Category: James Downing
Clean Elections Slowly Spread From Maine
WASHINGTON, April 28—When Maine voters approved the Clean Election Act in 1996 they started a trend. Clean election laws based in part on Maine’s are now on the books in Arizona, Connecticut, North Carolina and other states and a number of cities throughout the country.
And there are proposals in California, Maryland and the U.S. Congress that are based in part on Maine’s voluntary campaign finance system. Candidates who choose to receive public funds in Maine must collect a certain number of $5 qualifying contributions, depending on the office being sought. They then receive a set amount of funds from the Clean Election Fund.
Supporters say that clean elections eliminate the taint of special interest from politics and allow more people to run for office. Opponents say the laws impinge on freedom of speech and force taxpayers to support the campaigns of people they disagree with. Public concerns about money and politics have been heightened recently with the political scandals involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Public financing of campaigns are “the most effective way for the voices of ordinary people to be heard in the political process,” said Nick Nyhart, the executive director of Public Campaign, a public financing lobbying group.
Nyhart’s organzation and Common Cause, another reform-oriented lobbying group, are pushing to pass a bill that Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) has introduced. The measure, called the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, would bring to the House a system similar to Maine’s. In the Senate, Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) plan to introduce a comparable bill, Nyhart said.
Tierney’s bill would set up a voluntary system under which House candidates whose political parties garnered at least 25 percent of the vote in the previous election would be allowed to gather 1,500 “seed contributions” of $5. If they meet that target, they would become eligible for public funds in the general election and would have to forgo any private donations.
If a candidate decides not to accept public financing and to raise his or her own campaign funds, an opponent who accepts public financing and is being outspent by the other candidate would receive additional public money.
Nyhart said it would allow politicians to spend less time raising money and more time with voters.
Tierney’s bill does not challenge Supreme Court rulings in Buckley v Valeo and McConnell v Federal Election Commission, which limit campaign finance reform to voluntary systems. But Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) has sponsored a bill that would require all House candidates to receive public financing. Because it would not be voluntary, Obey’s legislation would probably require a constitutional amendment.
Under Obey’s Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act, all candidates for Congress would be required to get their money from a fund fed by contributions from voters. The Federal Election Commission would divide the fund among Republicans, Democrats and occasionally third-party candidates based on the percentage of the vote each party’s candidate won in the previous election.
Maine Rep. Tom Allen (D) has not decided which bill he will support but said, “In my 10 years in Congress, I’ve become increasingly interested in public financing.”
Rep. Michael Michaud (D) said he is concerned about the cost, under the present system of financing congressional campaigns, which can run into the millions.
“I think the public deserves to have confidence that there’s no abuse or no corruption in the whole electoral process,” Michaud said. “We’ve got to make sure that we do something to build confidence in the system.”
Michaud said that public financing would widen the field of candidates for office. Now you have to be independently wealthy or spend 80 to 90 percent of your time raising funds, he said.
He said he has ruled out supporting Obey’s bill because it is in conflict with Supreme Court decisions. Before backing Tierney’s bill, Michaud said, he would wait to see what the final legislation looks like.
The financing for candidates in Obey’s bill would be based on median household income in the congressional district. Michaud’s second district is generally poorer than Allen’s first district, which would mean candidates in the second district would get less money than candidates in the first district. But because the second district straddles the Portland and Bangor television markets, Michaud would need TV time on both, while Allen needs air time only in Portland. Television advertising is the most expensive and one of the most important tools in a modern campaign.
Michaud is the only member of Maine’s congressional delegation who had a chance to run under Maine’s Clean Election Act. In his last campaign for the state legislature in 2000, he decided to raise his own funds because, he said, the new system still had some kinks to be ironed out.
Maine’s two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, say that public funding is unnecessary at the federal level.
“While our current system is far from perfect, I would be reluctant to put taxpayers in the position of being forced to pay for politicians’ campaigns,” Snowe said in a statement. “I believe we should give the Bipartisan Campaign Reform legislation I and my colleagues fought so hard to pass a chance to work, realizing that it has only been in place for one round of federal elections so far.”
Collins said that instead of devoting money to finance political campaigns, Congress should devote more funds to health care, education, defense and homeland security.
“I believe that taxpayer money is better spent meeting the needs of our young, our elderly and our most vulnerable, and protecting our nation against threats from nature and from those who want to do us harm,” Collins said in a statement.
The chance of success for either of the House bills is slim. Allen said that a Republican-led Congress was unlikely to pass such reforms; in general, Republicans at the national level oppose public financing of campaigns.
“The only entity that is capable of imposing public financing on congressional campaigns is Congress itself,” said John Samples, the director of the Center for Representative Government at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“They have in the last 30 to 40 years not chosen public financing of congressional campaigns,” Samples said. “They passed it once, but it wasn’t a serious bill and it was vetoed.”
Samples said any bill Congress might pass would be written to ensure as little change as possible in the high reelection rate of incumbents. Since public financing would increase funds for challengers, he said, it is unlikely that Congress will act.
Libertarians oppose government regulation, Samples said, and others oppose public financing because, they say, it would limit freedom of speech and force taxpayers to donate to campaigns they otherwise would not support.
Samples pointed to the federal law that finances presidential campaigns as an example of how such a statute might not work.
Members of reform groups like Nyhart say taxpayers already pay politicians’ salaries that they do not agree with. Voters have been paying $400,000 a year for the last six years, plus numerous perks, to President Bush, although about half of them did not support him in either election.
Samples also disagreed with reform groups’ argument that public financing would eliminate the advantage of access. He said the evidence that donations buy access to members of Congress is hazy at best.
“To this date the Supreme Court has not recognized equality of influence as a good reason for limiting freedom of speech,” Samples said.
Samples said liberalizing campaign finance limits and taking redistricting out of partisan hands would help increase competition in local and House races.
Brian Darling, the director of Senate relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agreed with Samples on many points. He said conservatives in general believe that publicly financed campaigns are a bad idea.
Some of the proposed public financing systems favor major parties, forcing other parties to get more signatures or seed money for the same amount of funds. Darling called this unfair, saying public financing should be for everyone or no one. Darling also said that public financing could lead to more visibility for fringe candidates like Nazis or Islamic extremists.
In California, the state with the largest population, the state Assembly recently approved a public financing bill. It still has to go through the Senate, be signed by the governor, who said he would consider it, and go to the voters as for final approval in a public referendum.
Aaron Cervantes, the Latino outreach coordinator for the California Clean Money Campaign, said that the bill passed the assembly, which is controlled by the Democrats, along party lines. He said his group was “cautiously optimistic” that it would pass the Democratic Senate this year.
Cervantes said his group hopes that if California adopts the system, it will spread even further.
Maine’s system has sparked much of the current debate on the subject. Recently it has prompted a nettlesome debate in the Maine Republican primary campaign.
Peter Mills and Chandler Woodcock, who are running for the Republican nomination for governor, have both accepted public funds. They say that the people of Maine supported the system, noting that it was adopted by ballot initiative.
Mills said that despite some reservations, notably that it forces taxpayers to finance the campaigns of candidates whom they do not support, he enjoys the time that being a clean election candidate gives him to spend with voters.
Woodcock said that without public financing he would not be able to run. He thinks the system, only four election cycles old, still has some fine points that need to be tuned, including how to assure to solvency of the clean elections fund.
Noting that he was not a statewide figure before entering the primary, he said that the increased time with voters has proved invaluable,.
Republican David Emery is running his gubernatorial campaign traditionally. Though he hates fundraising, he said, he is doing it to show that he is serious about cutting government spending at a time when Maine is $5 billion in debt.
“It’s always easier when someone else pays your bills for you,” Emery said. “If I didn’t have to work to pay the bills at my house I could play golf all day, but that’s not life.”
Emery said he support public financing for the state legislature because that is a part-time job that requires a lot of sacrifices of its members. But making candidates for the governorship do their own fundraising, he said, helps to weed out those with little chance of winning.
Gov. John Baldacci (D) is running his campaign traditionally. Jeff Connolly, his campaign manager, said that while the governor supported clean elections in principle, he decided not to run on clean election money because Maine is in debt. Connolly said Baldacci believes the money for the governor’s race, which is the most expensive one in the state, could be better used.
Other states still have kinks to iron out in their systems as well. Connecticut recently enacted a law that bars all contributions from lobbyists and state contractors and their families. Opponents say it is unconstitutional and will be challenged.
Phil Sherwood, the spokesman for the Clean Up Connecticut Campaign, said that his group and other reform organizations did not want that prohibition in the bill, but it was put in at the insistence of Republican Gov. Jodi Rell. Sherwood said he hoped any legal problems would be ironed out eventually.
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Michaud’s Bill to Aid Economic Development
WASHINGTON, April 13 - Rep. Michael Michaud (D-2 nd ) is trying to get millions of dollars for economic development in Maine with his bill to create a Northeast Regional Development Commission.
"The Northeast Regional Development Commission will invest in economically distressed communities," Michaud said in a statement Wednesday. "It will create and implement regional economic development plans to reduce poverty, address changing land use and improve the quality of life for residents."
Michaud added that the commission, which would fund projects that stimulate economic development, would work with and not replace existing federal, state and local economic development programs.
"These commissions have been around since 1965 except for the Northeast," Michaud said in an interview. "And they funnel $40 million a year on an ongoing basis for economic development purposes."
Maine is poised to receive up to 40 percent of the commission's funding, which would be the state's fair share, according to a county-based funding-formula, Michaud said.
Rep. Tom Allen (D-1 st ) is a co-sponsor of Michaud's legislation. The bill, he said, would help to foster economic development by bringing state and federal government together with business and non-profit groups.
"I am proud to be working with Mike Michaud in support of his bill to create a Northeast Regional Economic Development Commission," Allen said in a statement. "We need to do everything we can to bring more focus, more resources and more attention to the need for economic development in Maine and throughout Northern New England."
Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R) plan on introducing similar legislation and are working on its wording and getting more support for the bill, according to press persons in each office.
"Communities in the Northern Forest Region share common transportation, environmental and economic development challenges," Snowe said in a statement. "The bill I plan to introduce will recognize these unique needs and set up a commission that can work across borders to overcome problems that we all face. By combining our efforts and formulating a common strategy, we can more efficiently leverage existing resources to get the job done."
Collins agreed, saying in a statement, "Regional commissions such as this are proven to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life in distressed areas."
A similar commission has existed since 1965 in Appalachia, an area that stretches over 13 states, and has helped cut poverty in the region in half since it was established. The Appalachian Regional Commission has also created 26,000 jobs and cut the number of economically distressed counties in the region from 219 to 100.
Over the past decade Congress has established three other commissions and has proposed two more.
"When I came to Congress and saw other regions coming together to address their economic development in a way that was modeled after the successful ARC [Appalachian Regional Commission]," Michaud said in a statement, "I thought that it was something that Maine should have and that our region could share."
Michaud's bill was introduced last year and is going before committee in May or June, according to Michaud.
The legislation says that while the northeastern border region, which extends from Maine through New Hampshire and Vermont and into upstate New York, is rich in natural resources, it lags behind other parts of the country in economic development.
Losses in manufacturing jobs and people leaving the area have drained the area's economy, according to the bill. Federal assistance in the form of grants would greatly help the region while preserving existing industries, the bill says.
The commission would be made up of a federal commissioner appointed by the president and the governors of all the states that decide to participate. The federal commissioner and a majority of the governors would need to agree on specific grants before the money could be disbursed.
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Vacationing Congress Creates a Legislative Vacuum
WASHINGTON, April 11 - Congress is taking more time off than usual this year. The House is on track to meet for 97 days this year, compared to 141 last year. The Senate is meeting more, having met for 16 more days than the House has so far.
Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud (2 nd ) and Tom Allen (1 st ) said they thought that the House should be meeting more this year, but pointed out that the Republican leadership made the schedule.
"I believe we should be spending more time in session because we have a lot of work to do," Michaud said in his Washington office. "Unfortunately Congress hasn't exerted its independence."
"Congress is a separate branch of government, and there's been a lack of oversight for federal agencies, whether it's the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, 9/11 Commission recommendations or high gas pricing," Michaud said. "There's a lot of work we should be doing in Congress that we're not doing."
During the Clinton administration, the Republican Congress was much keener on oversight, according to Allen. He said the House Government Reform Committee, which he sat on, went so far as to investigate President Clinton's use of the White House Christmas card list. The current lack of oversight, he said, was intended to protect a Republican administration.
The House is on schedule to meet for fewer days this year than it has in decades, Allen said. Many issues can not be addressed in a substantive way because of the light schedule, he said.
"Health care costs for small businesses, the threat of climate change and the rapid rise in energy costs-all of those issues just get lost because they're complex and they take a substantial amount of time," Allen said in an interview on Capitol Hill. "And when we come in on a Tuesday evening and vote for a couple of post offices and then work Wednesday and finish on a Thursday afternoon, we just don't have the hours down here for the committees to do their work."
The House has rarely voted on Mondays and Fridays this session, leaving the members travel days to get back to their districts and do work there.
Congress is responsible for naming post offices around the country, and such votes regularly take up voting time. Allen said there were not any more of these votes this year than normal, but that many more important issues were not being addressed by the Republican leadership.
Allen said that many of his more senior colleagues have told him that the House used to spend days on legislation like the defense appropriations bill and others, but now they are done in a day or less.
This year the House and Senate took off a week for St. Patrick's Day and are now on a two-week spring break. The House worked a mere two days in January while the Senate worked nine. Both Houses regularly take off the month of August and reconvene after Labor Day. This summer the House is scheduled to leave a week earlier than the Senate.
"Though we have plenty of work to do in the district, the legislation suffers immensely when we're not here," Allen said.
Last year Michaud said he and his colleagues had much of their August break eaten up by their attempts to deal with the closing of Brunswick Naval Air Station.
The two chambers' schedules are tentative and are subject to change when more legislating is necessary. Last week the Senate was supposed to adjourn on Thursday but stayed late into the night and into Friday to work on the immigration package.
One reason Congress is meeting so little this year is because of the November elections. The two chambers usually have a light schedule the last quarter of an election year so they can campaign. All the members of Maine's delegation said that despite a lighter legislation schedule, in an election year their work time remained about the same because they have to campaign and raise funds.
Even Sen. Susan Collins (R), the only Maine member who is not up for election this year, said that chairing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee made her schedule much busier than it had been before she got the post.
"Maybe there are less scheduled days, but I'm not," Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) said. "I'm about seven days a week."
Snowe said that what Congress accomplishes is more important than how many days they meet. The Senate this year has confirmed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, passed lobbying reform legislation and approved a budget resolution.
Michaud, who has been in the House two terms, said he took a vacation last year, but it was the first one he had taken in about 10 years. Before being elected to the House he served in the State Legislature for 22 years.
"Even though I took it off as far as scheduling meetings, with the BlackBerries nowadays you're always in constant contact with folks," Michaud said pulling out his communications device.
Other members agreed with Michaud, saying that their time off was often spent thumbing e-mail messages to their staffs on their BlackBerry devices or fielding calls from the press.
All of the members said they worked long days when in session. They come in early in the morning, from 6 to 8, and leave late at night, from 10 to 11. Their days are full of committee work, voting, meetings and press interviews.
Back in Maine, the members might not work into the night as often and are more likely to get a day off, but they are busy shaking the hands of voters, fundraising and attending meetings. They are also in constant contact with their Washington staffs while in Maine.
James Melcher, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine in Farmington, said each member of Maine's delegation is hard working.
"In the House of Representatives in particular, people are campaigning for reelection pretty much constantly," Melcher said. He said the framers of the Constitution wanted the House to be "under the microscope" all the time.
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Snowe Opens Up About the Election
WASHINGTON, April 6-She's way ahead in the polls, and political experts tag her seat as secure. Nevertheless, Sen, Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, says she is going to keep on working hard as she attempts to win her Senate seat for a third time in November.
"Polls are just a snapshot in time," Snowe said. "I've been a veteran of numerous elections, and I'm well aware of the pitfalls and the risks that are associated any time you're on the ballot."
A recent poll has Snowe in the lead, with 63 percent of likely voters saying they would vote for her and only 21 percent saying they would vote for an as-yet- unnominated Democrat.
Elections are a long process, Snowe said in an interview in her Senate office, and she has never taken one for granted. "I have a great respect for the ballot box on election day," she said.
In 2000, Snowe won reelection handily with 69 percent of the vote. She has already almost tied her fundraising for the 2000 election, collecting $2.1 million this time through March, compared to $2.2 million for the entire 2000 election.
Her closest opponent in the money race is Democrat Jean Hay Bright, who has raised $13,000 so far.
Snowe said she would center her campaign on what she has accomplished in her many years representing Maine in Washington and on what she considers her "pivotal" role in the Senate.
"We need more individuals in the United States Senate that are prepared to work on a bipartisan basis to build a consensus and a centrist position," Snowe said during the interview. "And losing centrist voices in the United States Senate isn't good for Maine and it isn't good for America."
Pundits have often referred to Snowe as a RINO, a Republican in Name Only. Her voting record has been middle of the road at a time when the Republican Party nationally has veered further to the right.
Snowe said that politics and her position on Senate committees have enabled her to get things done in the Senate. She has reached out across the aisle and worked with members of her own caucus to help pass tax cuts, to get the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which she first backed in 1988, enacted into law, and to increase internet access and bandwidth in schools and libraries in Maine and across the country.
With her swing vote on the floor and her voice on the Finance Committee, Snowe went against her own party on President Bush's Social Security proposals last year.
"I've been able to prevent the diversion of revenues from the Social Security Trust Fund for the creation of personal savings accounts," she said.
Snowe said that she did not have any plans to campaign with administration officials, saying she prefers to campaign on who she is and what she stands for. "I don't run on anybody's coattails," she said.
The President's low approval ratings, and the several scandals that have rocked the GOP can have an effect on the election, Snowe conceded. But she intends to base her campaign on her centrist values and her plans for her potential third term.
"We understand that people are very concerned about the direction of this country, and it's a very volatile political environment," Snowe said.
This promises to be a tough election season for the Republican Congress. While Snowe's seat appears secure several Republican senators are in tough races, notably Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. There are also many volatile House races.
Snowe said that it was too early to call the election for either party. She said there are always constant shifts in sentiment, and things could change before November.
Her advice to colleagues in tough races, Snowe said, is that they should focus not on polls or the views of pundits, but rather on their messages and on building a strong organization.
Snowe refused to weigh in on the Republican gubernatorial primary in Maine, saying that her party had several strong candidates and that she would let the voters decide in June.
She said Republicans have many good opportunities this fall in state elections. Both Peter Mills and David Emery lead Democratic Gov. John Baldacci by small margins in polls. The legislature also is very tightly balanced, and Republicans could take it as well.
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Washington Holds a Festival, Maine Names a Princess
WASHINGTON, April 6- This town is infested with tourists, worse than anything seen on Mount Desert in August. Some 700,000 people have descended on the capital from across the country and around the world to take part in the 71 st annual National Cherry Blossom Festival.
One of the best places to see the cherry trees and their blossoms is the Tidal Basin, which the Jefferson Memorial sits beside and which is within walking distance of many of the Smithsonian museums and the Washington Monument. The banks of the large pool are lined with thousands of the trees.
The trees themselves are short, no taller than 20 feet and about as wide. Before the blossoms bloom, they are pink buds. When they open up into the five-leaf flowers they gradually turn white and fall to the ground after a few days.
During the two-week festival, which is set to wrap up on Sunday, there are more tourists than cherry trees lining the Tidal Basin. Some of the tourists are pushing baby carriages, others are snapping pictures and some are taking advantage of the 50 paddle boats that are for rent there, running them into the dock and getting a duck's eye view of the blossoms.
American families blend with Japanese ones and their next-generation video cameras. There are a lot of Japanese tourists here. The cherry trees-3,000 of them-were a gift from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo in 1912.
According to the festival's Web site, the United States returned the gift in 1915, giving Japan flowering dogwood trees. In 1965, Lady Bird Johnson, the president's wife, accepted 3,800 more cherry trees.
The two weeks of the festival are sprinkled with events, from a Japanese lantern lighting festival to a parade and to the crowning of the Cherry Blossom Queen.
The queen is chosen from the princesses. Each state is eligible to have a princess, but in reality only states with active state societies in Washington name a princess. Maine has one of the most vibrant state societies, with some 1,000 members in Washington and around the country.
This year's Maine Cherry Blossom Princess is Melissa C. Danforth of the Berwicks in York County. The 24-year-old lives in Washington, working in the executive office of the president as the deputy associate director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Danforth did not want to talk too much about her experiences working for the President, but she did say that her long title meant that she worked on presidential events and that it was a great experience.
The princess graduated from Northeastern University in Boston in 2004 with a degree in political science. At Northeastern, Danforth was showered with honors and got her first experiences in politics, working for a Massachusetts Senate member and as a research assistant to a health committee in the Irish National Parliament in Dublin.
Danforth said that she was chosen to be the princess after submitting an application with biographical information, a résumé and an essay.
"It's very exciting," Danforth said. "I've known a variety of past Cherry Blossom Princesses from other states, and their experiences really led me to pursue the possibility."
Dee Dee Thibodeau Fusco was Maine's Cherry Blossom Princess in 1981; she was at the state society's dinner in honor of Danforth on Wednesday at the Officers' Club in Fort Myer, Va. Fusco lauded the new princess.
"She's a fabulous representative," Fusco said. "She's intelligent, well-spoken and clearly represents the state of Maine in a good way."
Danforth was honored at the Maine State Society's dinner, receiving a commemorative plate, a mug and a flower. More than 40 people were there, most from Maine but with a small contingent from the Massachusetts State Society, which piggy-backed onto Maine's event because their society did not have enough members to host its own.
There was a raffle with such Maine prizes as a six-pack of Poland Spring water, a can of B & M Brown Bread and a bag of redeye beans.
Chris Fortier, a 26-year-old Aroostook County native who is a Virginia contract lawyer, did not win any of the reminders-of-home prizes, but he did enjoy the dinner.
"It's a fantastic event to honor the state of Maine and the accomplishments its peoples have brought," he said.
Wayne Hanson, a Bangor native whose mother, Myrna, wrote for the Daily News, said that the Maine State Society has a number of other events throughout the year. In May there is a lobster dinner and a day to clean up Maine sites at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. In December they also lay out wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery thanks to a generous gift of more than 4,000 wreaths donated by Morrill Worcester of Harrington over the past 14 years.
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Collins Amendment Fails to Make It Into Senate Reform Bill
WASHINGTON, March 29-Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that the lobbying reform bill that the Senate passed Wednesday by a vote of 90-8 was the most significant reform of ethics rules in a decade, but she added that the bill would have been stronger had her amendment to create an independent office to investigate ethics complaints passed on Tuesday.
The amendment to create an Office of Public Integrity, proposed by Collins and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), failed, 30 to 67.
"I'm disappointed," Collins said at a press conference following the Wednesday vote. "I still think an Office of Public Integrity is a good idea, and it would have strengthened the enforcement leg of this bill and complemented the increase of penalties."
She said her amendment failed because "members were very uneasy at having an independent entity do investigations of allegations of wrongdoing."
Collins added that it often takes years for organizational reforms to go through.
The proposed office would have had an independent director who could conduct investigations and refer them to the Senate Ethics Committee. The proposal would have allowed investigations to be launched by a member, an outside party or the office itself. But the amendment would have allowed the Ethics Committee to overrule the office by a two-thirds vote.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R- Maine, who voted for the Collins amendment on Tuesday, said in a statement that while the Ethics Committee was doing its job, recent scandals have eroded the public's trust in Congress.
"I believe the creation of an independent Office of Public Integrity will alleviate the genuine concern the American people have about the ability of Congress to address possible ethics violations, and I am disappointed that the Senate rejected this amendment today," Snowe said.
Common Cause, a nonpartisan lobbying group promoting open government, supported the amendment, said Mike Surrusco, the director of ethics campaigns for the organization. But Surrusco said the amendment did not go as far as he would have liked and that Common Cause had favored an amendment by Obama that would have established a more independent office, incapable of being overruled by the Senate committee.
"People don't want this independent office because then they can't control it," Surrusco said.
"We feel like the whole process of investigating their colleagues for members is just inherently conflicted," he said.
Paul Miller, the president of the American League of Lobbyists, disagreed. He said the fact that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who sparked the recent ethics debate, was caught was proof that the old system was working.
"These folks can police themselves and their colleagues, and I think they're in a position to do so," Miller said of members of Congress. "I know you hear the stories that, well, one side won't issue a complaint because there is an agreement that both sides have that they're not going to do that. I think this is a new era that we're entering into and I think you're going to see that change."
Surrusco said that the House and Senate Ethics Committees had been emasculated over the last 10 years. While the House committee has taken two complaints in the last decade, Surrusco said, the Senate committee has done more. Common Cause has filed several complaints, he said, but had not heard back on any of them.
Miller said that the ethics committees had not started looking into ethics complaints against Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Tom DeLay (R-Texas) because the Justice Department was already investigating them and "they did not want to reinvent the wheel." Miller said an improved electronic filing system for lobbyists would help the current situation.
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Maine Delegation Reacts to White House Resignation
WASHINGTON, March 28 - Maine's two Republican senators had high praise Tuesday for outgoing White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, whose resignation President George W. Bush announced that morning.
" I have been privileged to call Andy a friend for over a quarter-century, and I wish him all the best as he prepares to embark on a new chapter in his life," Sen. Olympia Snowe said in statement. "He was always willing to listen and communicate, and he is an exceptional person who will be missed."
Card, a native of Massachusetts who served in the Massachusetts legislature, owns a summer house in Poland and has campaigned for Maine Republicans in the past.
Snowe said in an interview she met Card when she was first campaigning for the State Senate in 1976. She was going door to door on a bicycle when she happened to knock on his door. The two Republicans have remained friends since then, dining together and maintaining a strong professional relationship.
Sen. Susan Collins also had kind words for Card. "Andy Card's steady leadership, candor and professionalism over the past five years have distinguished him as one of the most dedicated public servants with whom I have had the privilege of working," she said in a statement. "I wish him well in his future endeavors and look forward to continuing our personal relationship when he visits his second home in my state of Maine."
Snowe said that she thought any future staff changes should be left up to President Bush, despite calls from some of her colleagues for a comprehensive staff shake up. She said that the key to better relations between the White House and Congress was open communication between the two branches, and she stressed the importance of the checks and balances system of government. Card always returned her phone calls, Snowe said.
Card has been the chief of staff at the White House since Bush got there in 2001. His five-year tenure is among the longest of any chief of staff; well beyond the average of about two years. Before serving in this White House, Card had been the Secretary of Transportation for President George H. W. Bush. He was also a deputy chief of staff in the first President Bush's administration.
According to a White House biography, Card worked in the automotive industry during the Clinton administration. Earlier in his career Card was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1975 to 1983. He grew up in Holbrook, Mass., and attended the University of South Carolina and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Maine's two Democratic Representatives also had reactions to Card's resignation.
Rep. Tom Allen (D) said that he did not know Card that well. He met Card in March 2001, when President Bush took the state's congressional delegation up to Maine on Air Force One.
Unlike Snowe, Allen favors more resignations in the Administration. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would be at the top of the list, Allen said, "because you should only have so many mistakes and bad policy decisions before the President finds someone else."
Rep. Michael Michaud (D) agreed with Allen on the need for "new blood" in the Administration and added that Bush's White House should work in a more bipartisan way. He had kind words for Card.
"I respect Andrew Card's commitment to public service and I thank him for it," Michaud said in a statement.
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Energy Lobby Pushes for More Offshore Drilling
WASHINGTON, March 22-Maine's congressional delegation is resisting the effort by the energy industry and its allies in Congress to lift a moratorium on drilling for natural gas and oil on the Outer Continental Shelf. While there are no current proposals to open up drilling off Maine, lifting the moratorium would enable energy companies to begin drilling if they chose to.
Congress in 1982 placed a moratorium on drilling on most of the Outer Continental Shelf, except for the Gulf of Mexico and waters off Alaska and has renewed the moratorium every year.
According to reports by the U.S. Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service, drilling has taken place in the past. In the late 1970s and early 1980s oil companies opened several rigs 80 to 140 miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Mass. These wells were abandoned because they were not commercially viable and the moratorium went into effect. But natural gas wells are operating in the Canadian waters of Georges Bank, and that could spark interest on the American side.
Lisa Flavin, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, an energy lobbying group, said the ultimate goal is to get more energy to consumers. She said that lifting the moratoria on drilling along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts would help deal with energy demands, which are expected to rise in the next two decades. By 2025, the demand for oil will rise by 39 percent and for natural gas by 34 percent, Flavin said.
The institute estimates that there are 3.8 billion barrels of oil in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, which stretches from the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia to the tip of Florida, and there are about 37 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the same region. This is a fraction of the resources in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
Environmental groups disagree. Matt Prindiville, the federal policy advocate for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said that opening up drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf would do little to ease energy demands. The council favors developing alternative energy sources, making automobiles more efficient and making the drilling moratoria permanent.
Prindiville also said that having rigs off the coast of Maine could hurt fishing. "Oil drilling is a messy business," he said. "And the potential for spills to wreak havoc to fisheries and our coasts is certainly there."
The two Maine U.S. House members have signed a letter urging the House Appropriations Committee to maintain the moratoria. So far about 75 Democrats and 25 Republicans have signed the letter and more are expected to sign, according to a spokesman for Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine. A version of the letter circulates every year.
"Mining and oil drilling are profoundly inappropriate for the Gulf of Maine," Allen said in a statement. "Our tourism and fishing industries, so important to Maine's economy, are just too vital to put at risk. I will continue to fight to protect Maine's offshore areas from dangerous and inappropriate activities."
Maine's other representative, Democrat Michael Michaud said in a statement that last year many of his fellow members of Congress had abandoned the commitment to a moratorium for drilling.
"As a 29-year mill worker, I understand that there is no question that we have to do everything that we can to lower gas prices for Maine families, but turning the Gulf of Maine into an oil and gas field is not the way to go," Michaud said.
Both of Maine's Republican senators agree with the representatives on this issue. In a statement, Sen. Olympia Snowe said that she would be working with other senators to help protect the Atlantic Seaboard's environment.
"Many residents of coastal states such as Maine depend on the sea and all its natural resources for their very livelihoods," she said. "Given that we are not certain that oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf can be done in an environmentally friendly way, now is certainly not the time to lift the moratorium."
Sen. Susan Collins has been fighting efforts to open up the Outer Continental Shelf for years as well.
"Drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf presents a threat to the environment and could harm the livelihoods of many residents in Maine and other states," Collins said in a statement. "For this reason, I remain committed to making certain that the moratorium remains in place to preserve our natural resources for future generations."
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Common Cause President Brings Maine with her to Washington
WASHINGTON, March 21-The staff at Common Cause used to get tired of all the Down East stories the organization's president, Chellie Pingree would tell. That is, until last summer, when Pingree took them to her North Haven home for a retreat. They had a lobster bake on the beach, did some work and escaped Washington's oppressive summer heat for a breezy time on Penobscot Bay.
The office now mixes chatter about Allen's Coffee Brandy and hog's head cheese with talk of Washington corruption and bringing the Maine Clean Elections system to the national level.
Pingree, who served as the majority leader of the Maine Senate from 1996 to 2000, came to Common Cause after her failed attempt to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2002. After losing, Pingree was contacted by a firm of headhunters looking to fill the recently vacated position of Common Cause president.
Pingree was dubious at first about coming to Washington. "I'd lived in Maine for so long, and I still consider it my home," she said. But she quickly realized that she would have been here had she won against Collins, and she would be able to go back to Maine often.
Moreover, Common Cause, as one of the oldest people-power lobbying groups, fit well with Pingree's progressive politics.
"It's great to be one of the good guys when the bad guys are so bad," Pingree said in an interview in her office a few blocks from the lobbying den along K Street.
"From a lot of people's perspective this is one of the worst times in politics in Washington, particularly for the issues we work on," she said. "Most of our work is around the influence of money in politics, how elections are conducted, whether the votes get counted, things like the ethics of elected officials, and this year has been obviously incredibly busy for us."
Common Cause was founded by John Gardner, President Lyndon B. Johnson's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, in 1970. In a press release that hangs on Pingree's wall, Gardner spoke of his desire for "public officials to have literally millions of American citizens looking over their shoulders at every move they make."
Gardner wanted his organization to represent everyone, saying that "our agenda must be an agenda for all Americans - for the poor, the comfortable and those in between, for old and young, for black and white, for city dwellers and farmers, for men and women."
Pingree took over the organization at a time of transition. Just before she arrived, Common Cause had seen its efforts of the previous few years pay off in the form of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, according to Mary Boyle, the organization's press secretary.
According to Boyle and Chief Operating Officer Sarah Dufendach, Pingree took the group out of its "tunnel vision" and made it focus on issues such as media reform and wider campaign finance reform. Pingree also focused much of the group's work on the states, recently helping to pass a clean elections system in Connecticut.
Pingree is very hands-on with these issues, according to many on her staff. Barbara Burt, the vice president and director of election reform, who is from Newcastle, said Pingree wants to be treated as a "member of the team." and She is very engaged at staff meetings, wanting to know what everyone is working on.
Pingree, who is now 50, came to Maine right after she graduated from high school. She grew up in Minnesota on a farm and is a third-generation Scandinavian-American. Pingree met her husband, Charlie Pingree, on an Outward Bound course in Minnesota and soon followed him home to Maine. Mr. Pingree is a member of the Maine landowning family but has no connection with the land-owning company itself..
The Pingrees have since divorced, but not before having three children. Hannah serves North Haven and the surrounding area in the state legislature. Cecily is a filmmaker who is working with her mother on opening up the old Nebo Lodge on North Haven for business this summer. Her son, Asa, is an actor.
When Pingree first came to Maine with her husband in 1971, she recalled, the couple lived in North Haven in a wood cabin with no electricity and no running water. The two had a much-read copy of Helen and Scott Nearing's book, "Living the Good Life," and led what Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Mills called "a hippy-dippy existence." Charlie got a job on a dump truck and Chellie kept busy making candles and raising vegetables. She also attempted to volunteer at the local high school.
The principal seemed excited, but when the issue came before the school board it took a vote and decided it did not want this aggressive young woman from another state-from "away," as Mainers sometimes refer to outsiders-to be near their children. This stunned Pingree, she said, and spurred her to go to college so that she could become a science teacher and get her foot in the door of the school.
Pingree has since come to understand what kept her out of the school at first.
"There's sort of a funny thing," she said. "I think people in a lot of small towns and in New England, they kinda kick you around a little bit, and if you stick with it and show them that you're really gonna be there for the long haul, then they accept you and say 'OK.' "
Pingree, after the school board affair, left the island and went to Portland, where she attended night school at the University of Southern Maine and worked the lunch shift at the old Deering's Ice Cream by the South Portland Bridge. She left southern Maine after one semester and transferred to the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. There she got a degree in farming.
She and her husband returned to the island after school. Chellie started a farm and delivered eggs to her neighbors, Charlie started building boats and the two of them started their family.
Pingree had cows, sheep, chicken and vegetables. She started using the wool from her sheep to make sweaters for her business, North Island Designs. Eventually she sold her products through 1,200 stores and mail-order catalogues like Lands' End. About 35 women on the island knit sweaters for her.
In 1992, Pingree ran for the Maine Senate. She had been busy working on the school board and running a business. But she was, as her daughter Hannah described her, a "political junkie" and she needed that fix. She won as a liberal Democrat in Knox County, where 40 percent of the people were Republicans, 40 percent independents and only 20 percent Democrats.
She went on to become the majority leader in her last two terms. Mills said that she often made efforts to reach across the aisle, even if she never altered her policies.
After leaving the state Senate, she ran against Collins in what Mills called impossibly difficult circumstances. But to her supporters, she was still able to inspire people. Dale McCormick, who had served with Pingree in the state senate and originally asked her to run for that legislative seat, said she heard a brilliant bit on the radio.
"I can remember one time I was driving along in Augusta and I heard Chellie on the radio," McCormick said. "And she in 20 seconds so clearly articulated how I was feeling, the problem with the current situation and a very clear solution. I was applauding at the end of it."
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City of Bangor Lobbies Feds
WASHINGTON, March 15 - Two Bangor officials came to the capital this week to lobby the Maine congressional delegation and take part in the National League of Cities' Congressional City Conference. Councilwoman Anne Allen and Rodney McKay, the director of Bangor's Department of Community and Economic Development, were here to push Bangor's interests in the fields of education, transportation, telecommunications and community development.
As members of the Maine Municipal Association, the two officials also belong to the National League of Cities, and Bangor and other cities and towns throughout the state regularly participate in this annual conference. Representatives of Augusta, Brewer, Lewiston and Portland attended as well.
Allen and McKay agreed that the biggest issue facing Bangor and the rest of Maine is the proposed 25 percent cut in Community Development Block Grants, which are disbursed to states and specific communities to spend on things like housing and job creation as they see fit. The Senate on Wednesday approved an amendment that Sen. Olympia Snowe offered to wipe out this proposed cut, but the spending reduction could still go through before the final budget is passed.
When the grants were started in 1974, Bangor received $1.2 million. Despite rising inflation, that number remained static for more than 30 years. The 1974 dollars translate into about $4.8 million 2006 dollars. In fiscal year 2007, the President's budget proposal would send less than $1 million in grant money to Bangor.
With the number of city projects that would be hampered by the federal cut, Allen said with a chuckle, "It's gonna kill us."
McKay said that Bangor has used Community Development Block Grants to improve older residential neighborhoods by giving grants to lower-income house owners for home improvements. The city also bought up unused military housing in the Capeheart area and turned it into transitional housing for the city's homeless. Some of the money also went to job training programs for those residents.
The city also uses the money to help low-income families buy a house, and it gives money to landlords who rent to low-income people, McKay said. The federal money has been used to improve 12 buildings in the downtown area and to bring buildings up to code and make sure they are handicapped-accessible.
When L.L. Bean wanted to open a new call center near the airport, grant money was used to expand the parking lot at 690 Maine Ave., a prerequisite for the giant retailer's moving there, McKay said. The call center created hundreds of jobs for Bangor and the surrounding areas.
McKay and Allen were also pushing for a 100,000-pound vehicle weight limit on I-95 north of Augusta's new bridge. Currently the limit is 80,000 pounds, and trucks that weigh more have to get off the highway at that point and use state and city roads. Not only do they wear out the roads faster, but they also cause many accidents that could be avoided if they stayed on the highway, according to the congressional delegation
The limit used to be 80,000 pounds at the point where the Maine Turnpike ended, forcing northbound trucks to drive down Western Ave. and through the perilous traffic circles in Augusta. After the 100,000-pound weight limit was moved up to the third bridge on Oct, 15, 2004, accidents on Memorial Circle involving heavy trucks dropped from seven in 2004 to two in 2005, and on Bangor Street from four to two. All traffic accidents also declined from 2004 to 2005.
The Maine congressional delegation is trying to get the weight limit extended further north. A bill by Snowe, co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, is in committee, and a House version sponsored by Maine's congressmen is at the same stage.
McKay and Allen also were concerned with recent efforts by telecommunications companies to end city control over when city streets can be dug up for installation of cables. Currently the companies need city approval and have to pay a nominal fee. The telecommunications industry wants such controls shifted to the federal government.
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