A bipartisan group of Maine legislators has introduced LD 1309, to increase the amount of public funding for qualifying candidates for state office. See this story.
A bipartisan group of Maine legislators has introduced LD 1309, to increase the amount of public funding for qualifying candidates for state office. See this story.
This may be a positive step. OTOH, a quick look at the Clean Elections statute “as is” suggests that it has one of the typical built-in advantages for established parties — and the new bill doesn’t appear to change that.
The problem is that the system funds candidates in both primary and general elections — but not candidates who make it onto the general ballot otherwise, i.e., truly independent candidates or those with parties that haven’t yet qualified to take part in the primaries. (It does allow for more funding in contested elections — and since newer parties don’t have contested nominations as often, maybe that would be a way to address the issue.)
I beg everyone’s pardon, and ask for leave to extend and revise my remarks. On further review, I found Subsection 10 of Section 1125 of the existing law:
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/21-A/title21-Asec1125.html
It *does* allow for the possibility that candidates “unenrolled” in a primary-qualified party can make the nut of supporting contributions and earn matching funds at the level of an uncontested primary and then for a (presumably contested) general election. And the April 20 deadline for such unenrolled candidates to qualify matches the deadline for legislative candidates, and is after the April 1 end of the “qualifying period” for gubernatorial candidates.
I would invite anyone who can speak from experience about how this has worked in practice to let us all know about it, and correct me again (if necessary) about how fair or unfair it is to alternative parties and candidates. But I’m not seeing in this system the problem I thought I’d identified.