Clean elections

Your editorial (Nov. 13) about the Civil Liberties Union challenge to clean elections contained a factual error. Your readers should know that the question of independent expenditures has been handled fairly and with an even hand in both the law and the implementing rules.

The new law takes no step to ban or discourage independent expenditures. They are a rightfully protected form of free speech. Since the intent of these expenditures is to influence the outcome of an election, however, Maine law has long required disclosure so that citizens will know who is paying.

Under the Clean Election Act, reporting of independent expenditures will be even more important, at least in races in which at least one candidate has chosen to participate in the new funding option. The reason is that participating candidates, who are barred from soliciting private donations or dipping into their own pockets for campaign cash, are entitled to dollar-for-dollar matching funds whenever they are outspent by either their opponent or independent expenditures directed against their campaigns (or in favor of their opposition). By the same token, any matching funds which participating candidates are due would be decreased by the value of similar expenditures made in their behalf.

The Ethics Commission spent a good part of 1998 drafting workable, fair rules for the Clean Election Act. As someone who participated in that long process, I can say with confidence that the aim at all times was to flesh out this new campaign finance option in a way that was true to the spirit of the law, would work in real life and which would fit as seamlessly as possibly into the body of existing campaign finance law. The treatment of independent expenditure reporting accomplishes these goals and is fair to all concerned. Alison Smith League of Women Voters of Maine Augusta