Let’s say you’re a liberal whose values include a larger, more activist local government that requires businesses to pay at least $15 per hour to every worker, provide abortion coverage as part of a standard insurance package, prohibit property owners from cutting down trees, and devote 20 percent of every town construction project to public art.
Well guess what. If the state legislature authorizes local governments to use public dollars for local election campaigns — the local push for this authority is illustrated by what just took place in Cary –– liberals would be forced to help pay for the election campaigns of conservative candidates who oppose liberal core values. Conservatives would face the same reality: being forced to help fund liberal candidates whose values and ideas they oppose. And those who choose to opt out of the local political process, which is their right, would be forced to fund an effort they want nothing to do with.
The push by local governments comes in the wake of Chapel Hill’s pilot program last fall. In the brief interview below, JLF’s Daren Bakst offers his view of what would result.
