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| 📷 This mailer, attacking former state Sen. Linda Baker, R-Topsham, in a 2022 Maine House race, comes from an offshoot of the Democratic Leadership Campaign Committee and is the subject of an ethics complaint. |
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💸 A Democratic group key to legislative elections gets a big ethics fine.
◉ The Maine Ethics Commission is poised to hand out several penalties on Wednesday for campaign finance violations from the 2022 election cycle. Watch the meeting that kicked off at 9 a.m.
◉ The biggest one is likely to be a $10,000 fine to an offshoot of the Democratic Leadership Campaign Committee, the party's national legislative arm. It spent $450,000 this year, making it one of the Democratic groups most essential to the party retaining the House majority.
◉ Commissioners approved it in a 4-1 vote on Wednesday. It was for reams of mailers and video ads in battleground races that said the group had "no top donors" in violation of a state law requiring disclosures of top funders. Commission staff said $346,000 in ads lacked disclosures. The Democratic group says shielding donors was not its intent.
◉ Other groups face fines as well, including two political committees run by incoming House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, and Planned Parenthood in Maine. Both of those committees filed late campaign finance reports.
🌊 Legislative Republicans talk lobster with Maine's senior senator.
◉ Faulkingham and Rep. Jim Thorne, R-Carmel, a marine resources committee member, were in Washington on Wednesday to meet with Sen. Susan Collins to discuss lobstering issues, including potential federal legislation, the House Republican office said on Wednesday.
◉ The incoming Republican leader and lobsterman called Collins "a key federal player" with an "ability to attract bipartisan federal support" to preserve the industry. The legacy fishery faces threats in federal rules aiming to protect endangered whales as well as climate change. |
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What we're reading
💍 Landmark protections for same-sex marriage led in part by Collins passed the Senate on Tuesday.
🚚 A $280 million budget surplus will fuel a heating aid proposal to be released by Mills this week.
🔆 Concerns about forest fragmentation may lead Maine to change solar farm standards.
🔄 The university system is hiring a different consulting firm to pick up the failed search for a new president of the Augusta campus.
🔦 The ex-supervisor of Maine's intelligence center defended keeping information on those not breaking the law at a whistleblower trial. |
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