In September a newspaper story reported that lobbyists spent $4.2 million in this year’s first legislative session. That may have convinced you that lobbyists dominate the Legislature and always get what their way.
But the story, written by the Associated Press reporter Marina Villeneuve, noted that the top spenders didn’t always get what they wanted.
Well, for many years I was a registered lobbyist, and I can tell you it takes a lot more than money to win at the Legislature. You must earn a good and positive relationship with each legislator. And the most powerful lobbyists are citizens who come to testify and lobby without being paid.
A lot has changed at the Legislature because of term limits, which were a bad mistake. Why did Maine people think that a lack of experience is a good thing?
After I left the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and was no longer a registered lobbyist, I still spent a lot of time at the Legislature writing about their work and even proposing my own bills. And sometimes the fish and wildlife committee would ask me, at a work session, to explain the history of a bill and issue. Because of term limits, no one on the committee knew that history.
Term limits have actually made things tougher for lobbyists because every session you have to spend a lot of time getting to know and earning the trust of lots of new inexperienced legislators.
At SAM, we focused on endorsing candidates who supported us. I would prepare a questionnaire that included many of the proposals we planned to make in the next legislative session and ask candidates if they supported those proposals. Because they really valued SAM’s endorsement, I got enough supporting commitments to give us a good start on our bills before the session even began. And we did not give candidates campaign donations.
Occasionally, when a legislator who on their SAM survey said they would support our bill instead planned on voting no, I would call them out of the chamber and show them the survey in which they promised to vote yes. That was very helpful!
Villeneuve’s report that cable networks who spent a lot of money on lobbying were unable to defeat a bill that ensures public access channels are treated like other channels. Central Maine Power spent $100,000 on lobbying for their new controversial transmission project, and while they were able to stop legislative bills against their project, we still have a long way to go, including the possibility that Maine people will make the final decision in a ballot initiative.
Yes, you know CMP will spend millions trying to defeat that initiative. But that doesn’t mean they will win.
The massive amount of money spent on political campaigns today really bothers me. In 1974, when I managed Dave Emery’s successful campaign for Congress, we spent a total of $36,000. Last year, in the race for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District seat, $31 million was spent, mostly by out-of-state interests who didn’t have to disclose their donors. And almost all of the ads were nasty and negative.
Today, a lot of a legislator’s attention goes to the newest and hottest issues, not necessarily the most important issues. For example, even though our roads are a mess, all they could do was to put a new bond issue on the ballot, which will fund only half of the most urgent road improvements.
I don’t see this improving anytime soon, because Rep. Andrew McLean, chairman of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, who has presented bills to raise highway funding to more sustainable levels, is term-limited out after next year’s session.
And Sen. Rebecca Millett announced she will be introducing a bill to ban the sale of vaping products until the Food and Drug Administration decides they are safe to use. Yet vaping, so far, may have caused lung problems for only about 1,200 people and killed less than two dozen.
One in every five deaths in the United States each year is caused by cigarettes; 480,000 people die every year from the use of cigarettes. If we’re going to ban vaping products, shouldn’t we be banning cigarettes as well? I’m not saying we should not ban vaping products. I’m just saying that the legislators’ focus on this ignores the much bigger problem of cigarettes.
While I wish we would repeal term limits, I’m afraid most people have no idea how harmful they have been.
And far too many people think lobbyists are bad people who dominate the Legislature.
George Smith can be reached at 34 Blake Hill Road, Mount Vernon 04352, or georgesmithmaine@gmail.com. Read more of Smith’s writings at www.georgesmithmaine.com.
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