Although an effort to repeal Maine’s Clean Election Act already awaits the 121st Legislature, the growing popularity of public financing among candidates all but assures the law’s continued presence on the books, legislative leaders say.

“While there are some serious issues, this is not an experiment we should abandon,” said House Majority Leader Pat Colwell, a democrat from Gardiner who is expected to be elected speaker of the House today as lawmakers return to Augusta.

The law allows candidates for state office, who qualify by gathering a set number of $5 donations, to use public money to run their campaigns, if they abide by strict spending limits.

Nearly 60 percent of the new and returning lawmakers – Colwell included – participated, an increase from about 45 percent of the 120th legislature.

And nearly twice as many legislative candidates – whether they won or not – opted to dip into the public fund this year. The fund paid out more than double the $885,000 used in legislative races in the 2000 election cycle that marked the law’s debut.

Maine is one of four states with the option of publicly funded campaigns. While increased participation has helped the law win praise as a model for other state legislatures to follow, even the law’s most ardent supporters acknowledged some shortcomings.

The latest challenge comes from newly seated Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, still stinging from a barrage of last-minute privately funded mailings from a political action committee on behalf of his publicly funded Republican opponent that he said misrepresented his record as a county commissioner.

“I don’t see what’s so clean about it,” Damon said of the 1996 law. He said the name unfairly suggests candidates who raise money from traditional sources – private contributions, PACs and businesses – are tainted.

“It may have been a good idea at the time, but that was then and this is now,” he said.

Besides scrapping the law, Damon’s proposal would cap spending for House and Senate races and allow candidates to approve any independent spending done on their behalf.

Under Damon’s plan, the duly approved independent contribution would then be deducted from the set amount the candidate could spend.

While he stands by many aspects of the proposed legislation, he said he was rethinking his support for a full repeal of the law, considering its grass-roots origins.

“I guess I’m not quite as willing to overthrow it,” said Damon after learning that voters, not the Legislature, passed the law in a 1996 referendum. “But I am quite willing to bring it to the arena of debate.”

The law’s supporters said that although its name might suggest otherwise, the act never promised to end dirty politics in Maine, which saw an unusually potent influx of negative advertising this election cycle.

“It can take the big money out of politics, but it can’t take the venom out,” said Doug Clopp, the democracy project coordinator for the Maine Citizen Leadership Fund in Portland.

Perhaps the law’s highest profile test came this year with the candidacy of Green Independent gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Carter, whose campaign was funded in large part with an additional $900,000 in public money.

While supporters of the Clean Election Act say the Carter candidacy added a fresh voice to the debate, opponents cited his single-digit showing despite the influx of public money.

“Was that worth $1 million?” asked House Minority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Raymond, an outspoken critic of clean elections.

In a previous interview, Carter discounted similar criticism that his well-funded 2002 campaign only slightly bested his $30,000 bid in 1994.

“It’s a ridiculous analogy,” he said, noting substantial differences – including his opponents – between the campaigns.

While Damon has his reservations about the law, nowhere is the resistance more pervasive than among Bruno’s House Republicans, who by and large continue to pass on public financing, according to a recent analysis of figures provided by the Maine Commission of Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.

While Republican senators were just as likely to run “clean” as their Democratic counterparts, only 15 percent, or five, of the GOP incumbents in the House used public money compared to 60 percent or 37 of sitting House Democrats.

Even among those five Republican House incumbents who did run “clean” this time, some did so reluctantly.

“I’m not a fan of clean elections,” said returning state Rep. Mary Ellen Ledwin, R-Holden, who, unlike her first run for office, opted to use public financing for her re-election. “It almost makes it too easy for people to run.”

Ledwin decided to run “clean,” she said, to prevent her publicly funded opponent from receiving matching funds under the law triggered by her private fundraising efforts.

In fact, the numbers suggest Republicans were far more successful running traditional campaigns in 2002, with 64 percent or 49 privately funded GOP candidates – many of whom were incumbents – winning their races compared to 38 percent or 35 publicly funded Republicans.

By comparison, 59 percent or 72 “clean” Democrats won their general election contests, while 51 percent or 26 of their traditionally funded colleagues prevailed.

Late in the campaign, Democrats bristled at a last minute mailing – not prohibited under Maine Clean Elections Act -from a political action committee that unfairly depicted them as big spenders, they said.

Though there was likely to be little support for Damon’s admittedly half-hearted repeal effort, the likely incoming speaker sees an opportunity to improve the law, specifically as it relates to independent expenditures.

“I think the challenge is to get it right, not end it,” Colwell said.