primary elections. But for candidates who have labored to raise their profile and get their message out, often using advertising that doesn't come cheap, the connection is critical. It's also a connection that can work against the public interest when those who provide money to bankroll or influence campaigns have a self-interested agenda.

In North Carolina's effort to keep that kind of money from polluting its political climate, the home team has just scored an important victory while at the same time experiencing a painful setback.

Both developments are tied to decisions last week by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. First, the Richmond-based court upheld North Carolina's system by which upper-level judges can receive public funds to finance their campaigns.

That system, now in effect for four years, has led to a large reduction in campaign contributions from lawyers and other parties with business before the state's courts. That means a boost in the courts' public standing, as judges can more reliably be chosen on merit rather than on their willingness or ability to milk contributions from people who might have a stake in their rulings.

On the other side of the ledger, the court overturned a North Carolina law dealing with the activities of independent political groups, finding it to be an unconstitutional restriction on speech.

Over the line

The problem: while such groups clearly have a right to raise and spend money promoting their views, what if they veer over the line into supporting or opposing certain candidates? If they do, then it stands to reason that they should have to abide by some of the same rules that apply to candidates themselves.

Those rules include contribution limits and disclosure requirements. Unfortunately, North Carolina now has been frustrated in its sensible attempt to keep such groups from exerting an unfair influence.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, writing the majority opinion for a three-judge panel in the case brought by N.C. Right to Life, properly pointed to an episode here 10 years ago that dramatized how an independent group can skew an election.

"Farmers for Fairness" waged an intensive media campaign targeted at legislators who wanted to tighten regulation of the North Carolina hog industry. At one point it was spending $10,000 a week. It secured the defeat of a prominent critic, Duplin County Rep. Cindy Watson.

Wilkinson, though, saw no abuse. He painted Farmers for Fairness as just a group of "ordinary citizens" advancing their deeply held views. Those who disagreed, he wrote, "should make the case" -- as if they could compete financially.

The law challenged by N.C. Right to Life had to go, wrote Wilkinson, a Virginian appointed by President Reagan. Otherwise, the losers would be "persons of all points of view who wish only to engage in robust political discussion." That's a noble sentiment, but naive in dismissing the harm to be done when special interests are allowed to bypass campaign finance rules.

Pooled to coerce

It fell to Judge M. Blane Michael, in his dissent, to point out that the Farmers for Fairness were not engaged in "pure political speech." Instead, theirs was "an attempt to use pooled money for behind-the-scenes coercion of elected officials." He referred to instances when the group threatened legislators that unless they got on board, they would be targeted with attack ads.

"The Farmers example shows exactly how independent expenditures can create the same appearance of corruption and potential for actual corruption as do excessively large contributions," Michael wrote. North Carolina wanted to hold contributions to such groups to the same $4,000-per-person, per-election limit that applies to contributions to candidates. Now, it is once again vulnerable to special interests that have no use for a level playing field.

"The record contains hundreds of pages of testimony and reports supporting the judgment of the North Carolina legislature that independent expenditure political committees are sufficiently harmful to the electoral process to justify the $4,000 contribution limit," the judge said. With that kind of ammunition, the state should have good reason to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It happens that Michael, a Clinton administration appointee from West Virginia, authored the unanimous opinion upholding North Carolina's voluntary public campaign financing for judges. Challengers included 2006 chief justice candidate Rusty Duke of Greenville, who argued that he was put at an unfair disadvantage when he declined to accept public funds. That argument was rejected by Michael's panel.

Regulation of campaign finance always entails a balancing of rights. But given the ability of affluent special interests to tilt the outcome of elections in self-serving ways, it's crucial to strike the balance so that it safeguards the political system's integrity. In North Carolina, despite success on the judicial front, that effort remains a work in progress.