By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

While campaign nepotism may prevail in some congressional quarters, it’s rare among Maine’s delegates to the nation’s capital.

Only U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican, listed family members as paid campaign workers, and that was for campaigns in 1990 and 1994.

John Richter, the senator’s chief of staff, said Mary Chomas, a niece of Snowe, worked in her 1990 campaign.

Georgia Chomas, a cousin who operates a real estate agency in Auburn, was a paid campaign worker in 1994, Richter added.

He didn’t have details on their jobs or salaries.

Maine’s other members of Congress avoided putting family members on their campaign payrolls.

“No, never,” said Mark Sullivan, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat representing the state’s southern 1st District.

“That’s not the way Tom works,” Sullivan said from the congressman’s Portland office.

Sullivan said he’s been with the congressman since 1995 working either as his press secretary or with his campaigns.

He said he’d know if there was a family member on the payroll at any time during that period, and he knows there wasn’t.

Elissa Davidson, a spokeswoman for Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, was equally quick and brief in responding to a query.

“Senator Collins did not have any family members on her campaign payroll,” she said by e-mail from Washington.

Monica Castellanos, Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s press secretary, said, “He doesn’t have any family members working for him.”

Nor, she added, did Michaud have any paid relatives working for his 2nd District congressional campaigns.