Corporate Money Should Not Control North Carolina Elections

North Carolina voters are being asked this November to consider constitutional amendments concerning taxes, local government finances, and voting requirements. These proposals show that the General Assembly is willing to place constitutional changes before the people when it believes they serve important policy objectives. I am concerned, however, that the current proposals would disproportionately benefit wealthy taxpayers and powerful political constituencies while doing little to address the growing influence of corporate money in our elections. North Carolina voters should also have the opportunity to decide whether corporations and other legal entities should be permitted to use treasury funds to influence candidate elections and ballot measures. Corporate entities are created and empowered under state law. The General Assembly therefore has a responsibility to determine whether political spending should be treated as an ordinary corporate power. I urge you to sponsor and support a North Carolina Transparent Election Amendment. It should make clear that corporations, limited liability companies, and other business entities may not use their their funds to support or oppose candidates, political parties, or ballot measures. It should also address indirect spending through subsidiaries, intermediaries, trade associations, and nonprofit organizations, while protecting individuals who wish to participate in politics using their own money. The amendment should be carefully drafted. It should not prohibit ordinary business communications, lobbying, litigation, journalism, communications with members or employees, or individuals’ independent political activity. It should also preserve appropriate disclosure and enforcement mechanisms so that political spending cannot be routed through another entity to conceal its original source. A similar proposal has been advanced in Montana by the Transparent Election Initiative. Known as the Montana Plan, it seeks to define the powers granted to corporations and exclude political spending from those powers, rather than simply imposing a direct restriction on corporate speech. The proposal is legally untested, but it offers a serious framework for addressing corporate and opaque political spending while respecting the rights of individual citizens. While the Supreme Court has limited some restrictions on corporate independent expenditures, but it has not prevented states from defining corporate powers. Because North Carolina has no citizen-initiative process, this reform requires legislative action. Please support introducing, debating, and referring a carefully drafted Transparent Election Amendment to voters in a future election.