WHY THEY CALL IT CLEAN

The latest blow against the Maine Clean Election law may make some people conclude the system cannot work, that politicians are simply too devious and will always find a way around the spirit or letter of the law. But that isn’t the case, and continued public interest in the funding of elections still represents the best antidote to an otherwise demoralizing system.

The latest infractions were hardly hidden from the overseers of the ethics system. House Minority Leader Joe Bruno asked the Ethics Commission whether paying for campaign expenses before the general election would allow GOP candidates to avoid triggering public matching funds for their Clean Election opponents. He apparently was told the commission went only by the date of the donation, so no matching funds would be allocated under this funding scheme.

The commission later supported this decision but Cumberland County Superior Court Justice Roland Cole properly said that was nonsense. If the funds were demonstrably for general election purposes they counted toward triggering matching funds. This is the only sensible course, though it unfortunately comes very late in the election, after two dozen or more Clean Election candidates have been prevented for months from spending funds anywhere near what their opponents were spending.

And this misunderstanding is indicative of other problems with the new law, such as party leaders who are Clean Election candidates also raising funds for the election of other party members or large amounts of private money spent by organizations on behalf of a Clean Election candidate. The common thread among these examples is a disconnection, intentional or not, between what the public supported and how the law is being carried out. In brief, the thought behind the Clean Election law was that reducing the need for candidates to raise money would encourage more people to run for office and keep them from being beholden to those who control political donations.

Certainly this is a threat to party leadership and it is not surprising that leaders have tried to work around it, but no matter the technical wiggle room the law may have inadvertently allowed, its intention is clear enough. The guide might be this: If a race costs tens of thousands of dollars more than the average, if it provides an unusual funding advantage to one opponent, if it stifles rather than stimulates debate, it is counter to the intention of the popularly supported act.

Commenting on his decision to frontload funding for certain races and get around the Clean Election trigger, Rep. Bruno recently said, “It’s not about gaming the system, it’s about winning an election. This is about politics. In politics you try to take every advantage you can.”

That nicely describes why the Clean Election law was passed in the first place, and why the public should continue to pay close attention now.