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UPDATED: A fundraising invite for House Speaker Thom Tillis sent earlier this month announced a special "appreciation" event for the special interest political committees that lobby at the statehouse. The cost: $4,000, the maximum contribution.

It underlines Republican legislative leaders huge reliance on PACs for campaign money. According to a Democracy North Carolina report released Thursday, GOP leaders Tillis and Phil Berger raised more money from the special interest groups than their Democratic predecessors.

About 36 percent of Tillis' $946,000 raised so far this election cycle came from PACs. For Berger, the Senate leader, PACs contributed one-third of his $974,000, according to the advocacy group, which supports public campaign financing. In their last term in power, Democratic House and Senate leaders raised no more than one-quarter of their money from PACs, the report said.

Incumbent members of the U.S. House are "crushing" their opponents in fundraising, according to a new report by Democracy North Carolina.

The report looked at fundraising in the 13 races for the state's seats in the U.S. House and found that incumbents have a 5-1 advantage in the money race.

"The source of the big advantage, for both Democrats and Republicans, is their heavy reliance on donations from PACs — which so far supply more than half of the incumbents' campaign funds but only 4 percent of the challengers' money," wrote Bob Hall, director of the group, which seeks to limit the influence of big money on elections.

The report also found that on June 30, incumbents had 16 times the cash as their opponents, leaving a $7 million to $430,000 advantage.

Bob Hall, whose complaint led to the State Board of Elections hearings this week, praised the board's decision.

Hall, executive director of Democracy N.C., said the board sent a strong message that it is illegal to try to funnel contributions through a political party.

It’s a sad day when evidence justifies referring a governor for criminal investigation, but it’s in the best interest of the public and of the thousands of candidates who are acting properly for the State Board to make it clear that no one is above the law.  In another unanimous vote, the Board recommended that the General Assembly amend state law to require the candidate to personally bear the cost of fines imposed as a result of election law violations if the candidate’s campaign committee is too broke to pay. Again, the Board sends a strong message that candidates must be held accountable for the conduct of their campaign.

A campaign finance watchdog says university boosters are big givers.

Bob Hall, president of Democracy North Carolina, announced today that two political action committees tied to trustees and boosters of UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State have given heavily to state legislators.

Citizens for Higher Education, which is tied to Tar Heel boosters, gave $485,000 in the 2007-08 election cycle and $425,000 in 2005-06. It was one of the five largest PAC contributors in the last election.

The University Development Coalition, which supports the Wolfpack, gave $100,500 in the last election.

According to Hall's research, 76 percent of the 170 legislators in office today have received contributions from one or both PAC, including Senate leader Marc Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney, who each received $24,000.

Hall said the donations are of interest as the legislature considers whether to end a program that allows out-of-state athletes to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges.

The program is estimated to cost about $10 million a year.

Democracy North Carolina says 2008 was the Year of the Voter.

In a year-end recap, the nonpartisan voting rights group says high interest in the Democratic primary and the November elections made this "a banner for voter participation."

A few of the numbers it cites:

VOTER TURNOUT: North Carolina led the nation as the state with the biggest increase in voter turnout over 2004. A record 4.35 million Tar Heels cast ballots in the general election, a big jump over the 3.55 million in 2004 and a 70 percent turnout of 6.2 million registered voters, compared to the 64% turnout in 2004.

EARLY VOTING: A record 2.4 million people voted at 368 Early Voting sites across the state. That's more than double the number who voted at the 250 sites opened in the 2004 general election. Another 228,000 voted absentee by mail, bringing the total number of early voters to 2.64 million, or 61 percent of all voters.

SAME-DAY VOTING: During 2008, just over 49,000 used Same Day Registration to participate in the primary and another 188,000 used it during the general election. About half of them were first-time voters in the county, while the other half used the new law to update an old registration.

BLACK VOTERS: More than one million African Americans voted in North Carolina in 2008. In 2004, only 59 percent of registered black voters turned out compared to 66 percent of registered whites. But in 2008, a record 74 percent voted, surpassing the rate of whites (69 percent) for the first time.

PUBLIC FINANCING: Eleven of the 12 candidates in contested races for the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals qualified for public financing, as did nine of the 11 candidates in the primary and four of the six candidates in the general for auditor, insurance commissioner and schools superintendent.

Still, the group saw room for improvement in voter involvement.

"One third of the voting-age citizens didn't vote in 2008, so we have plenty of room for improvement, but this year showed the way toward moving North Carolina closer to a government of, for, and by the people," said Director Bob Hall.

Beverly Perdue's campaign reform plan drew praise — and attacks — in broad strokes.

N.C. Voters for Clean Elections, a coalition of about 30 campaign reform groups and nonprofits, released a statement today applauding the Democratic gubernatorial candidates plan to provide public funding to gubernatorial candidates who pledge to run positive campaigns.

Chase Foster, coordinator of the coalition, said Perdue is showing "important leadership," but he would not discuss the feasability or details of the plan.

"I'm not commenting on the details of the proposal," Foster replied when asked about the feasibility of the plan. "What's important here is that the proposal raises the problem of current privately financed campaigns."

Bob Hall, executive director of coalition member Democracy North Carolina, said also he would not "quibble with the details," as did field organizer Jonathan Peterson.

"There may be more intricacies that need to be worked out but we recognize that this is a positive step of  gubernatorial candidate supporting public financing of elections," he said.

Meantime, John Hood of the conservative John Locke Foundation also described the proposal in broad strokes.

"It makes no sense, it solves no problem and it'll never happen anyway," he said.

Fifty-six legislators face no opposition this fall.

Fourteen Senate candidates and 42 House candidates will be elected without primary or general election opponents, based on filings with the State Board of Elections.

Among them: Senate leader Marc Basnight; House Speaker Joe Hackney; Former House Minority Leader Jonathan Rhyne, a Lincolnton lawyer who hasn't been a state lawmaker for 15 years; and Rep. Phil Frye, a Mitchell County Republican who recently was pulled over for driving while impaired.

"This is again another year where we don't have enough people running for office," said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. "Hopefully there will be more attention to that and more support for reforms."

He supports creating an independent commission to draw legislative districts, shortening the legislative session, boosting lawmakers salaries and publicly financing legislative races. (N&O)

Richard Moore's roads reform plan could push fundraising into the shadows.

Bob Hall, executive director of campaign finance reform group Democracy North Carolina, said that the current method of raising money for an appointment to the state Board of Transportation smacks of political patronage.

"It's the closest thing we have to feudalism in North Carolina," he said. 

Still, he said it has the advantage of transparency, since reporters and others can easily point out how much money a board member has given through campaign finance reports. He praised Moore's plan to bar campaign donations and bundling as a good start. 

But he said there are loopholes. He worried that the ban on direct giving could just push the money farther down the chain, with political donors asking for business associates or friends to be named to a post instead.

"That makes it much more difficult to follow the money," he said. 

A new report by Democracy North Carolina shows that members of the state’s congressional delegation are raising four times as much money as they did a generation ago, even adjusting for inflation.

“They just love pulling in the money, I guess,” said Bob Hall, executive director of the non-partisan watchdog organization. "Most of them are not facing that much competition. I think a lot of it is building your war chests to push away competitors.”

In 1980, the average congressional incumbent from North Carolina who faced a challenger raised $145,500 -- or $356,000 in today’s dollars, reports Barb Barrett.

In 2006, the average amount was nearly $1.4 million, according to the project.

Last year, the state’s 13 members of Congress raised a collective $17 million, the report said.

About 40 percent of that came from political action committees sponsored by groups such as real-estate agents, unions, medical providers and political parties.

Challengers raised about a third as much, the report said. Only one of the challengers – Democrat Heath Shuler of Waynesville – won a race. Shuler defeated GOP Rep. Charles Taylor, who had raised more than $4 million, including $2.5 million of his own money.

“It’s certainly not 100 percent that if you get the most money you will win,” Hall said.

Three legislators did not report more than $10,000 in donations.

According to a survey of Mecklenburg County lawmakers by The Charlotte Observer, Huntersville Democratic Rep. Drew Saunders' reports did not include $15,250 in donations that political action committees reported giving him.

Rep. Beverly Earle, a Charlotte Democrat running for mayor, did not report $10,700.

Sen. Bill Purcell, a Laurinburg Democrat, did not report $10,000. He was one of a handful of legislators from other parts of the state included in the survey as part of random sample.

The missing money could be simply bookkeeping errors. But Bob Hall, research director for the nonpartisan Democracy North Carolina, said there were "too many examples" to dismiss them as simply carelessness.