AUGUSTA — A legislative showdown over the state’s clean election law looms, following lawmakers’ failure Tuesday to reach a consensus on a bill designed to conform the public campaign finance program with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
In a party-line vote, lawmakers on the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee voted 7-5 to simply strip the Maine Clean Election Act of a matching funds provision that allowed publicly funded candidates to receive more money to counter spending by privately financed candidates or outside groups.
The panel was charged with conforming the Maine Clean Election Act with a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down the use of matching funds in an Arizona law modeled after Maine’s law. The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices introduced two proposals to meet that mandate, but Republicans on the panel balked at both plans, saying the costs associated with them were uncertain and that such alternatives could adversely affect the 2012 election.
Opponents said the GOP’s decision to “do nothing” threatened the viability of the Clean Election Act, a program initiated by voters in 1996 and popular with candidates in both parties. Nearly 80 percent of the legislators elected in 2010 ran as clean election candidates.
The Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, the law’s lead advocacy group, said the majority vote on Tuesday was the first step in dismantling the program.
“The last thing Maine people want is to have more special-interest money in campaigns,” Alison Smith, with the clean elections group, said. “We’ll work very hard to make sure that the majority proposal doesn’t become law.”
Smith said that may include a future citizens initiative to strengthen the law if what lawmakers pass next session ends up weakening the program.
“This system works, and we’re going to do what we can to make sure Maine people have a system that continues to work,” she said.
The prospect of a referendum might revive the negotiations that failed in committee. Additionally, it’s clear whether Democrats will use the clean election law’s populist appeal in their attempts to win over Republican lawmakers who may not want to see the program wither.
Rep. Mike Carey, D-Lewiston, is the lead Democrat on the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee. He believes GOP lawmakers will have to reconcile the program’s popularity with it potentially becoming nonviable.
“I think we can get beyond some of the partisan games that we saw today and see that there’s a way to fix the system and preserve what the people asked us to do,” Carey said. “That’s to provide an effective public campaign finance system that the voters put into law.”
The Maine Clean Election Act went into effect in 2000.
Currently, clean election legislative candidates earn public funding by gathering a number of $5 donations. The small donations, supporters say, not only allow candidates to get their fundraising completed early and encourage voter contact, they also discourage candidates from seeking funding from groups that might call in favors if the individual is elected.
Prior to the court decision, the clean election law awarded candidates access to additional funding, or matching funds, if their opponent or an outside group spent money to oppose them.
The proposal advanced by Democrats would allow publicly financed candidates to earn additional funding by gathering more signatures. It would no longer be triggered by an opponent’s or a group’s spending.
Republicans spurned the so-called tiered proposal. Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, said the plan was “a wink and a nod” at the court ruling on matching funds. Dan Billings, Gov. Paul LePage’s chief legal counsel, added that most candidates would have no choice but to go for the extra money up front, lest they get outspent by a publicly financed opponent who made that decision early.
Billings, a GOP operative who has been advising Republicans during the hearings, said the plan was a “non-starter.”
“It would turn the whole law on its head,” Billings said.
Matching funds have been used in about 30 percent of legislative races. Supporters of the program believe the initial disbursement of taxpayer funds — about $5,000 for a House race and $21,400 for the Senate — should be enough in most races.
However, clean election advocates worry the program won’t be viable without some way for candidates to earn additional funding to remain competitive against wealthy candidates, to respond to incursions by outside political action committees or to run effective campaigns in large districts requiring additional travel.
Smith, of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, said the option supported by the minority and drafted by ethics commission staff allowed candidates to right-size their campaigns.
Some dispute the law’s effectiveness in preventing outside money from entering Maine elections. Billings said the system had “done some good things, but one thing it has not done, in any way, is keep out outside money.”
Billings cited the use of political action committees, which have been used by both parties, and in particular legislative leadership, to circumvent spending caps and provide additional support to publicly financed candidates.
“The idea that it’s got the money out of the system, the evidence doesn’t support it,” Billings said. “It’s shifted the money to the PACs.”
Efforts at PAC reform have been historically thwarted by lawmakers in both parties. But Smith hinted that PAC reform could be part of a future citizens initiative if the clean election act is weakened by lawmakers.
“This body has disappointed us time and time again on PAC reform,” she said. “So there’s no question that there’s another wave of campaign finance reform that could happen.”
The GOP and Democratic plans will be considered by the Legislature when the body convenes in January.
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