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Greetings from Maine! As has been requested of everyone, I’ve decided to step up and do my part to get Democrats elected in Maine. Here is some of the necessary information you’ll need to run for office — particularly our State Legislature — in 2016.

I won’t get into the Congress, as our class isn’t up for election this year in the Senate, and in the House, we have a strong Democrat in Chellie Pingree in ME-01. We also have a solid Democratic candidate in ME-02, Emily Cain, to take on incumbent Bruce Poliquin, who rode the coattails of a bear-baiting referendum to get elected as Governor Paul LePage was re-elected in 2014. Emily is joined in the primary by Joe Baldacci. Joe is the brother of the last Democratic governor, John, and has promoted strengthening the minimum wage in Bangor while on the City Council.

2016 is an extremely important year, as holding the line in the Legislature means that the governor will not be able to enact his strong anti-welfare agenda, or push his income tax cuts through without a citizen’s initiative. I can’t stress enough how important it is to draft progressive, hard-working candidates for every seat, and to help them get elected. That means you, fair Democrat. I know that, because you read that paragraph, that you are filled with a deep desire to run for office, and you’re looking to me seeking answers.

So you want to run for the State Legislature...

(Rule #1 : The second you have this idea, and know you’re going to do it, design a palm card and have it ready. Immediately. We’ll get there later.)

In truth, we do very well in drafting at least a candidate on paper to run in just about every seat in the state. But the fact we just have paper candidates isn’t a good thing. So take a look at our districts, and ask yourself if you know someone living in that Republican district who wants to try to take a seat. A great time to run is when someone is running for their fourth term, so when they term out you’re the heir apparent. You can find out who represents you here.

I would also stress the importance of running in primaries against Democrats who you disagree with. You can research people’s votes on this website. I recommend the Advanced Bill Search, it’s very robust, or at least it was before this latest update — I don’t know what they may have broken since. Hate how they stand on your issues? Primary them!

Why am I so cavalier about this? Because you have two things going for you that make life easy: ease of ballot access, and the Maine Clean Election Act.

Ballot Access

The guide where I’m pulling this information from is here. There aren’t major changes in the 2016 guide, but they will have one coming out, so I encourage you to review it. There are no changes in the signature requirements.

The filing deadline for candidates is March 15th every year, aside from holidays and weekends and blah blah. None of that matters this year, so petitions for ballot access are due at the Secretary of State’s office, on the 4th floor of the Burton Cross Building, at 111 Sewall Street by 4 PM. But you aren’t going to be worried about that, because yours will be in early, right? By like, February 1st. And you will take a selfie at the window and post it all over social media like every other candidate ever.

Other stuff you need to know:

You have to be enrolled in the Democratic Party prior to January 1, 2016, to run as a Dem.

You have to be 21, a one year Maine resident, and live in the district three months prior to the election for the House. You need to be 25 to run for the Senate. Note that this means you can take out petitions for a seat, even if you live elsewhere, provided you land in your new district before March. Not that I can think of a reason to do that, but meh.

You can’t start circulating petitions until January 1st, but you can pick them up early.

You need a minimum of 25 signatures to run for House, and a maximum of 40. For Senate, it’s a minimum of 100 and a maximum of 150. These people must be registered as Democrats. Feel free to ask for some voter registration cards at the Secretary of State — one block will do — and keep some on you for these occasions. Just make sure you submit the voter registration cards WITH the petitions for verification and make it clear they signed the card before the petition.

Make sure your town/city clerk fills out the Certification of Candidate Enrollment for you, on any one of your petitions.

Your signatures all need to be witnessed by a circulator, who does not need to be you, nor do they need to be a resident of Maine. That circulator then needs to sign the oath on the petition in the presence of a Notary Public. This seems like it’s hard, but you can’t swing a dead cat in Maine without hitting a Notary Public. Go check out the list, I bet you know someone who is one. When you do that, fill out the Candidate’s Consent form, too.

Also, please don’t have someone else collecting signatures for you, even though you can. If you can’t get your signatures, don’t run. It’s super easy to get your signatures, and you’ll be doing the harder work of qualifying for Clean Elections.

Only one town per petition. It isn’t a legal requirement, but imagine having to take the same petition to 12 towns when you’re running for Senate. Sound awful? It is. Happened to me once on a citizen’s initiative campaign. Never happened again, I’ll tell ya what.

You’ll turn your petitions into the town(s), they’ll verify your signatures. Have what you need? Great! If not? Sad trombone, back out you go. Don’t submit more than the maximum.

There are different instructions for running as an independent, but you, fearless Democrat, aren’t doing that! Right?

...right?

Okay, so you’ve got your petitions, you know what to do with them, it isn’t even January 1st yet, and you’re raring to go. Yay! You are a good candidate, and we love you. There is something else that I personally hope you do, although it is not required by any means — and that is run as a Clean Elections candidate. You can still run traditional and collect contributions that way, but if you do, you, my friend, are on your own!

“But I think big money in politics sucks! Ed, isn’t there a better way?”

Of course there is, dear reader. I’m glad you asked. In 1996, Maine established a comprehensive campaign finance system called the Maine Clean Election Act, otherwise known as the Ordinary People Can Run For Office Act. (It isn’t really otherwise known as that.) We had a Supreme Court decision that basically crippled the system for a few years, but this past November we passed a citizen’s initiative that bolstered the system’s strength and made it viable again. Therefore, you should use it.

For starters, here is the guide I’ll be pulling information out of for you. Forms in general are on this page. Now, here are the things you need to know. You’ll want to read the guide yourself for some of these items, which are more specific than the ballot access end.

So let’s get the initial forms out of the way...

You can register with the Ethics Commission now. Complete your Candidate Registration and your Declaration of Intent and submit them, and you’re allowed to raise money.

You’ll also want to set up a campaign bank account and submit the Vendor Form and Direct Deposit form ASAP (they take a month to process it). Have a treasurer who knows what they’re doing, and can track basic financial expenses.

Either set up an Employer Identification Number with the IRS and use that on the Vendor Form, or use the candidate’s SSN. The IRS thing takes like five minutes and removes liability from the candidate, so I suggest doing it.

Seed Money Contributions

You are allowed to raise some seed money for your campaign in a more traditional sense. You can raise up to $100 per person, from anyone in the country qualified to donate to campaigns. This includes yourself. You can’t give your campaign more than $100 . Seed money contributions are limited to $1,000 for House candidates and $3,000 for Senate candidates. Here are some pointers:

Ask all your close friends and family for donations. Shamelessly. If you don’t feel comfortable doing so, put down the lance, and do not tilt at this windmill. You can’t win an election if you don’t feel comfortable asking people you know for help. “All I want for Christmas is a better government. Don’t give me fruitcake, send me $20 for my campaign.” You know, shameless.

Extend out to your networks after that. Kossacks you’re close to, Facebook friends, you know the people I mean. The people who donate to all the campaigns they like. Guess what? They like you more. Ask for $100.

Do not use ActBlue. I don’t dislike ActBlue, but clean candidates shouldn’t use it. One, it’s a PAC. It skirts the finance rules. Two, they take 3% of your money in fees, and you have to file that as an expenditure, and you can’t raise more money to cover the loss. Three, it’s harder to sort out contributions if you go over your limit.

Because you raised all your contributions in cash or check, you now find yourself easily able to refund donations over your limit so you raise exactly what you’re allowed to, and then stop asking.

Take this pile of money, and order your palm cards, a handful of $5 money orders, and plan a simple, personalized piece that is very cheap. After that, totally up to you. Leave some left over for incidentals, more money orders, etc. You can find ways to spend it if you need to.

Spend all of it before you turn in your MCEA Request for Certification and your Seed Money Report. If you don’t, you lose it, as your MCEA contribution is reduced by whatever you have left. If you think you’re ordering light on the palm cards, boost your numbers. Whatever. Just don’t have any left. I think I brought the seed money down to like 7 cents. Couldn’t find a damn way to use it. Sigh.

Qualifying Contributions

What makes the MCEA function is the Qualifying Contribution. You travel around your district asking people to contribute $5 to the Maine Clean Election Fund. When you’ve collected enough contributions, you get certified as a Clean Election candidate, and they send you a direct deposit of:

$500 for an uncontested House primary

$2,500 for a contested House primary

$2,000 for an uncontested Senate primary

$10,000 for a contested Senate primary

The House uncontested budget sucks. Be mindful of your budgeting. June is a long way away. Burn your Seed Money on all the stuff you need, and then you can use the $500 for whatever else comes up. You could consider lawn signs now. Some small vendors will do a deal where they give you half your signs now and half later. But be careful, you can go broke fast. Anyway, this is kind of off topic, but also where it makes sense to discuss it in the timeline.

So, here is how the Qualifying Contribution system works. First, you need 60 of these for a House race, and 175 for a Senate race. It can be a long, tedious process, but it’s worth it. For this part, unlike petitions, I would encourage you to have friends help you raise money.

You knock on the door of a Democrat in your district. Extra points if you use the database to initially target people who gave QCs in the past to others. (Talk to the party and get access, play around with it. It’s free.) Have a great chat, and of course they love you, because you’re awesome.

Ask them for a $5 check, payable to the Maine Clean Election Fund. Be prepared to explain how Clean Elections works. People still have no idea, sometimes.

But they don’t have a check. All they have is cash. Well, it so happens you’re carrying $5 bills to make change, and those money orders I told you to get. They hand you $5, you hand them a money order. They fill it out the same way, but make sure they put their name on it legibly. ( Important: Re-deposit that $5 into the campaign bank account.)

Have them fill out the Qualifying Contribution form. Keep your checks matched up with your form, don’t get them all mixed up, that gets messy. Only one town per form.

Ask your friends in the district to donate online. On or around January 1, a big “Contribute” button will pop up on the Ethics Commission website. If they donate online, everything is done for you — you just need to print the forms when you’re ready to submit.

When you’re ready to submit, make a spreadsheet of all your $5 donors and their towns of residence and submit it with your Request for Certification. Review the campaign guide before submitting! This part can be complicated.

And congratulations. You’re financed. You get the cash mentioned above, and assuming you survive your primary, you will have an additional $5,000 for House or $20,000 for Senate deposited shortly after the results of the primary election are certified.

But wait. There’s more.

The revamp of the MCEA offers the opportunity for additional funding; in fact, you can get up to three times as much as your initial general election disbursement in total. All you need to do is go out and collect more checks. Anytime before October 18, 2016, candidates can submit more checks for more funding. House candidates must submit 15 at a time, Senate submits 45. Each side may do that up to eight times a piece.

If they do so, House candidates get $1,250 per 15 checks, up to a total of $10,000 for 120. Senate candidates get $5,000 per 45 checks, up to a total of $40,000 for 360.

So this is how one navigates getting on the ballot and such for the state legislature. This is not all inclusive; that’s why there are guides. Please peruse them, and feel free to ask questions. I know the answers to most of the stuff in the guides, having run four campaigns for legislative races in Maine. But I won’t be your treasurer. Don’t even try.

Good luck!