The Maine Ethics Commission has introduced a slate of new campaign finance rules that future candidates would have to follow if they win legislative approval.

Some of the new rules, according to Jonathan Wayne, the ethics commission’s executive director, are the result of a 2015 referendum that was initiated by citizen petition. Other rules are being suggested by the commission in response to issues that have come up in the course of policing campaign finance laws.

“In some cases we’re just putting into rules what our current practices are,” said Wayne.

The new rule proposals are as follows:

• Doubling the amount of $5 seed money contributions that legislative candidates can collect and eliminating the requirement for gubernatorial candidates to collect seed money.
• Allowing candidates to collect additional qualifying contributions.
• Barring candidates from making payments of more than $50 in Maine Clean Election Act funds in cash.
• Defining “fraudulent qualifying contributions” to guard against improper collections of qualifying contributions. This is to prevent candidates from paying for qualifying contributions and telling the commission they were from someone else.
• Requiring gubernatorial candidates to designate one or more compliance officers to oversee the collection of qualifying contributions and to submit a written compliance plan to the commission.

The commission will hold a public hearing on these rules Dec. 8 at its headquarters in Augusta. Written comments can be emailed to Lorrie.Brann@maine.gov until 5 p.m. Dec. 19.

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