North Carolina: Right to Life and a judge file suit
From a press release by the James Madison Center for Free Speech: Today, Judge Barbara Jackson of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, along with North Carolina Right to Life Committee Fund for Independent Political Expenditures and North Carolina Right to Life State Political Action Committee, filed a class action federal suit in the Middle District of North Carolina against the state's public funding provisions as an unconstitutional infringement on their First Amendment free speech rights.
Judge Jackson, who won her seat for the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the 2004 general election and intends to run again in 2012, is challenging the effect the financing scheme has on candidates who are not participating in the scheme, but who intend to raise their own campaign funds. In her 2004 judicial campaign for appellate judge, she did not qualify to participate in the public financing scheme but found that her ability to raise and spend funds on her own was severely restricted under the funding scheme. She brings this suit on behalf of herself as well as all judicial candidates who do not qualify to participate in the public financing scheme.