Government ethics groups protest ‘dark money’ bill to open NC elections to more anonymous spending

As state lawmakers prepare to pass a bill allowing corporations and anonymous donors to more directly fund individual politicians in North Carolina, advocates for government ethics and transparency flocked to the state legislature Thursday to denounce the changes.

Under current state law, politicians must disclose who’s giving their campaigns money. They can’t take money from corporations at all. And they can only take a maximum of $6,400 from individual people and political groups.

But now, critics say the changes North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders are proposing would create a massive loophole: Allowing for unlimited amounts of untraceable “dark money” to flow into politicians’ campaigns, by using state political parties as the middleman, and without the public being able to see who’s behind it.

“The ability to oversee and understand who’s influencing our elections is really diminished by this policy,” said Ann Webb of the government ethics reform group Common Cause North Carolina.

The state Senate voted to approve the changes last week, prompting all the chamber’s Democratic members to skip the vote in protest. The state House plans to vote on approving the changes Tuesday afternoon.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper could veto the bill — on Tuesday Cooper’s office told WRAL that “political donations should be more transparent, not less” — but Republicans have enough votes in the legislature to override Cooper’s vetoes, and they have done so every time this session.

Republican leaders say the change will level the playing field in the race for governor, to replace the term-limited Cooper.

The latest campaign finance records show Democratic nominee Josh Stein had raised $19.1 million as of February, with $12.7 million left to spend.

Republican nominee Mark Robinson was millions of dollars behind, having raised $10.7 million in that same period, with $4.5 million left to spend.

Super PACs spending millions

While North Carolina’s current campaign finance laws mostly set strict limits on how much money politicians can take from a single source, there are limited exceptions: They can personally loan their own campaigns as much money as they want, and political parties can also give candidates as much as they want.

The new changes to state law would loosen up the rules for state political parties, allowing them to now take money from a type of federal political action committee commonly called Super PACs.

Unlike individual politicians or political parties, Super PACs can keep their donors secret. They can also receive unlimited amounts of funding, including from otherwise banned sources such as labor unions and corporations. For that reason, Super PACs haven’t been allowed to donate money directly to politicians or political parties in North Carolina.

Democrats say the changes are clearly intended to let corporations and others give anonymously to Robinson’s campaign, by giving their money to Super PACs which could then route it through the NCGOP to Robinson.

A Robinson campaign spokesman declined to comment. House Speaker Tim Moore confirmed last week the changes are aimed at the governor’s race, although he said he hadn’t personally spoken with Robinson about it.

“The way the rules have been interpreted seemed to give a balance in favor of the way the Democrats did it,” Moore said.

That’s a reference to a 2020 memo from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, which indicated that a major national Democratic group had taken the necessary extra steps to keep its funds separate depending on where the money came from — which allowed it to send some of its money to the state Democratic Party without breaking state laws.

A similar Republican group had not taken the same steps to be allowed to legally give to the North Carolina Republican Party; GOP leaders say that’s why the law needs to be changed.

“What we’re seeking to do is to level the playing field,” Moore said.

Tied to bill targeting protesters

The campaign finance changes have received further criticism for the way they’ve passed through the legislature, with limited debated and tacked onto an unrelated bill targeting protesters.

Republican lawmakers initially proposed banning people from wearing masks in public for health reasons, saying they believe protesters have taken advantage of that rule, and Covid-era norms on mask-wearing, to hide their identities at demonstrations. Banning masks would make it easier for police to search, detain and potentially arrest people for wearing masks that hide part of their faces, the proposal’s supporters and critics all said.

But after that proposal received widespread backlash, including from fellow GOP lawmakers, legislative leaders agreed to a compromise that would allow people to still wear masks in public to stop the spread of diseases, but clarified that it has to be a medical-grade mask.

The bill will also increase criminal penalties for protesters who block a road, and allow civil lawsuits against the organizers of protests that end up blocking a road, even if the organizer wasn’t personally present.

“Protesting is a part of democracy,” said Dawn Blagrove, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist who leads the group Emancipate North Carolina. “To chill the right to protest is a surefire sign that you are afraid of the people. And when you are afraid of the people you are afraid of their power.”