Campaign funding issue on warrant

OWLS HEAD — In addition to decisions on their municipal budget and a list of zoning amendments, voters at Owls Head’s town meeting tonight may take a stand on big money and state politics.

Article 24 asks the town to endorse a statement that Owls Head residents “believe that there is way too much money in state elections, and the voices of ordinary citizens are not being heard. We hereby send a message to Augusta asking them to take the influence of money out of politics.”

The article was placed on the warrant by the selectmen at the request of the Money and Politics Project of the Maine Citizen and Leadership Fund of Augusta, which is trying to build support for campaign finance reform from the ground up.

Money and Politics Project spokesman George Christie of Portland said the drive to get the article on local ballots started this spring when the Legislature failed to consider any reform proposals seriously.

“There were 13 bills on campaign finance reform introduced in the Legislature last session, and they all died in the Legal Affairs Committee,” Christie said Saturday. “One legislator at a hearing said Joe Sixpack doesn’t care about this. We say Joe Sixpack and all other Maine citizens are very concerned about the way our elections are being bought by the wealthy special interests.”

The article has appeared on warrants at 17 Maine town meetings so far this year, gaining approval in 11 towns and being defeated in six. “The votes to accept it were overwhelming,” Christie said. “The six that voted `no’ all had very vigorous discussions. There was strong concern about the way campaigns are financed, but the article was rejected because we are not proposing a specific alternative yet. Our goal right now is to spark a debate at the local level, since Augusta is not taking this issue seriously.”

Christie said his group is working with other organizations, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, on a reform package that will be presented at the next legislative session.

The project started after the November 1994 election, Christie said, “when we began studying the candidates’s finance reports in detail, with surprising and discouraging results. We found corporations outspent labor 17-to-1. We found corporations hedging their bets by contributing to one candidate before the election and to the winner after. We found a lot of bundling — large numbers of checks to a candidate coming from people who work for the same company within a few days of each other. We found PACs with misleading names that give no indication of who they represent. We believe a growing number of Maine citizens see our current way of financing campaigns as nothing less than legalized bribery.”

The Owls Head meeting is at 7 p.m. at the community building.