Mailers from group with GOP connections call for Democrats to run for judge

A new political group run by Republican operatives sent mailers last week to Democrats, asking them to run this year for a statewide judgeship.

"The ruling is in and we want you to run for Judge," the mailer states, with a picture of Uncle Sam pointing. "North Carolina needs strong Democratic voices on the bench for Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals."

The mailer from Alliance for Fairness in Justice apparently went to Democrats who are also attorneys. None of the group's organizers returned messages Monday, leaving their motives unconfirmed.

Democrats suggested one: An effort to flood their side of the ballot in this year's statewide Supreme Court and Court of Appeals races, just as some predicted Republicans would attempt when the General Assembly's GOP majority canceled this year's judicial primaries. Filing for these offices closes Friday.

"Someone went to great expense," said Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, a former District Court judge who got one of the mailers.

It was addressed to her or to "current resident."

"I gave it to my dog," said Morey. "He wasn't a lawyer, so he chewed it up."

The Alliance for Fairness in Justice was established June 15, according to its filing with the Internal Revenue Service. It's a 527 political group, able to take unlimited donations. It will have to identify its donors as early as next month under 527 rules, but for now, they are not known.

Its contact email listed with the IRS is "no@email."

It didn't take Democrats long to sleuth out a few details after Wake County Commissioner John Burns posted pictures of a mailer he received to social media. They found, among other things, an IRS filing and a partly built website.

The group lists three directors: Jim Burton, the former caucus director for state House Republicans; Ted Prill, a partner at KAP Strategies in Texas and a veteran of various Republican campaigns; and Chevy Weiss, a consultant based in Israel, according to her online resume.

KAP Strategies worked before in North Carolina, with the North Carolina Chamber as its biggest client. The chamber spent $12,000 with the group in March and April, all for mailers, according to the state Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement's database of campaign expenses.

The chamber has nothing to do with the Alliance for Fairness in Justice, spokespeople said Monday. It paid KAP Strategies for mail pieces supporting candidates in state legislative races earlier this year, Communications Manager Chloe Madsen said in an email.

The chamber was a major player in North Carolina's 2016 Supreme Court race, which ended up being one of the most expensive state judicial races ever.

Gerry Cohen, a longtime legislative and elections attorney who was one of several local politicos researching Alliance for Fairness in Justice over the weekend, called the mailer campaign "completely bizarre." The filing fee in these statewide judicial races is more than $1,400, and Cohen said he couldn't imagine attorneys, Democrats or otherwise, deciding to seek office in the last week of qualifying because of a mailer.

The effort struck him as "a classic dirty tricks campaign," he said.

The GOP's legislative majority has been tinkering with the state courts in recent years, and Democrats are making it a major issue coming into this year's legislative elections, accusing Republicans of trying to "rig the courts." For decades, judicial elections in North Carolina were partisan affairs, but they became nonpartisan after 2002.

The Republican majority changed that back in 2016 and 2017, then decided to cancel this year's primaries while they debated judicial redistricting. Democrats filed an unsuccessful federal lawsuit to reinstate the primaries. Among their arguments: The Supreme Court and Court of Appeals races on the ballot are unaffected by redistricting efforts since they're statewide.

The primaries were still canceled, though, leading to concerns that the November judicial ballots will present long lists of poorly recognized candidates to unsuspecting voters. So far, that hasn't come to fruition. The Republican and Democratic parties have endorsed favored candidates, but other candidates are free to run, and nothing on the ballot will indicate who has been endorsed.

Because the primaries were canceled, candidates could change political affiliation just before they file and appear on the ballot as a Democrat or a Republican.