N.C. Court of Appeals candidate Kristin Ruth said today that she has returned roughly $13,000 in public money given to her campaign through a quirk in the state's election laws.
"This was an unintended consequence of North Carolina's excellent system of public financing that led to an unnecessary expenditure of public money," Ruth said in a news release.
Ruth, a Wake County District Court judge, called on her opponent in the election, Sam Ervin IV to also return an equal sum given to him, Dan Kane reports. Ervin, a Morganton lawyer and utilities commissioner, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Both candidates are Democrats vying for one of five contested appeals court seats. The races are supposed to be nonpartisan and nearly all of the candidates have opted for public financing. Judges are supposed to be impartial, so the nonpartisan, publicly funded campaigns are intended to take the focus away from politics and remove the possibility of judges being beholden to campaign donors.
But last week, the N.C. Democratic Party decided to jump into the races by spending roughly $13,000 on the Democratic candidates for the appeals court and the N.C. Supreme Court. The money went towards a widely distributed mailer and advertising in newspapers that predominately serve African-American readers.
Such outside expenditures trigger what are known as public "rescue" funds to the opponents to prevent an unfair advantage. But since Ruth and Ervin oppose each other, they received the rescue funds, even though equally benefited from the party's spending.
That means the public would have been spending $26,000 unnecessarily. Ruth's decision cuts that amount by half.
"In keeping with my years of working to save money within the court system, I am returning these funds to the taxpayers," she said.
Update: Ervin later today said he too would not accept the rescue funds.
He added that he is also turning down another $3,000 in rescue funds that election officials had told him were on the way.
He was unsure what triggered those funds.
"I received a call from a reporter today saying that my opponent has apparently decided to return the rescue funds that our campaigns received last week," Ervin said. "I intend to do the same. Also, my campaign was notified this afternoon that the state is dispersing another check to my campaign for about $3,000 in additional rescue funds. I have instructed my campaign to return the check as soon as we receive it."
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Re: Court candidate to return rescue cash
I'd rather you spent that money removing your yard signs from the shoulders of I-40. Consistency is a powerful message, so trashing-up I-40 seems to conflict with any general benefits proposed by the candidate. When you get into politics, play full-court (lame jurist humor).
It may seem like the ghetto "exit 343 furniture" signs were more of a eyesore, but the DOT's removed them (hip, hip, hurray!) and now the "Ruth" signs stick out like a sore thumb.