(The Center Square) — Maine campaign finance regulators want to crack down on ‘straw’ donor contributions, which they say have been illegally funneled into Democratic and Republican-backed causes despite rules banning the practice.
The Maine Ethics Commission recommends that state lawmakers increase the penalties for ‘straw’ donations, where a contributor gives money to an intermediary to be donated to a political group, cause or candidate to conceal the source of the campaign contribution. The proposal is expected to be discussed at the panel’s Oct. 30th meeting.
“Straw donor contributions are illegal in Maine, as in other jurisdictions, but they remain a continuing problem for campaign finance disclosure because the intermediary is listed as the contributor in campaign finance reports and the actual source of money remains hidden from policymakers and the public,” the ethics commission’s staff wrote in a memo to board members.
In the memo, the commission staff recommends that the board call on the state Legislature to increase the fines for ‘straw’ donations to 500 times the contribution amount. The current penalty is a $5,000 fine.
The memo noted “numerous enforcement cases” covered by the news outlets involving donations made through intermediaries “that obscure the actual source of the funds.” It cited a 2023 consent order by the ethics commission to settle a case against Alpine Initiatives, which was accused of a $150,000 contribution to the Maine Democratic Party through an intermediary without disclosing the actual source of the funds.
In another case, a Portland developer pleaded guilty in 2017 to violating campaign finance laws by using nine family members and employees to contribute $22,500 to Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and then reimbursing them, allowing him to circumvent the $2,500 limit on individual donations.
Straw donor contributions are “difficult to detect” by campaign finance agencies because the intermediary’s donation “appears compliant on its face,” the memo said.
“The intermediary may be a business entity, nonprofit, employee or relative that is affiliated with the actual donor,” the panel said. “Even if a campaign finance agency or outside party believes a particular donation appears suspicious as reported, an investigation typically would require a factual predicate that can be hard to establish.”
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Staff is also asking the commission to update Maine’s campaign finance laws to expand the kinds of campaign communications that must disclose their contributors and require that text messages for campaigns and causes that cost more than $500 include a disclaimer identifying who paid for them.
If the commission approves the recommendations, they will be forwarded to the Legislature for consideration in the next session, which gets underway in December.