PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 1, 2022
The group that wants to prohibit foreign government spending on state referendum campaigns submitted a petition to the Maine secretary of state Tuesday aimed at putting the initiative on the November 2023 ballot. Protect Maine Elections collected 80,749 signatures from Mainers seeking to close a funding loophole identified by the 2021 Federal Election Committee, which determined the federal agency has no jurisdiction over state referendum elections. Foreign governments can’t contribute to candidate campaigns, which fall under FEC jurisdiction. But the only way Maine can block foreign contributions to those is to explicitly ban them in state law. Organizers were inspired by last year’s election and the big money – $22 million at last count – that Canadian government-owned Hydro-Quebec spent trying to stop a referendum to overturn approval of an electricity transmission line through western Maine.