The North Carolina Legislature and the courts have introduced a new type of political committee that can receive unlimited amounts of money from individuals to run ads for or against candidates.

One group already has taken advantage of the changes even before outgoing Gov. Mike Easley has signed legislation to create “independent expenditure political committees” so it can try to help Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory succeed him.

The Republican Governors Association formed an independent expenditure committee just three days after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May that certain political groups can receive more than $4,000 from an individual per election.

The RGA North Carolina 2008 Political Action Committee already has raised $387,300 as of June 30 from three dozen out-of-state residents, with donations ranging from $10 to $100,000, according to a campaign filing with the State Board of Elections.

The committee plans to assist McCrory, who is competing against Democratic Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue in the November election.

Under the new rules, the Republican governor’s committee can run ads that directly support McCrory or oppose Perdue so long as it neither receives corporate nor union donations and doesn’t work with McCrory’s campaign. In the past, committees either had to abide by fundraising restrictions or run commercials that didn’t plainly back a candidate.

The association’s mission “is to help elect Republican governors. We’ve looked at the races this year, and Pat McCrory is a great candidate,” association spokesman Chris Schrimpf said.

The development is a sign that well-funded organizations will attempt to sway the 2008 gubernatorial campaign, as they did through so-called “527” groups in 2004, one campaign finance expert said.

“This opens up one more way that big money can influence elections,” said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina.

The court ruled May 1 that the North Carolina Right to Life Committee wasn’t subject to the $4,000 limit as long as it didn’t coordinate with the candidate.

The judges said the state’s interest in preventing corruption by regulating political donations wasn’t as important as assuring that people could speak freely in support of candidates, as long as they worked independent of the candidates.

“For while appropriate regulation may serve good and useful purposes in many areas, the (U.S.) constitution makes clear that excessive regulation of political speech is suspect,” the judges wrote in the majority opinion.

State elections director Gary Bartlett said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was unlikely to succeed. The case already went to the Supreme Court in 2004, when the justices sent it back to the lower courts to be reconsidered in light of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.