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Joyce A. Maker of Calais is a former Republican state senator and representative from Calais. She is also a former city councilor and school board member.
Every election year, millions of dollars in big and dark money floods into Maine’s elections to pay for negative ads. The divisive and uncivil rhetoric in these ads exploits and exaggerates our differences, often for the benefit of wealthy special interests from away at the expense of the Maine people.
Fortunately, there is something that we can do now to lessen the flow of big and dark money into Maine’s elections. We can vote “Yes” on Question 1 on the November statewide ballot to limit contributions that individuals and corporations can give to political action committees (PACs).
Question 1 effectively ends “super PACs,” which are the biggest source of unregulated and unlimited money in our elections.
I remember a time when the conversations that Mainers would have about politics at the local coffee shop or in the hallway of the state capitol building centered around issues like municipal revenue sharing, funding for education, and transportation policy. These issues occupied most of our attention because they directly impacted our daily lives: Will my street get repaved? Will the high school be replacing its obsolete science textbook with new editions? Are my property taxes going up or down or staying the same?
In recent years, these fundamental issues have been crowded out by “hot button” national issues that have come to dominate our increasingly uncivil public discourse. That’s thanks in large part to the corrosive influence of big and dark super PAC money in elections that has elevated the issues that matter most to wealthy campaign contributors at the expense of our families and communities.
These fundamental issues still matter most to the vast majority of us, but you wouldn’t know it from turning on your television, opening your mailbox, or logging onto Facebook these days, where a barrage of super PAC-funded negative ads await you.
I served in the Maine Legislature as a Republican. I had differences of opinion with my Democratic colleagues on spending, taxes, and core policy concerns, but we always worked to find middle ground and compromise on policy without compromising our values.
Through bipartisan collaboration on core issues we forged good working relationships, and in some cases, even lifelong friendships. This set the tone for how we worked together on every issue. Even on the most polarizing topics, the discourse was usually quite civil and we worked hard to move the needle in a positive direction.
The Democrats who I served with were my fellow Mainers who simply see the world a little differently than me. They were never my enemies.
That fundamentally changed with the emergence of big and dark money into Maine’s elections from highly partisan and ideological billionaires from away. Their interference into our elections through super PACs has cost us dearly as a state and as a people.
The tens of millions of dollars that they spend every election year, often on a steady stream of hateful attack ads, pits Mainers against one another and sows seeds of distrust and downright hatred.
Let’s be clear about why these wealthy special interests spend so much money in our elections: it’s to secure greater political influence for themselves and advance their narrow agendas.
In their quest for political power, there is nobody it seems that they won’t degrade or dehumanize. That’s because these wealthy interests don’t live in Maine, they aren’t part of our communities, and they don’t have to look any of us in the eyes at the grocery store or post office.
They tear at the fabric of our shared political values and traditions, which have long contributed to the specialness of who we are as a people and a state.
In Maine’s 2020 U.S. Senate election, a handful of billionaires and millionaires from away contributed to super PACs that spent nearly $100 million, including on vitriolic ads against Susan Collins or Sara Gideon.
The vast majority of the record-breaking $28 million that was spent in Maine’s 2022 election for governor came from super PACs on attack ads against Janet Mills and Paul LePage.
The election in Maine’s Second Congressional District, one of the few remaining swing districts in the country, has become a hotbed for super PAC spending on divisive ads. The 2024 race between Jared Golden and Austin Theriault could set another record for super PAC spending.
Aren’t you sick of it? Enough is enough.
We deserve politics that work — where every vote counts, every voice is heard and valued, and our democracy isn’t for sale. That’s why I am voting “Yes” on Question 1 this November, along with former colleagues from both sides of the aisle. Please join us.
