The BDN Opinion part operates independently and doesn’t set newsroom insurance policies or contribute to reporting or modifying articles elsewhere within the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Jared Golden represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District within the U.S. Home of Representatives. Rick Bennett of Oxford is a member of the Maine Senate, the place he serves on the Authorities Oversight Committee.
American voters ought to resolve American elections. Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or Inexperienced, unaffiliated or unbiased, that’s one thing that every one Mainers of each political persuasion ought to be capable of agree on. And we should always stand collectively to cease overseas pursuits from inserting a finger, or a pile of money, on the scales of our democracy.
That’s why we — a Democratic congressman and a Republican state senator — are working collectively to confront a nationwide problem that has already impacted us right here in Maine: overseas companies and governments are spending cash to win elections in our state and across the nation.
Mainers obtained a front-row seat to this problem final yr. Our TV screens, radio waves, and mailboxes have been drowned in an promoting landslide to advertise the Central Maine Energy hall mission. Hydro-Quebec, an organization owned solely by the federal government of Quebec, would have made billions of {dollars} from the proposed vitality hall. In order that they loosened Canadian purse strings to influence Maine voters that it was in our greatest curiosity to approve the mission. Within the run-up to the poll initiative on the CMP mission, Hydro-Quebec poured greater than $22 million into pro-corridor efforts — greater than twice the earlier report for spending in a referendum marketing campaign. No matter you consider the CMP hall, the choice needs to be made by Mainers, not a Canadian province.
Interference with our elections received’t cease with Hydro-Quebec. It’s not onerous to think about Norwegian house owners of the now-paused American Aquafarms salmon farming operation in Frenchman’s Bay or overseas house owners of land in Maine spending huge sums of cash to have an effect on outcomes on the poll field.
We welcome new Mainers, and overseas funding is at all times inspired and appreciated in our state. Our effort is particularly focused on the overseas governments which might be profiting from a loophole in federal election legislation to govern our elections.
That’s why we’re working throughout the aisle to help Defend Maine Elections, a nonpartisan poll initiative co-led by one in all us — Rick Bennett — to ban overseas governments and overseas government-owned corporations from spending cash to affect the end result of Maine elections.
This problem of overseas entities spending in U.S. elections sadly has been popping up throughout the nation. For instance, in 2018, an Australian mining firm helped fund a marketing campaign that defeated a Montana poll measure that might have threatened that firm’s future earnings. To us, this isn’t a problem of whether or not mining is sweet or dangerous for Montana or some other state however about whether or not overseas corporations needs to be allowed to affect our elections.
In November 2021, the Federal Election Fee introduced a ruling in that Montana case: Whereas federal legislation prohibits overseas entities from spending in elections for public workplace, it doesn’t ban overseas funding of poll query campaigns. It is a evident loophole with nationwide repercussions.
Defend Maine Elections would assist instantly shut that loophole right here in Maine, and one in all us — Jared. Golden — is working with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to ban overseas funding of poll query campaigns nationwide. They launched the Cease International Funds in Elections Act earlier this yr and have labored to construct help from lawmakers throughout the nation from each events.
We’re specializing in stopping overseas cash from influencing poll initiatives as a result of it’s a problem we are able to make progress on proper now. However it’s half of a bigger battle to confront the corrupting energy of massive cash in our elections — overseas or in any other case — that goes nicely past poll initiatives.
Large cash threatens to drown out the voices of normal Mainers, even when it comes from companies, rich people and particular curiosity teams contained in the U.S. In Maine’s 2020 U.S. Senate race, for instance, campaigns and out of doors teams spent an earth-shattering $185 million.
The floodgates to this out-of-control political spending have been opened by the Supreme Courtroom’s disastrous Residents United ruling, which can take a constitutional modification to overturn. The Defend Maine Elections poll initiative additionally features a decision calling for an modification to permit Congress and the states to impose cheap limits on marketing campaign spending, and Golden is a co-sponsor of an identical modification in Congress.
We harbor no illusions that passing a constitutional modification shall be fast or straightforward. However proper now an actual, tangible step to cease overseas governments from spending cash in state elections is inside our attain if we come collectively.
The Defend Maine Elections initiative wants signatures to get on the poll and we’d like your assist. You may study extra and signal as much as volunteer right here.
