After a lackluster fundraising performance so far, and despite promising not to, Green Independent gubernatorial candidate Lynne Williams has announced she will switch to private financing for her campaign.

See my Down East column for the details and possible repercussions. Full campaign email after the jump.

Our campaign won't use tax money

Dear Supporter,
In light of the current budget crisis facing Maine I have decided to forego public funding for our campaign. Going forward we will instead run a privately-funded effort.

We’ve been agonizing over this for several weeks, and while we solidly support the concept of public funding for gubernatorial elections, it appears the position of the Maine Legislature is to dilute the fund and also make it harder for Clean Election candidates to qualify for what will be left. This is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the law as it was approved by more than 320,000 Maine citizens back in 1996.

Members of the Legislature have continued to support using public money to fund their own campaigns, but they made several major changes to the rules for gubernatorial funding that have despoiled the spirit of the law.

Moving forward as a privately funded campaign will have its limitations, but in the end, in light of the current fiscal mismanagement we’re seeing in Augusta, I could not, in good conscience, take public money that might be better used to help people in real need.

The original concept of the Clean Elections law was to remove the fund-raising burdens on gubernatorial candidates in exchange for their agreeing to limit their campaign spending. Under that concept, candidates would be free to discuss the issues, rather than spending much of their time raising money, which would in theory result in a better-informed electorate.

But last year the Legislature changed the law to say that before Clean Election candidates for governor could qualify for public funding, they had to raise a significant amount of private money – $40,000 – from Maine voters in increments no greater than $100. At the same time, the Legislature raised the private contribution limit for non-Clean Election candidates from $500 to $750 per person.

Basically, the Legislature said that in order to avoid the influence of private money, we have to raise private money. It makes no sense.

In addition, the Legislature increased by 30 percent, from 2,500 to 3,250, the number of $5 “qualifying contributions” – money paid directly to the state – that gubernatorial candidates must solicit from supporters in order to qualify for Clean Election funding.

We’ve spent far more time per dollar raised than I would have had I run as a conventionally funded candidate in the first place. It seems all these Legislative changes were designed to make it harder for third party and independent candidates – those without large donor bases – to qualify for public funding.

This convoluted process has left hardly any time for critical policy discussions – and maybe that was the point.

Also factoring into my decision is the precarious condition of the Clean Election Fund itself.

Right now the state is on track to spend at least $2 million dollars this year just in the Democratic and Republican primaries to help the major parties decide who will represent their parties in November. Couple that with the fact that the Baldacci administration has stripped close to $3 million from the fund in recent years, and with the very real possibility that the Legislature will forego its legal obligation to add money to the fund this year, and it is clear the Clean Election Fund itself may be in jeopardy.

It is entirely possible, that the State Ethics Commission will tell Clean Election gubernatorial candidates this fall that they will have to resort to some private fundraising anyway.

Given all that, she said, it made little sense to continue with the Clean Election program.

We will return to sender all the $5 “qualifying contribution” checks the campaign is holding, and will also help people who made a $5 QC via credit card on the state’s website try to get their money back from the state Ethics Commission if they wished.