State’s major parties raise $3.5 million

AUGUSTA – State committees for Maine’s two major political parties raised a total of $3.5 million during the 1999-2000 election cycle, the 27th highest total among the states, figures from a continuing national study of soft money spending show.

The $3.5 million was reported to state campaign finance regulators and could have been spent by the parties on races from the presidential down to legislative contests, as well as on party-building activities.

The total raised in Maine is only a tiny fraction of the $610 million raised by all of the states’ political party committees during the last election cycle, the study shows.

The Washington, D.C.-based Centers for Public Integrity and Center for Responsive Politics, and the Montana-based National Institute on Money in State Politics are analyzing the preliminary figures to determine the impact of unregulated soft money on state politics.

New York topped the list of states, with nearly $92 million collected by state party committees, the groups’ ranking shows. Vermont ranked 45th, with a total of $982,192, and New Hampshire party committees reported receiving $367,641, giving the state a No. 49 ranking.

Maine law sets no limits on how much the national party committees, individuals, corporations, political action committees and labor unions can contribute to state party committees.

Maine law does limit how much those groups can give to individual candidates.

Vermont places $2,000 limits on contributions from all of the categories to parties, while New Hampshire limits only contributions by individuals to state parties, setting the cap at $5,000 per election.

The national party committees report their soft money fund raising and spending to the Federal Election Commission, but state party committees do not.

Dwayne Bickford, executive director of the Maine Republican Party, estimated the GOP took in $1.4 million to $1.6 million of the total $3.5 million during the last election cycle.

Bickford said Monday that much of the money goes to party-building activities rather than to individual candidates. He added that the total does not seem high given limits many other states place on how much money parties can receive.

Maine Democratic Chairwoman Gwethalyn Phillips agreed that the $3.5 million collected by both parties seemed realistic, but said GOP estimates of how much her party took in were overblown.

Phillips said that with a small base of contributors within Maine, the state party depends on donations from out-of-state sources. Much of the money, she said, goes to voter identification, get-out-the-vote efforts and other field operations.

The ongoing “State Secrets” study by the three nonprofit groups will attempt to calculate how much unregulated soft money flows into and out of state and local party committees. The groups believe their study is the first of its kind focusing on soft money at the state level.

The study will also show how much each of the parties collected and which industries and organizations gave the most.

National legislation to ban soft money became stalled in Congress last week by a procedural roadblock. The bill seeks to regulate money donated to political parties from corporations, unions and individuals, and restrict certain political ads in the final days of an election.