Press Releases

Says decision has no impact on her proposal for national clean elections system
 
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree criticized a move by the U.S. Supreme Court to suspend a portion of a campaign finance law in Arizona, similar to the Clean Elections system in Maine.
 
“The system has worked well in Maine and in states that have followed Maine’s lead, like Arizona and Connecticut,” Pingree said. “But it seems that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts has set out to systematically dismantle the campaign finance reforms that people around the country have adopted.”
 
Pingree has introduced the Fair Elections Now Act with Congressman John Larson (D-CT) to create a national system for Congressional campaigns similar to Maine’s Clean Elections law.  But she says the law was specifically crafted to avoid the kind of court challenge that has impacted the Arizona law.
 
“When we wrote Fair Elections we were very careful to sidestep the issue that the Supreme Court is taking up,” Pingree said.  “And the fact that the Court seems intent on striking down these popular state laws makes it even more essential that we pass a clean elections law in Congress.”
 
With Fair Elections, candidates receive a four-to-one match based on their own fundraising, not that of their opponent or independent spending.
 
In the Arizona case, the Supreme Court issued an injunction blocking a portion of the law that gives publically financed candidates additional funding to keep up with opponents who raise large amounts of private contributions.  The Court issued an injunction today and it isn’t expected to actually rule on the constitutionality of the Arizona law until later this year.
 
Two of the candidates for Governor in Maine on the ballot in today’s primary election—Libby Mitchell and Pat McGowan—both recently received matching payments under a provision similar to the one in the Arizona law that the Supreme Court blocked today.