By Michael Shepherd - July 27, 2022
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📷 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during an American Legislative Exchange Council meeting on July 28, 2021, in Salt Lake City. (AP photo by Rick Bowmer)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 104 days until Maine's November elections.

What we're watching today

An campaign finance case against an influential conservative group looks to be ending, but not without a flourish. A months-long investigation by the Maine Ethics Commission into the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, looks to be winding down. It was born last year out of a raft of similar complaints in states by the liberal Center for Media and Democracy, revolving around questions about software given to allied legislators and whether it should have been logged as campaign donations.

The Maine complaint was the one in the bunch that was taken the most seriously by state watchdogs. It has been an eventful proceeding, including in February when a 3-2 majority of commissioners authorized subpoena power for staff at a time when ALEC was refusing to participate in the investigation. The group later decided to meet with commission staff.

Staff has said that while the software would be most valuable as a campaign tool, it is pushed by ALEC as a way to track interactions by constituents. There is no evidence it has been used in Maine political campaigns. Those are main reasons why they say they have no evidence that the software has amounted to contributions. Continuing the probe may require a legal fight in Virginia, where ALEC is based, and costly work by state attorneys.

In June, two Republican commissioners moved to stop the probe, but two Democrats and an independent on the panel voted that down. They will consider the investigation again at their meeting at 9 a.m. Watch it.

The Center for Media and Democracy is pushing the commission to adopt a finding of facts that casts doubt on the tool's value for non-political activity. The conservative group shot back to say the center's suggestion was "another demonstration of its unending campaign to smear ALEC."

Commissioners are considering a middle ground in which the investigation ends but candidates are warned that using the software for campaigning would require disclosure. That's how the national wrangling between two rival groups looks likely to end in Maine during this go-round.

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News and notes

The head of a Maine police group hit a Republican strategist for "BS" in downplaying a key endorsement.

— The Maine Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed former Gov. Paul LePage and Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District recently in a notable split between a Republican and Democrat, respectively. Golden opposed his party's signature policing overhaul and co-sponsored a "Defund Cities that Defund the Police Act."

— Former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, the Republican running a rematch against Golden in a race that also includes independent Tiffany Bond, said Friday the group "had the wool pulled over their eyes." He noted Golden's support both from liberal groups that have backed the "defund the police" movement.

— Brent Littlefield, a strategist for both LePage and Poliquin, spun the situation to WVOM on Tuesday by saying while the LePage endorsement was about the candidate's record, he did not think Golden's record "carried the day" on the other endorsement. He intimated that a relationship between the group and one of Golden's strategists was a factor.

— Neither comment endeared the Poliquin campaign to the police group. Michael Edes, the executive director of the 850-member group, told the BDN on Tuesday told Littlefield's claims were "BS" and that rank-and-file members made their decision on Golden's attentiveness to their issues, hitting Poliquin's camp for "arrogance" in assuming he would win the group's backing.

— "They've come out twice now and insulted the membership and to me, it just shows we made the right decision," Edes said.

Maine's Republican senator previewed a dim outlook on former President Donald Trump's crusade to reshape the civil service.

— The former Republican president is plotting a 2024 campaign announcement that could come as soon as this year. A central issue to that run would be aggressive moves to install loyalists in the civil service, Axios reported recently. Trump has long crusaded against a "deep state." After his presidency, he and allies have accused career employees of resisting his goals.

— This strategy was previewed in the waning days of Trump's 2020 campaign against President Joe Biden. He issued an executive order that October allowing his administration to shift career employees into a new "Schedule F" class of political appointees that could be hired and fired at will. Democrats introduced bills at the time to fight Trump's move, but his order was never implemented and Biden rescinded it promptly after taking office in 2021.

— When asked about Trump's preparations, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that her priority now is to return "the vast majority" of federal employees to in-person work so lacking services can be provided efficiently.

— "I would carefully review any plan to reclassify the status of thousands of federal employees and oppose blatant efforts to politicize the civil service," she said.

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What we're reading

— Maine has nearly recovered all the jobs it lost early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Here's how those jobs shifted.

— Gov. Janet Mills raised her campaign-long fundraising advantage over LePage to roughly $2 million as of July 19, according to updated filings.

— The company pushing a controversial fish farm in Frenchman Bay has withdrawn a lawsuit against the state and plans to fix issues that led regulators to reject an application over the source of salmon eggs.

— Caribou councilors could be the first in Maine to establish key parts of the city manager's job by ordinance, a drive that led one councilor to say he was being targeted.

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