I mentioned two weeks ago the efforts to a) end the state’s public financing of judicial elections and b) a parallel effort to revert the state’s judicial elections from nonpartisan back to partisan ones. While it looked likely partisan elections were on the way back, the situation is now much less clear.
HB 452, originally written to end public financing, was committee-amended into a return of partisan elections, similar to HB 64. HB 452 was approved by the full House on June 7.
Meanwhile, the Senate version of HB 64 (SB 67) advanced through the Senate on June 8. However, the House Committee on Elections took SB 67 and added on the “Faithful Presidential Electors Act”, requiring those who are sent to the Electoral College to vote only for the President/Vice-Presidential candidate chosen by the state. It also added on contribution limitations on contributions from State vendors and a whole host of other items related to elections, including (according to the Fayetteville Observer)
- Ends public financing for Council of State elections
- Cuts a week out of the early voting calendar, ends Sunday voting and repeals same-day voter registration
- Ends straight-ticket voting
- Lets corporations make donations directly to party “headquarters funds,” which can be used for a variety of purposes
Damon Circosta, executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, told the Raleigh News & Observer the amendments “[S]howed up with no notice…The first time that anybody outside of a small group of Republican legislators saw it was in a committee meeting.”
SB 67, with the litany of amendments, initially failed in the House Elections Committee because the committee chair miscounted the number of Republicans in the room when he called the vote. The error was fixed yesterday when the committee voted to approve the bill and it has been placed on the calendar for today (June 16).
