Andrew Ian Dodge Responds to Angus' Offer With One of His Own

Press Release

Dear Fellow Senate Candidate,

Angus King's proposal that we all reject super-pac help meant well but was unworkable. I am sure Gov King knows the law in this regard and that we, as candidates, can't organize things with super-pacs.

However we can control who we go to see to raise money. I am proposing that we agree not to go to DC to seek funds from any out of state lobbyist. We all agree "that the integrity of our elections should not be compromised by unlimited and effectively anonymous flows of cash into our political process".

I await your reply.

Kind regards,

Andrew Ian Dodge

PS: I have taken the liberty of sending this letter via email to make sure all candidates receive it at the same time.

Text of King's Letter:

Dear Ian,

First, let me congratulate you for gettting on the ballot for the US Senate. I know that putting yourself forward for public office is a serious commitment these days and respect your investment of time, effort, and energy. I look forward to engaging with you and the other candidates over the next five months as we define and debate the critically important issues facing Maine and our country.

I know that we will disagree from time to time but expect there will be areas of agreement as well, given our common commitment to improving the lives of our citizens through work in the United States Senate. In this sense, this campaign will be like all of the elections in Maine which have gone before--where able candidates vigorously debate the issues and each other in an effort to help the voters decide who they want to represent them.

But in another sense, this will be radically unlike prior Maine elections, because of the changes wrought by recent developments in campaign finance law, particularly the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. In the past, campaigns were fought out between the candidates using the financial resources they were able to muster on their own behalf, all subject to strict contribution and disclosure limits designed to curb undue influence on our electoral process by any one individual or group. Now, under Citizens United, these limitations have been effectively swept away and a small and often anonymous group (or even one wealthy individual) can spend unlimited sums to promote (or oppose) the candidacy of any one or the other of us.

In fact one of these groups has already sprung up and created an ad on my behalf in this election.

But in spite of its potential benefit to me, I think this development is harmful to the process and poses a very real threat to our electoral system--and therefore I'd like to propose that we join together to keep these groups out of Maine using the model that seems to be working in the Senate campaign in Massachusetts between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren.

The concept is simple -- we explicitly disavow super PAC or similar political-committee spending in Maine which is designed to promote any of us or denigrate any of our opponents and commit ourselves to actively discouraging any such "independent" expenditures which might help us one way or the other in this election. This agreement can be reduced to writing and include an enforcement mechanism which would penalize us if such activity takes place on our behalf, just as is the case in the Brown-Warren agreement. Although somewhat more complex because we will have more than two candidates, I'm sure some satisfactory arrangement can be worked out among our respective campaigns if we have the will to do so.

I sincerely hope you will join me in this effort; together, we can establish an important precedent in Maine that the integrity of our elections should not be compromised by unlimited and effectively anonymous flows of cash into our political process.

I stand ready to enter into such an agreement; please let me know at your earliest convenience whether this is an issue upon which we can stand together.

With my best,

Angus King
Candidate for the United States Senate

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