History of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections
In 1995 a group of organizations and concerned citizens came together with a goal in mind - break the ties between wealthy special interests and our elected leaders. The Maine Citizen Leadership Fund brought together key players such as the Maine AFL-CIO, AARP, Maine Council of Senior Citizens, Maine People’s Alliance, Maine Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, Peace Action Maine and the Dirigo Alliance into a unified effort to pass the first in the nation program for public financing of elections - The Maine Clean Election Act. Hundreds of volunteers from the groups worked to gather signatures to put the MCEA on the ballot. In 1996 Maine voters passed the MCEA by a significant margin.
The Maine Clean Election Act had its first run in 2000, with candidates for State Senate and House both using the new program for the first time. The results were that half the Senate and 30% of the House members were elected without any special interest money. In 2002, those numbers rose to 77% of the Senate and 55% of the House. Clearly, Clean Elections was working. Today, we are proud to say that more than 80% of the legislature was elected using Clean Elections!
However, there were some issues with the program that required attention. In some races with Clean Election candidates, another group would run "sham issue ads" that clearly were intended to influence the election, but did not trigger matching funds for the Clean Election candidates because the ads did not expressly say "Vote for" or "Vote against" anyone.
So Maine Citizens for Clean Elections led the effort to change that. We won the enactment of a first-in-the-nation law that requires disclosure of – and triggers matching funds for – all communications that name or depict a candidate during the final 21 days of an election. MCCE also succeeded in fixing the Clean Elections gubernatorial funding formula. As a result, three major candidates for Governor used public funding in 2006. Finally, MCCE protected the Clean Election Fund against any further raids and fought off a conservative campaign to change the law’s name to “Publicly Financed Elections.”
The road ahead has some twists and turns for Clean Elections. MCCE will be working to restore funding the the Clean Election Fund, pass meaningful PAC reform, and address new issues as they arise. The coalition members and grassroots activists who make up Maine Citizens for Clean Elections will keep fighting to keep big money out of politics and keep the legislature where it belongs - in the hands of the people.
