Election group to seek more PAC restrictions

AUGUSTA – An election reform group whose efforts led to Maine’s law allowing public funding of political campaigns says it will ask the incoming Legislature to impose additional campaign financing restrictions.

Maine Citizens for Clean Elections is seeking limits on how much money contributors can give to political action committees. A focus of the proposal is on PACs run by publicly funded candidates.

A study by the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram last summer found that about 20 PACs run by publicly funded lawmakers raised nearly $350,000 from private sources through mid-July.

The activist group is not recommending publicly financed candidates be barred from having privately funded PACs, but it wants limits on those contributions.