The North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law recently won their lawsuit that argued the mandatory $50 fee imposed on NC lawyers to support the taxpayer financing system for judicial campaigns is unconstitutional.

A recent letter to the editor in the N & O by the NC Center for Voter Education criticized the holding in the case.  I’ll address the two primary arguments. 

First, the author writes:

The $50 surcharge lawyers pay toward the state’s judicial campaign fund
does not, as Judge Howard Manning suggested, go to an appellate
judicial candidate whom a lawyer might despise or disagree with.
Rather, the money goes into a fund, available to any lawyer who wishes
to run for judicial office, for the purpose of limiting corruption in
our judiciary.

I don’t even have to get into whether taxpayer campaign financing in any way limits corruption (it doesn’t, nor is there a shred of evidence that it does) in order to counter this argument.  Even assuming it did help reduce corruption, what does that have to do with whether lawyers are forced to support candidates and speech they despise or disagree with? 

The author could have just as easily said it doesn’t force lawyers to support candidates they don’t like because the Dodgers beat the Rockies last night (which they did).  There is a complete disconnect.  It is objectively true that lawyers will wind up supporting candidates they despise.  The question isn’t whether it is true, but whether it is worth it.  Supporters of taxpayer financing don’t care whether it violates the First Amendment, whereas I think the First Amendment is groovy.

Second, the author argues that the state uses our money to support all kinds of programs that we don’t agree with, and this is constitutional–the fee for the lawyers is no different. 

General tax dollars for state programs aren’t the same as money in a small and clearly identifiable fund used to give money directly to political candidates.

The law also is very clear on mandatory attorneys fees charged by a Bar Association used for political purposes. 

In 1990, the United States Supreme Court in a case called Keller v. State Bar of California held, in part:

“The State Bar’s use of petitioners’ compulsory dues to finance
political and ideological activities with which petitioners disagree
violates their First Amendment right of free speech when such
expenditures are not necessarily or reasonably incurred for the purpose
of regulating the legal profession or improving the quality of legal
services.“

The only possible issue is whether the coerced speech is necessary or reasonably incurred for the purpose of regulating the legal profession or improving the quality of legal services.

Giving money to judicial candidates has nothing to do with regulating the legal profession.  Judges don’t render legal services, attorneys do, so that wouldn’t apply either.

There is more bad news for taxpayer financing/political welfare proponents, which I’ll discuss soon.