The push continues in the North Carolina General Assembly to expand public financing of election campaigns, which is a clear effort to force you and me to contribute to the campaign fund of candidates with whom we disagree. Francis De Luca of the Civitas Institute provides his take on the issue here.

What is really interesting is that legislators continue their push despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Davis v. Federal Elections Commission. The Locke Foundation’s Daren Bakst makes the case here that the Davis ruling makes North Carolina’s law unconstitutional. Here are three key points from Bakst (emphasis is mine):

In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court in a case called Davis v. Federal Elections Commission struck down a federal law that punished Congressional candidates for spending too much of their own money on their campaigns. Under that law, once personal spending exceeded a threshold level, the opposing candidate was given fundraising advantages.

According to the Court, the punishment was a substantial burden on the free-speech rights of the self-financed candidates and there was no compelling interest for this type of speech regulation.

North Carolina’s public (i.e.) taxpayer financing systems for appellate judicial races and select Council of State races also would be unconstitutional. Any reasonable interpretation of Davis would lead to this conclusion.

Evidently North Carolina lawmakers don’t really care.