Maine voters will decide on a ballot initiative next month to ban foreign governments, or entities with at least 5% foreign government ownership or control, from spending money to influence ballot measures or candidate elections. If approved, Maine would join California, Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington in prohibiting foreign nationals from contributing to ballot measure campaigns.
Federal law currently prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures (including independent expenditures), and disbursements by foreign nationals to any federal, state, or local election but not ballot measure elections. Question 2 would be adding the federal prohibition to state law and include ballot measure elections. Therefore, Question 2 would prohibit foreign spending on ballot measure elections that federal law does not prohibit.
Violation of the law would be considered a Class C crime. The penalty for an activity prohibited under this measure is up to $5,000, or double the amount of the contribution or expenditure involved in the violation, whichever is greater.
