Reply #40: Under Maine's Publicly Financed campaign laws

[PotatoChip]

(aka "Clean Elections") the answer is no... At least not w/the candidate's knowledge.

Though I've never heard of it happening, I suppose a Union, or the NRA could have a rah-rah event for their candidate of choice (especially now after the SCOTUS ruling on "corporate personhood"). However, it seems kind of foolish considering that their guest of honor is not only NOT allowed to attend, but they cannot even know about it.

The same rule applies to an individual group such as those you cited (PAC) airing commercials, print ads, sending mailings ect on behalf of any one candidate... they can do it, but the candidate is not allowed to have any say in how or what they do, nor even know about it... Now this, I've have seen. And sometimes the candidate doesn't even want/or like what the PAC has done when trying to "help".

If this rule were to be violated IOW, if the candidate knew about it, or had a hand in it somehow, the cost of the event, mailing, advertisement, ect would be considered to be a private contribution and as such, a violation of the publicly funded candidate's legally binding agreement to not accept private funds. Since I'm unaware of there ever having been such a violation, I don't know what the penalty would be. But ethics violations are considered to be serious matters, nothing a Clean Election candidate would want. At the very least, I would assume they would have to pay back the public funds, plus a hefty fine, plus maybe face criminal charges, plus extremely negative publicity.

You've probably gotten far more then you ever wished to know about Publicly Funded campaigns, but just in case you want more info (lol)... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Elections