ethics commission

State Senate candidate Dana Kadey has been ordered to reimburse the state for personal purchases made with public campaign funds.

As first reported last week by PolitickerME.com, purchases made by the independent candidate from Princeton -- including a GPS unit, cooler, truck cap and roof rack -- were under review by the Maine Ethics Commission.

On Monday, they voted to require Kadey to repay $2,000 to the Maine Clean Election Act fund.

Gov. John Baldacci has recommended Hallowell attorney Walter McKee to fill a vacancy on the Maine Ethics Commission. He has also recommended that sitting commissioner Ed Youngblood be reappointed.

Baldacci chose McKee from names provided by Maine Speaker of the House Glenn Cummings. Youngblood was recommended by Senate Republican Leader Carol Weston.

McKee will replace Commissioner David Shiah, who resigned from the commission last month.

Two legislative candidates found themselves in a frustrating predicament Friday morning.

Legislative candidates have the opportunity to sign the “2008 Maine Code of Fair Campaign Practices” with the Ethics Commission. Doing so is voluntary. Kenneth Capron of Portland and Kimberly McLaughlin of Yarmouth allege that their opponents signed the code and then violated it, and brought the case before the commission at their monthly meeting Friday.

After an hour-long discussion over jurisdiction, the commission members determined that they had no authority to enforce the code.

Click here for a previous report on the issue.

In the last legislative session, state lawmakers approved measures that made it 30 percent harder for candidates for governor to qualify for public financing. They also required all gubernatorial candidates to be audited by the Ethics Commission.

Lawmakers also asked Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the commission, to study further improvements to public financing in gubernatorial elections.

At a public hearing Friday morning, a handful of proponents – mostly the usual suspects – said that the most recent round of changes should play out in 2010 before any more are made.

Candidates running with public financing will have a little less money to work with this year.

In the latest round of budget cuts, the Legislature cut 5 percent of funding for Clean Elections candidates. It’s not that big of a deal, said Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the Ethics’ Commission -- it’s the lawmakers’ way of sharing the sacrifice of the budget cuts.

Two ethics bills have recently advanced in the Maine Legislature.  read more »

The Ethics Commission will again determine if it wants to investigate the Maine Heritage Policy Center for its 2006 efforts to promote the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

The matter will be taken up at the commission’s monthly board meeting Monday.  read more »

Maine’s power lobbyist, Severin Beliveau is an item on the ethics commission agenda for Monday. His crime---he was an hour late filing his monthly report.