Republican Group Will Focus on Judicial Races
A Republican organization dedicated to electing state and local officials will broaden its scope and begin targeting judicial races, bringing outside money and sophisticated campaign tactics to one of the last calm backwaters of politics.
The Republican State Leadership Committee said Tuesday it will launch the Judicial Fairness Initiative, a project aimed at backing judge candidates with conservative ideologies. The group will help coordinate resources between judicial candidates and party committees, and will help contact voters on behalf of those candidates.
“Republicans have had a significant amount of success at the state level, not only being elected to offices but implementing bold conservative solutions,” Matt Walter, president of the RSLC, said in an interview. “Unfortunately, that’s running into a hard stop with judges who aren’t in touch with the public.”
The RSLC has already contributed $650,000 to Justice for All NC, a conservative group organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code. That group has started spending money on a television ad that attacks North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson over a dissenting opinion she wrote in a 2010 case involving three sex offenders.