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RALEIGH — The State Board of Elections wants to know more about how the Greensboro-based N.C. Association of Realtors raised and distributed money in its fight against increases to the land transfer tax three years ago.

A hearing this afternoon will review whether the group violated any laws when it required members to pay dues that in turn went to fund campaignlike efforts.

“If a trade association can require members to put money in as a condition of their membership... and use the money for what amounts to a referendum committee, then that is opening the door to a lot of really corrupting activity,” said Bob Hall , who leads the elections watchdog group Democracy North Carolina.

Today’s state board hearing is the first since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January in the Citizens United case. That ruling opens the door wider to corporations — including trade associations and labor unions — having a say in elections, while subjecting that involvement to disclosure requirements.

However, North Carolina law doesn’t provide rules governing how that spending might be disclosed. The Realtors case, according to both outside observers and those involved in the case, could help the elections board figure out the impact of the Citizens United case and what changes might be needed.

“It might give board members an opportunity to understand the campaign finance world post Citizens United,” said John Wallace , a lawyer for the Realtors.

The roots of the North Carolina case can be traced to 2007, when the General Assembly gave counties the ability to raise the land transfer tax — paid when homes and other property are sold — from 0.2 percent to 0.6 percent of a property’s price. That would raise an additional $800 on the sale of a $200,000 home.

The Realtors waged a ferocious lobbying campaign against the tax. When the group failed to persuade the General Assembly, it set up individual referendum committees to battle the tax in any county where the board of commissioners put a transfer tax to the voters.

So far, of 24 transfer tax referendums, none have passed.

In 2008, Wake County Realtor Becky Harper balked at a $70 special assessment the Realtors levied to replenish the group’s “Issues Mobilization” fund.

“I am required to be a member of NCAR ... to have access to the (Multiple Listing Service) system, the primary tool of my businesses,” Harper wrote in July of 2008 as part of a formal complaint .

While state law allows trade associations and others to create political committees, it prohibits them from raising money by “dues, fees, or other moneys required as a condition of membership or employment.”

Harper’s lawyer, Michael Weisel of Raleigh, said he plans to introduce evidence today that shows the Realtors spent more than $2.6 million on its lobbying efforts combined with its work on each individual transfer tax referendum, even if the members funding that spending disagreed with the aims of the efforts.

If accurate, that would be more than backers of a statewide constitutional amendment spent in 2004 .

“The amounts spent are more than people previously believed because no one has examined the local referenda committees,” Weisel said.

Only by compiling documents from local boards of elections across the state can one get an accurate picture of the Realtors’ spending, he said.

Wallace said Weisel was conflating several different numbers.

“I think he’s adding up a lot of different things from different sources and concluding they are attributable to one project,” Wallace said. 

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com