HARTFORD, Conn. – A Maine legislator calls her state’s decision to adopt public financing of election campaigns a “noble experiment.”

From where she sits, she told Connecticut lawmakers, the experiment is working just fine.

Maine state Sen. Lynn Bromley, D-South Portland, was one of four politicians who testified last week in favor of a bill to bring public financing – that is, the use of state tax dollars to pay for political campaigns – to Connecticut.

The Connecticut General Assembly approved a public financing bill last year that was vetoed by Gov. John G. Rowland. Supporters say they will try again this year and are touting Maine as an example of a state where public financing works.

Bromley, a social worker and former small-business owner, ran for Senate in 1998 under traditional rules of campaign finance. Like others, she tried to raise as much money from as many private sources as she could.

In the end, Bromley raised and spent about $32,000 – more than she expected but only half as much as her opponent, a three-term incumbent who was then Senate minority leader. Bromley lost.

Two years later, Bromley faced an entirely different campaign. With the incumbent forced out of office by term limits, she ran for an open seat.

Even more important, Maine’s Clean Election system had begun.

Under a package of laws approved by voters in 1996, candidates who agreed to voluntary spending limits received up to $17,000 for a contested Senate election.

The funding allotments, while small, kept Bromley and her opponent competitive. Bromley was elected.

Nor was the outcome the only difference, Bromley said Friday. Her second campaign was far more of a grass-roots effort than the first and relied far more on volunteers and small mailings.

Even better, she said, she can now bypass the lobbyists that she needed for campaign funding in 1998.

“I feel unencumbered. It feels fabulous,” she told a Connecticut legislative committee that oversees election law and is the main battlefield for reform measures.

“I absolutely believe that in Maine, money does not buy votes in the way that we see in movies and TV,” Bromley said.

“But I am convinced that we listen differently and give unintentional, increased access to those who make out big checks to our campaigns.”

Bromley and other speakers said the Maine law not only takes big money out of campaigns, it encourages more people to run for office. Dozens more candidates ran last year than in 1998, officials said, and the state saw a 40 percent increase in the number of contested primaries.

In all, 116 of 352 candidates participated in the Clean Election system last November; 63 percent of the “clean candidates” were Democrats, 34 percent Republican.

While Republican leaders were less enthusiastic than Democrats about the system, it proved to be an unexpected boon for the GOP. Republicans recruited aggressively – securing candidates for all 35 Senate races and picking up three additional seats.

Even a losing candidate praised the system. Jolene Lovejoy, a Republican who ran for the state House, said she feels better knowing that her opponent ran with public funds, rather than accepting money from special interest groups and other private sources.