In Maine, voters will decide on Question 2 on Nov. 7. Question 2, a citizen-initiated statute, would prohibit foreign governments, or entities with at least 5% foreign government ownership or control, from spending money to influence ballot measures or candidate elections.
Federal law currently prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures (including independent expenditures), and disbursements by foreign nationals to any federal, state, or local candidate election but not ballot measure elections. Question 2 would prohibit foreign government expenditures under state law and include ballot measure elections. Therefore, Question 2 would prohibit foreign spending on ballot measure elections that federal law does not prohibit.
Currently, seven states—California, Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington—prohibit foreign nationals from contributing to ballot measure campaigns, and two cities—Seattle, Washington, and San Jose, California—banned election spending by foreign-influenced entities.
