Campaigns, clean elections and the Constitution

In his Dec. 9 column regarding an Ethics Commission complaint about a campaign mail piece sent out by my opponent, Todd Benoit made some good points about constitutional protection of campaign speech, but he was mistaken on several counts.

First, he was wrong that it was Rep. Josh Tardy’s amendment to LD 1938 that so divided the Legislature that the bill ultimately failed. The divisive amendment was actually put forward by Rep. Janet Mills, a Democrat. Rep. Tardy’s amendment, which I voted against, failed adoption on the first vote and went no further.

Mr. Benoit then suggested rather questionably that the mailer my opponent sent was not intended to “assert” that I “believe domestic violence is acceptable.” There can be no doubt that it was designed to do exactly that. Are we to think that my opponent hoped that voters would read his mail piece, then go online and wade through all the votes I’ve cast on domestic violence issues over two terms to discover my true feelings about the issue? Hardly. It was clearly the intent of the mailer to cast me as someone soft on domestic violence. And this is the kind of political speech we really want to encourage?

Finally, Mr. Benoit’s suggestion that I was “serene” about the entire matter is inaccurate. “Resigned” might be a better way to phrase it – resigned that campaigns are not about experience, not about dedication, not about ideas. They appear, these days, to be primarily about which candidate can more successfully tarnish his opponent.

The fact is, though, that they don’t need to be.

Mr. Benoit was quite right that the Constitution offers broad protections to political speech and that those protections should be respected and defended. The ethics complaint about the mailer, though, is not a question of free speech. It is, rather, a question about what candidates can do with the taxpayer funds that pay for their campaigns.

Both my opponent and I were “clean elections” candidates. In exchange for our agreeing to conduct our campaigns according to the Maine Code of Fair Campaign Practices, we were given taxpayer dollars to pay for our campaigns. In order to get the money, in other words, clean elections candidates must make the choice to forgo certain campaign tactics that may be available to them under the broader umbrella of the Constitution.

In this way, the state, as the holder of the purse strings, has the right, as it should have, to raise the bar for such candidates, demanding that they adopt a higher standard with regard to the conduct of their campaigns.

Running for office, and want to run a divisive negative campaign? Fine. Give up state funding, go out and raise your own campaign war chest, then go forth and attack your opponent as negatively as you wish to your heart’s content. While I don’t support that approach, I’ll defend your right under the First Amendment to take it.

If, however, you choose to have the overtaxed and overburdened people of Maine pay for your campaign, you should be required, and you should feel some obligation, frankly, to run the kind of campaign that Maine people would be proud to pay for.

Voters express more dismay about the inane and superficial nature of political campaigns with every passing election. Voter participation continues to decline, and young people in particular remain turned off to public service.

Perhaps by using the carrot of state funding for campaigns, perhaps by setting a high standard for campaign practices, one that encourages campaigns to talk about experience and vision and ideas, we can make political campaigns into something that brings out the best in people, rather than the worst.

Stephen Bowen is a former state legislator who lives in Rockport.