Yarmouth businessman Steve Woods says Democratic Party leaders conspired against him in this past state primary election. And today, he asked the state Ethics commission to investigate. The panel agreed, but not for the reasons Woods had raised.
Most of the bad blood between Steve Woods and the Maine Democratic Party can be traced back to a memorandum of understanding that both signed nearly a year ago, when Woods was seeking the party's nomination in the race for governor.
From the day he announced, Woods said party leaders made it clear they wanted Congressman Mike Michaud to be the nominee, "In effect, making it a selection and not an election," Woods said. "And over a number of months, I challenged the party, saying I didn't think that was right and what resulted was a contract."
The contract, or memorandum of understanding, formed the basis of what Woods thought was his relationship with the Maine Democratic Party for the next year. In it, he agreed to withdraw from the campaign when Michaud entered the race. However, had Michaud decided to withdraw, party officials agreed to exclusively support Woods in his bid for governor.
Woods did step aside in that race, but then decided at the beginning of the year to run for the District 25 state Senate seat. Despite written assurances of neutrality from Democratic Party activists, Woods says party leaders worked against him in the primary, which he lost by a 2-1 margin to opponent Cathy Breen.
Woods told members of the Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices that, in essence, party officials conspired against him.
"There's a pattern - a pattern that lacks ethics and scruples that goes beyond the candidate into the party and into the highest elements of government, the conspiracy element, the party at the highest level knew about these actions," Woods said. "There's an e-mail back in March where I've said to the party: 'I entered this race to represent the district - not to compete against the Maine Democratic Party.'"
Democratic leaders did not show up at the ethics meeting to answer Woods request for an investigation. They sent their lawyer, Katherine Knox, instead.
"As you can tell, there is a long-standing difficult relationship between the party and Mr. Woods," Knox said.
Knox objected to certain pieces of written correspondence that Woods had submitted on the grounds of expressed confidentiality by the signers. Knox also disputed Woods' contention that a coordinated effort was launched by his opponent and Democratic party leaders - including an e-mail sent out by the Falmouth Democratic town committee a few days before the primary, urging Democrats to support Cathy Breen.
"It's Mr. Woods' burden to come to you to with enough evidence to say, 'There's enough here for you to justify an investigation into these actions,'" Knox said. "And I would argue that once you narrow the jurisdiction issue to this email, which I think is the only expenditure that we're really talking about, there is just no evidence."
The commission largely agreed with Knox that most of Woods' concerns regarding the ethics of the party leaders fell outside of the commission's jurisdiction. But Commissioner Michael Healy, a Freeport Republican, remained intrigued by the idea of a town Democratic committee using its resources to lend support to a primary candidate.
"I think the only basis for an investigation here is an investigation as to whether or not the email that the town Democratic Party issued was a contribution to the Breen campaign," Healy said, "because I believe the email list, if, in fact, a town committee email list was used - which is not clear to me - in my opinion is something of value."
The commission voted 3-2 in favor of Healy's suggestion and authorized a staff investigation into the email from the Falmouth Democratic Town Committee.