Court leaves NC campaign finance law untouched
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North Carolina's system of publicly financed judicial campaigns remained intact Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge over a provision for additional funds in expensive races.
The justices declined, without comment, to consider the constitutionality of a voluntary program passed by the Legislature and that took effect in 2004.
The program provides campaign money for state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals candidates if they agree to fundraising restrictions leading up to the general election. The decision came on the eve of an election in which all but two of the 13 candidates for those seats Tuesday participated in the program.
The decision leaves a federal lower court ruling in effect that upheld the law, which has been a model for other states, including New Mexico.
"This gives supporters of judicial public financing and public financing in general confidence and assurance that the long line of decisions (supporting) public financing ... are still the law of the land," said Paul Ryan, an attorney with the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, whose group earlier filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the law.
Former Supreme Court candidate Rusty Duke and the North Carolina Right to Life Committee sued over the law in 2005, arguing it restricted free speech rights in cases where outside groups or nonparticipating candidates exceeded spending thresholds.
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A no-fault insurance system, such as workers’ comp, works by paying claims regardless of who is to blame for an accident. This provides an important layer of protection for injured workers, sparing them from having to through additional litigation and the through the additional burden of proving who was at fault before receiving benefits.
In Illinois, even though you don’t have to prove that your injury was your employer’s fault, you do have to prove that your injury happened at work or as a result of work. If you would like help to file your workers' compensation claim, Krol, Bongiorno, & Given’s experienced workers' comp lawyers are here to help. With over 60 years of combined legal experience, the KBG law firm is a leader in the field of workers’ compensation law and we have earned the reputation as aggressive advocates for injured workers before the IWCC.