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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Manchin</p>           CHARLESTON (Legal Newsline) -- Before West Virginia ever holds a publicly financed election for two Supreme Court seats in 2012, the law allowing it might have to survive a challenge in court.<br /><br />That's because the Center for Competitive Politics, a group that opposed the legislation before it was signed into law by Gov. Joe Manchin, recently told The Associated Press that it is considering a challenge.<br /><br />\"We oppose taxpayer financing as a matter of policy,\" CCP spokesman Jeff Patch said, according to the AP. <br /><br />\"Money does not get out of politics. It just goes in different directions. We just think this is a waste of time and resources.\"<br /><br />On March 11, CCP wrote Manchin to express its disagreeance with advice given to state lawmakers by the group Justice at Stake.<br /><br />Justice at Stake gave its blessing to the legislation.<br /><br />\"Justice at Stake's legislative advice on this pilot program amounts to a lot of hot air and wishful thinking,\" CCP President Sean Parnell said.<br /><br />\"If the legislature accepts this phony advice, it would be the legal equivalent of directing the state to hold out a tin cup and beg for a lawsuit in these troubled economic times.\"<br /><br />The pilot program will be used for two Supreme Court elections in 2012. Candidates will receive $200,000 for a contested primary and $350,000 for a contested general election.<br /><br />The state Supreme Court race of 2004 between current Justice Brent Benjamin and then-Justice Warren McGraw received national headlines. Two groups -- one financed largely by Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship and one financed largely by trial lawyers -- spent millions of dollars on advertising.<br /><br />The new legislation provides rescue funds to candidates if outside spending reaches a certain level.<br /><br />Justice at Stake says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, of which West Virginia federal courts are a part, upheld the use of rescue funds in publicly financed elections in North Carolina, one of the three states with such a program.<br /><br />CCP agrees, but says the legislation is still on tricky footing because of a more recent U.S. Supreme Court decision \"struck down the so-called Millionaires' Amendment in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which allowed candidates special fundraising privileges if their opponent spent personal funds above a certain amount on their own campaign.\"<br /><br />Two federal judges in Connecticut and Arizona have also rejected publicy financed elections in those states.<br /><br />\"If West Virginia decides to continue electing its judges, the constitution and Supreme Court precedent mandates that it afford candidates and voters full First Amendment rights in their elections,\" Parnell said.<br /><br />Justice at Stake spokesman Charles Hall said in the AP report, \"They're trying to take a limited set of circumstances, and stretch it into a broad principle that overturns more than 30 years of federal court rulings. They are a long way from the finish line.\"<br /><br />"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://wvrecord.com/stories/510598076-group-may-challenge-publicly-financed-election>