The Maine Clean Elections Act funds candidacies with public dollars not only to encourage more people to run for office and diminish the influence of large donors, it is also to improve the image of money in politics. The Maine Ethics Commission, given a chance to further improve that image recently, passed the job to legislators, who should act on this issue next year.

The question before the commission was whether publicly funded candidates could pay relatives to work on their campaigns. The most notable example was of this was 2006 gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill essentially paying $109,000 to her husband, Phil Merrill, to work on her campaign. Mr. Merrill is an experienced politician and a longtime Democratic activist, so his employment in his wife’s campaign wasn’t surprising – but his pay, even though it raised no ethical red flags for being out of line with pay at competing campaigns, created an impression of a family profiting through the Clean Elections Act.

The Ethics Commission’s executive director, Jonathan Wayne, offered the commission three options on dealing with the practice of hiring family members, which as he pointed out, erodes public confidence in the act. The commission could prohibit the practice among publicly funded candidates, impose a cap on how much is paid to family members or simply require candidates to more fully disclose family relationships on financial reports. It’s worth noting that in the U.S. House, a bill that banned candidates’ spouses from being paid to work on campaigns passed easily last month.

But Maine lawmakers would do better to choose the second option: allow relatives to work on campaigns – for legislative races, they may be the most committed staff members or the only practical choice – but limit how much they can be paid and require clear reporting of their family relationships. By creating clear operating rules for hiring relatives, it places the issue before the public and removes the appearance of impropriety.

The commission could have made these changes, but that it has passed along the options to legislators. They should pass these rules in their next session.