Federal court throws out N.C. campaign-finance law
By The Associated Press
10.29.01
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RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge declared unconstitutional a North Carolina campaign-finance law that barred big-money contributions to special-interest groups helping the campaigns of like-minded politicians.
Judge Terrence W. Boyle ruled last week that the state placed an unconstitutional limit on free speech with a 1999 law governing how political action committees raise money for their own efforts to help North Carolina candidates. The decision does not affect campaigns for federal office.
The law had restricted PACs from accepting contributions of more than $4,000 from an individual. The challenge to the law was brought by the North Carolina Right to Life Committee.
Boyle’s decision, issued Oct. 24, will allow individuals to make unlimited contributions to ideologically oriented PACs that run independent campaigns on behalf of candidates, thus avoiding contribution limits directly to the candidate’s campaign.
State Attorney General Roy Cooper said the state plans to appeal Boyle’s decision.
“This would cause serious disruption of our campaign-finance laws, and we’re going to ask the courts to review it,” Cooper said.
The ruling means advocacy groups could heavily advertise on television in next year’s elections, free of some of the financial restrictions faced by campaigns.
Paul Stam, an Apex attorney representing the anti-abortion group, welcomed the decision.
The decision “just follows the explicit command of the U.S. Constitution to make no law ‘abridging the freedom of speech,’ ” Stam said. “The General Assembly doesn’t like really free speech, especially free speech that talks about politicians. Under our system people are free to talk about politicians without limitations.”
Boyle’s ruling also said North Carolina had too broadly defined a political committee. The definition includes groups running ads that do not explicitly advocate support or defeat of a candidate, but a “reasonable person” would conclude that the “essential nature” of the ad has the same result.
Groups that avoid the political committee designation are exempt from a number of regulations on contributions, expenditures and disclosure of information.
Supporters of the law said it prevented contributors from funneling large donations on behalf of a candidate through independent groups and blocked special-interest groups from forcing a politician to do something by threatening him or her with an expensive negative advertising campaign.
The judge’s ruling is “one more step in taking the agenda of political discussion away from politicians and parties and putting it in the hands of interest groups,” said Keat Wiles, an election law attorney in Raleigh.
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