House Speaker Joe Hackney (D-Orange, Chatham, Moore) tells Independent Weekly reporter Joe Schwartz that legislative leaders are working on a deal to expand public financing.
Public financing is, of course, the misguided policy that forces progressives to help fund the election campaigns of conservatives, and vice versa. From the story: (emphasis is mine)
How will ethics reform be addressed and what beyond the issue of illegal campaign donations needs to be considered?
We have a whole package being developed; it includes three bills that we passed already last year that the House has passed, that the Senate didn’t feel like it had time to take up. Then in addition to that you have the response to the Citizens United decision, where we hope to put in place pretty stringent reporting and disclosure requirements as to any corporate expenditures of money for campaigns. The governor has sent over several issues having to do with reporting and perhaps barring of campaign contributions for certain categories. We’re trying to negotiate with the Senate an expansion of public financing. There’s a lot of activity there.
JLF’s Daren Bakst, director of legal and regulatory studies, discusses in this brief interview a bill that seeks to expand taxpayer financing of elections at the local level. Chapel Hill conducted a pilot last fall and supporters want other cities and towns to have the authority as well.
I encourage you to read the entire Q&A with Rep. Hackney. He also tells reporter Schwartz he doesn’t anticipate tax increases this year. (emphasis is mine)
Do you expect to raise any taxes, whether it be the cigarette and alcohol tax, or is this summer more about reducing spending?
I do not anticipate any tax increases. I’m just assessing the mood of the members. We raised taxes last year, with great difficulty coming together on a package. There’s unlikely to be much support for that as a solution this time.
