Hightower, Common Cause head visit Maine, praise MCEA

Click here for photos of the Jim Hightower event. See below for video of Hightower’s speech.

Maine’s Clean Elections Act is discussed in a book by Jim Hightower, progressive political activist, author and commentator, “Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow”.

Hightower came to Maine to discuss his book, fundraise for Common Cause Maine and campaign for Congressional candidate Chellie Pingree, a former president of Common Cause. He spoke to a group of about 100 people in Portland Sunday.

“83 percent of Maine’s state senators and 84 percent of its House members have now been elected without turning to corporate interests to finance their campaigns,” he said Sunday.

In the book, he mentions two state representatives using the Maine Clean Elections Act.

“Deborah Simpson was a single mom waiting tables in a Maine restaurant in 2000. Being paid half the minimum wage, plus tips, Simpson was hardly the sort of well-connected person who gets elected to the state Legislature,” he wrote.

He added: “Serving with her is Nancy Smith, a Maine farmer first elected in 2002 against a lobbyist-backed opponent. She did not know anyone in the money circles and had no time to go hustling campaign funds, for she has chickens to feed and cows to milk.”

Hightower has endorsed Pingree.

“We need people with her punch who will not just sit quietly in the Democratic caucus,” he said.

Also in town was Bob Edgar, a former Philadelphia congressman and religious activist, who took over for Pingree as president of Common Cause last May. He plans to meet with Gov. John Baldacci Tuesday to discuss items on Common Cause’s agenda.

Edgar calls himself a “Watergate baby,” elected to Congress as one of those seeking change following Nixon’s resignation. He served for 12 years as a Democrat in a Republican district.

He said he sees a similar movement brewing, and he wants Common Cause to be seen less of an organization and more of a movement. For this, he is stepping up fundraising in Maine, in hopes of expanding the organization to work on more state issues.

“I can retire the day after every public official serves the public interest instead of the private interest,” he said.

In an interview before Sunday’s event he discussed two issues. First, he is encouraging the state to continue its public financing for candidates.

Maine is being used as a model for other states, several of which are implementing public financing, along with a federal bill to fix public financing on the national level.

“Maine is the poster child for public financing,” he said.

Secondly, the organization will be lobbying heavily on the National Popular Vote issue, which currently has deadlocked the state Senate.

“After the primary, only eight states count,” in the Presidential election, he said. Maine is not one of them.