Conservative activist rebuts charges
9/9/09 | 11 comments
ethics

Conservative activist rebuts charges


Director of Maine Leads defends donations at ethics hearing
By Kevin Miller
BDN Staff

AUGUSTA, Maine — The head of a conservative public policy group that helped bankroll two anti-tax measures on the November ballot defended his organization Tuesday against allegations that it violated Maine’s campaign finance laws.

Roy Lenardson, the executive director of Maine Leads, told members of the state Ethics Commission that he and several others started the nonprofit organization in the fall of 2007 in order to help strengthen the effectiveness of the conservative base in Maine.

But one month after it was created, Maine Leads provided $25,000 in seed money to two political action committees, or PACs, working to reduce the excise tax and to pass the Taxpayers Bill of Rights II. Additionally, Maine Leads gave $160,500 to a firm to gather the signatures needed to trigger a statewide vote on those tax measures and a third unsuccessful ballot question dealing with health care.

Those donations prompted a former state lawmaker, Deborah Hutton of Bowdoinham, to file a complaint with the Maine Ethics Commission that Maine Leads should be considered a PAC rather than a nonprofit. Hutton contends that by not registering as a PAC, Maine Leads was able to circumnavigate campaign finance laws that provide the public with the identity of the groups behind political campaigns.

Lenardson testified to the commission on Tuesday that while the ballot issues received a significant portion of Maine Leads’ money, they were not the major focus of the energies of the organization’s staff.

“We wanted it to be part of our mission, but not our mission,” Lenardson said.

Lenardson estimated that Maine Leads’ staff spent 4 percent of their time on the ballot issues. The remaining time was devoted to working on specific issues, such as government transparency, and building a better political model to help what Lenardson called the conservative “middle right” be more successful in Maine.

But Hutton’s attorney, Benjamin Grant, argued that Lenardson’s statements about the original mission of Maine Leads are largely irrelevant. The reality is that Maine Leads provided the vast majority of the funding to get the issues on the ballot, he said.

“This is about what they did,” Grant said.

Hutton and Grant also have pointed out numerous links between Maine Leads and the ballot campaigns.

For instance, Lenardson was the lead signatory on the excise tax referendum application filed with the Secretary of State’s Office in August 2007. He also was listed as the principal officer of the PAC formed to help fund the three ballot measures. Another Maine Leads staff member, Trevor Bragdon, was listed as treasurer of the PAC.

Additionally, Bragdon is the owner of the Pioneer Group, the firm that Maine Leads paid $160,500 to gather signatures.

Lenardson expressed frustration several times Tuesday at how much money the ballot initiatives consumed.

“This was not the path that I had in mind,” he told the commission.

Instead, Maine Leads was created to get away from what he said was an overly heavy focus in Maine’s conservative circles on referendum campaigns to attempt change. Lenardson said Maine Leads, which received more than $400,000 from three national conservative groups, was attempting to mimic the type of local grass-roots organization and collaboration among various interest groups that has made the “political left” so successful in Maine and elsewhere.

“It really was [formed] strictly out of envy with how the left was organized,” said Lenardson, a veteran political activist in Maine. “I wanted an organization that could compete with the left.”

Both sides agreed that changes made to Maine’s campaign finance laws in June 2008 would require Maine Leads to register as either a PAC or a ballot question committee today. The issue that the commission will have to decide, however, is whether Maine Leads’ activities before June 30, 2008, were in violation of campaign finance laws on the books at that time.

“That wasn’t the state of the law in 2007 and 2008,” Lenardson’s attorney, Dan Billings, said after Tuesday’s hearing.

The commission has asked for additional information from Maine Leads before taking up the issue again at its next meeting, scheduled for Oct. 1.

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Comments
11 comments on this item
On 9/8/09 at 10:39 PM, letterreader wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Conservatives are ruing america. With their misplaced efforts, we will become Amerika

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On 9/9/09 at 3:36 AM, stewie wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Wherei s Amerika located?

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On 9/9/09 at 4:41 AM, leumas wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Letterreader, stick to reading.

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On 9/9/09 at 4:55 AM, jakemulligan wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Letterreader, back away from the Kool Aid, slowly now. and stewie, Amerika is the land where the Klintons once ruled.

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On 9/9/09 at 6:45 AM, TheTruth wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

What do mean ruin America... they already did.

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On 9/9/09 at 6:49 AM, Govt2Big wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

While I support more accountability on both sides of the political aisle, it seems very ironic that this complaint was filed by Deborah Hutton. Since Mrs. Hutton is married to the current executive director of the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA-SEIU Local 1989), which has provided HUGE campaign support for an array of pro-socialism initiatives by the democrats, she and her husband (Tim Belcher) certainly know a lot about campaign support. In fact, here are a few links with some examples for you:

1) http://www.mseaseiu.org

2) http://www.seiu.org/

3) http://www.seiu.org/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=1&tag=ambulance%20tour&limit=20

4) http://www.changetowin.org/

In addition, don't forget about SEIU's direct relationship with the infamous ACORN group... and have you heard about the cozy relationship between Governor Baldacci and his campaign supporters at MSEA-SEIU Local 1989? Why they even posted a campaign sign up on their roof during the last election season...and you should see all of the related accounting files with little/no detailed accountability and a lop-sided challenge process that's part of the Baldacci-approved contract between that union/PAC and the State of Maine.

While I applaud any effort to provide more transparency while reducing corruption within the State of Maine, it is truly ironic that Deborah Hutton would cast this stone when I believe her husband's own organization deserves a Procedural Audit. Since inappropriate accounting practices will often lead to fraud, which in the case of MSEA-SEIU Local 1989 would also involve a lot of taxpayers’ dollars, We The People deserve to know the truth. It's time for all of the corrupt political and accounting games to be exposed, and I hope all of the key players will be held responsible for their actions. Enough is enough!

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On 9/9/09 at 8:03 AM, GeraldWeinand wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

My take on Dan Billings' argument, the chicken or the egg, can be found here:

http://www.dirigoblue.com/diary/300

At least it was better than what Billings had argued previously:

The statute cited by Mr. Grant defines a political action committee as "Any organization...that has its major purpose advocating the passage or defeat of a ballot question, and that solicits funds from members or nonmembers and spends more than $1,500 in a calender year to initiate, advance, promote, defeat or influence in any way...a referendum or initiated petition, including the collection of signatures for a direct initiative, in this State." (Emphasis added.) This definition sets up a three part test that must be passed for an organization to be defined as a political action committee. The organization must (1) have as its major purpose advocating the passage or defeat of a ballot question; (2) it must solicit funds for that purpose; and (3) it must spend more than $1,500 in a calender year for that purpose. If any one of these three requirements is not present, then the organization is not a PAC.

It is not in dispute that Maine Leads made contributions to three individual political action committees that were collecting signatures for three separate initiatives. Even if one is to assume, for the purpose of this argument, that in 2007, the major purpose of Maine Leads was supporting the signature gathering process of the three initiatives, the statute defines as a political action committee an organization that has as its major purpose the passage or defeat of a single ballot question. The statue speaks of a single ballot question and does not include in the definition organizations that have the major purpose of the passage or defeat of multiple ballot questions.

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On 9/9/09 at 8:32 AM, Elizabethann wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Acorn.....who funded them with their extreme left wing agenda...

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On 9/9/09 at 8:53 AM, mrwaldo wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Um....that story was about 3,500 words too long.. The subject they are discussing was not a law back in 2007....Theres your story...

I wonder if Kevin Miller will do his usual 'masterery' investigative reporting just in general, where the other side gets thier money and thru who...

He continues to set low journalistic standards and consistantly fails to achieve them...

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On 9/9/09 at 9:11 AM, HarryHSnyderIII wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I was planning to comment on this story, but I will comment on the posters instead.

The strident pitch and take-no-prisoners attitude of people posting (both on the right and the left) alienates folks who may be only a bit more morerate, and the message for both sides is you will win nothing on the fringe.

Hell, I haven't seen the word "Amerika" since Abbie Hoffman bit the dust!

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On 9/9/09 at 1:02 PM, fmrmti wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Poetic that Ms. Hutton is the one they put up to this. We are really in "pot vs kettle" territory here.

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