League of Women Voters of North Carolina

If you enter a courtroom as a litigant, it is your right to expect three
things: The judge is impartial, the judge is fair, and the judge is
knowledgeable about the law.

Wouldn't you be upset if you had a case before a judge who had expressed
an opposing position on cases such as yours during his or her campaign?
Wouldn't you be equally upset to know that your opponent in the case was
a major campaign contributor to the judge?

Judges are not supposed to be politicians who respond to the ups and
downs of public sentiment or who use their power to push an agenda. They
must examine the facts, decide cases without bias, and interpret laws
using sound principles grounded in the state and federal constitutions.
For these reasons, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina has
consistently supported "merit" selection of judges since 1972. However,
the North Carolina Constitution calls for judges to be elected. It is up
to the voters and state legislature to change the constitution to
implement merit selection, but a recent survey shows that 86 percent of
North Carolinians prefer to elect judges.

The League, The Charlotte Observer, N.C. Supreme Court justices, and
many others may favor a change to merit selection, but that does not
seem likely in the near future. State legislators took the public's view
into consideration when they passed the N.C. Judicial Reform Act in
2002. The League supports this new law, which keeps but greatly improves
the election system for choosing N.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals
judges, beginning in 2004.

The law takes the party labels off judicial candidates, so they are not
beholden to a partisan agenda. It sets up a public financing option for
candidates who accept fund raising limits, so they are not beholden to
special interests or large campaign donors. And it creates a Judicial
Voter Guide, so voters get more information about the qualifications and
professional experience of the candidates.

The public financing option and voter guide will only work if the public
participates. Those programs are paid for by a Public Campaign Financing
Fund, which receives $3 for every taxpayer who marks a check-off box on
the 2003 N.C. income-tax form. The check-off asks people to select Yes
or No for the Public Campaign Financing Fund after this statement: "This
Fund pays for a nonpartisan voter guide and helps fund judicial
candidates who accept strict fundraising and spending limits. Do you
agree that $3 should go to this Fund? Filling in a circle below will not
increase your tax or reduce your refund."

To ensure real public "ownership" of judicial elections and to preserve
the integrity of our courts, the League urges everyone to answer "Yes"
to the new Public Campaign Financing Fund.

Whether people favor or oppose judicial merit selection isn't the
question to ask right now. There's another reform, newly won but still
unfunded, that presents a more immediate question: If you believe that
judges should be impartial and independent of political pressure, please
say "Yes" to judicial fairness on your N.C. income tax return.

Peg Chapin of Charlotte is co-chair of the League of Women Voters of
North Carolina.