Mar 02 2008
Public Election Financing Winning Support in North Carolina
RALEIGH — A new program of public financing for N.C. elections, designed to reduce the influence of special-interest money, is proving popular among candidates.The program will provide at least $300,000 each to candidates for three lesser-known state offices — auditor, insurance commissioner and superintendent of public instruction. To qualify, candidates will have to abide by spending limits, raise small donations from at least 750 registered voters and meet other requirements.As of Friday, six of the 11 candidates for those offices plan to participate. One said he would not. The rest are undecided.
“It allows for regular, ordinary citizens to be involved in a campaign without having to raise millions and millions of dollars,” said Eddie Davis, who is running for public-instruction superintendent and is head of the state’s largest teachers’ group.
“I don’t think I would have done it if this had not happened,” he added.
Overall, I am opposed to public financing of elections. One, I don’t want my tax dollars being funneled to a candidate who I have no interest in supporting. Second, this amounts to incumbent protection. Incumbents have a built in advantage when running for reelection because of their name recognition. A challenger needs to have the ability to raise as much money as possible to boost their profile to the public to overcome that recognition advantage of the incumbent opponent.
There is a plus side, however, that Mr. Davis does bring up. Let’s face it, unless you are running for a small local office, you need to be either a well known person or very wealthy. This basically keeps us regular Joe Schmoes out of most political races. Public financing would open the door to more of your average citizens to run for office and truly make us a citizen legislature.
