Luke Wachob
The narrative that tax–financed campaigns have been a success in Maine is a creation of politicians who prefer to get money without having to ask for it, coupled with activists who want to see government play a larger role in campaigns. Every government program that spends money has a constituency ready to fight for it, but when we look at the actual evidence, little appears to have changed as a result of Maine’s decision to provide tax dollars to candidates starting in 2000…
Or take claims about diversity. The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal made false assertions common among proponents of tax-financed campaigns when he wrote in September that Maine’s program “allowed waitresses, teachers, firefighters, convenience store clerks and others to run for office and win. Women benefited especially, running in greater numbers than had been possible before. Thanks to public funding, the state soon had the most blue-collar legislature in the country.”
That is just not true, no matter how often it is repeated. The gender diversity, and diversity of occupational backgrounds, of Maine legislators remains largely unchanged from the days prior to public financing. In fact, there were more women in the Maine Legislature every year from 1990-1994 than there have been in every Legislature since the implementation of public financing in 2000 (save for 2007 and 2008, which saw an equal number of women legislators as 1990).
