Democratic Governor-elect Janet Mills has begun seeking private donations to fund her inaugural committee andtransition team. For the first time in Maine, the source of those donations will, eventually, be made public because of a 2015 law that bolstered the state’s public campaign finance program and reporting requirements for election spending.
Donations to gubernatorial transition committees can potentially provide insight into how interest groups or individuals attempt toinfluence the makeup of the new state bureaucracy.
But laws dealing with the funding of gubernatorial transitions, which require staff and office space, vary widely from state to state. The same is true for public funding of gubernatorial transitions. Maine law provides $5,000 for gubernatorial transitions, while Michigan provides $1.5 million. Other states adjust the amount year-to-year, while some have no formal process at all.
The gubernatorial provision in the 2015 law passed via ballot initiative was seen as a response to outgoing Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who claimed to have voluntarily disclosed the names of individuals and corporations that donated to the governor’s 2010 transition, but not the amounts. Additionally, donations to LePage’s gubernatorial transition team were ultimately folded into the non-profit known as People Before Politics, a political operation overseen by the governor’s political advisor and his daughter, Lauren. In 2015, the group launched a series of robocalls that attacked Republican state senators who opposed LePage’s biennial budget proposal.
The 2015 law aims to curb such activity. Unused private donations to Mills’s transition team must eventually be returned to donors or given to nonprofit groups largely unable to engage in political activity.
Additionally, donations above $50 cannot be anonymous and must be reported to the Maine Ethics Commission. The transition and inaugural committees will disclose those donations first in early January and later in February. Donations to both committees end Jan. 30.
Scott Ogden, spokesperson for Mills, said in a statement that the decision to form the committees is based on the fact that there is limited state funding available for the transition, and that Democrats want her administration ready to go when she takes office Jan. 2.
“The Transition Committee will solicit donations from individuals and others – but not lobbyists – to support the transition effort, which includes the recruitment and evaluation of candidates for government positions,” Ogden said. “The Inaugural Committee, which plans and executes the inauguration and other inaugural-related events, will be open to donations from all.”
The 2015 law prohibits lobbyist donations to the transition team when the Legislature is in session. The 129th Legislature began its session Wednesday.
“Donations from lobbyists would never influence any decision-making within the transition to begin with, but given that transitions require private fundraising, we formalized the committee structure in this way to send a clear message that decisions made by the transition regarding government positions will be based solely and strictly on the merits of the candidates and nothing else,” Ogden said. “As the governor-elect has said, she wants her administration to be filled with the best and the brightest, regardless of political affiliation.”
