The Strain in Maine

A few weeks ago, we looked at the complex network of campaign finance vehicles driving Maine Senator Susan Collins' political inertial incumbency. I picked the Collins network mostly because it was the perfect size for study, a medium scale laboratory through which to explore the interwoven worlds of campaign finance. Not too big, in dollar and organizational scales, but still consequential. Collins has all the flavors of campaign committees, PACs, super-PACs, and lots of intriguing political insiders in places like Bangor, Maine, and Alexandria, Virginia, and Newport, Kentucky.

(I'm still trying to figure out that Kentucky thing. But hey, I just learned that Newport is not named because it was some new port on the Licking River, but rather because it is named after Christopher Newport, the captain of the Susan Constant, the first ship to land in 1607 at what would become the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. So there is that odd link between Coastal Virginia and the Cincinnati area.)

Anyway, I figured that would be the end of it. In November, Collins would either win another term, which would be boring, or she would lose to challenger Troy Jackson in a Blue Wave, perhaps illuminating the limits of inertial incumbency. That might be interesting.

Little did I know that chum would hit the seas shortly after I pushed the "send" widget on that newsletter.

I should reiterate here that I do not pretend to understand Maine politics – except that it's complicated – and I do not presume to tell Mainers how they should vote. They are much better at it than am I.

But what I think is interesting is that Collins' moderately complex campaign finance machinations have gotten her into trouble. And maybe there are some lessons here.

Wherever there are politics and politicians, there are claims of corruption. And Collins is no stranger to such allegations. Back in the 2000 'aughts and teens, while she was on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees, she drafted contracting, "acquisitions," reform bills that could be construed as boosting the consulting firm, Jefferson Consulting, at which her husband Thomas Daffron was Chief Operating Officer. The dollar amounts in government contracts were on the order of $50-60 million. These links were reported by Roger Sollenberger in Salon in 2020, and Graham Platner raised the issue again last June in a press conference. David Dayen reprised it even more recently in The American Prospect while dissecting the nature of political scandal as captured by the mainstream media. He concluded:

For six years, this has been a nonstory, because we don’t have a political culture that imprints this kind of financial machination and leveraging of political power as a scandal. It’s either too complicated or just politics, and people move on.

The lesson here, perhaps, is that financial machinations, kept small, between Senator and husband for example, are relatively robust and can withstand nosy parkers. The smoking gun just isn't there. Everyone involved (all two of them) know the boundaries, the responses, what to say, and what not to say, what to write down and what not to text. The Collins legislation enacted "reforms" after all, and it could certainly be that Jefferson Consulting was best suited to help agencies implement those reforms.

Inertial incumbency, however, demands way more millions of dollars. That's how we operate our politics. That's how the Supreme Court thinks the Founding Fathers thought we should operate our politics. Apparently. Constant money grubbing.

And things get much more complicated when the inertial incumbent must step up to multiple PACs and super PACs. A politician can be as careful as they know how, and still end up in scandal because of idiot donors, and careless functionaries, whose behaviors are out of their direct control.

That seems to me to be the lesson from the recent report by William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg in ProPublica. The gist of the piece is that Collins steered government contracts to a specific Hawaiian tech company, Navatek, in exchange for campaign contributions to her super PAC from the CEO of that company, Martin Kao. If true, in its barest form that would constitute criminal bribery. Although the Supreme Court and former Virginia Governor Bob McDonald might squint and see things differently. One never knows.

For the steering part, ProPublica reported an email from the Navy that suggests the Maine Senator was at least working diligently for an Hawaiian constituent.

“I spoke with Sen. Collins office regarding the $8M,” a naval official wrote in an email on Feb. 6, 2019. “The interested company is Navatek.”

I assume the naval officer was not Thomas Daffron.

But the ship was going to be taking in water anyway, as the planking was riddled with dry rot.

Kao sought to hide his contribution to the Collins super PAC, 1820, run by Scott Reed, because it is illegal for entities with government contracts to fill campaign tip jars. (It is a little confusing but 1820 has been replaced by Pine Tree Results, which I talked about last time, and Pine Tree Results is still run by Scott Reed as of this writing.) So Kao set up a phony shell company he called "Society of Young Women Scientists and Engineers" and he emailed Reed with the details.

“Hi Scott: Had a chance to discuss 1820 with my CFO and attorney last night. They are suggesting setting up a separate new LLC to make the donations.

So the lesson here is that if your donors are dumb as a brick, with a CFO and attorney willing to skirt the law then you, as the inertial incumbent, are doomed no matter how clever you may be.

But wait. There's more. The donor blundering was compounded by Reed, who emailed back:

“Very smart and glad your counsel understands. Thanks for doing this.”

So we can extend this lesson: If the head of your super PAC is a matched set with your dumb as a brick donor, and willing to skirt the law with the donor's counsel, and puts it in writing, then you are double doomed.

But maybe Collins is off the hook, eh? By law, super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with the candidate and her campaign committees, in which case Collins would never know about the illegal contribution from Kao in the guise of a phony LLC she'd never heard of before. Maybe. Eh?

Well, probably no.

A week after the Collins super PAC cashed Kao's check for $150,000 someone from the super PAC emailed a Navatek lobbyist asking for Kao's phone number because, "Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him."

So we can now add the 1820 super PAC subordinate, instructed to email the donor on behalf of Collins, to the planks of dry rot, the ship now leaking like a sieve.

And finally, when the FEC became suspicious of Kao's "Society of Young Women Scientists and Engineers," who should come along to post-hole some more planks? None other than 1820's incredible lawyer, Cleta Mitchell. That name may be familiar to you. It was to me. Cleta Mitchell would go on to be the face plant of Trump's 2020 election denial operation. In this case, she was first to the scene with a cover-up. ProPublica puts it this way:

In an email released in civil litigation, Mitchell suggested the society make charitable donations — preferably in Maine — which would make it seem like a legitimate nonprofit. “I want to be sure that the LLC proceeds with the ideas we discussed — giving scholarships and recognition to women in engineering, etc.,” wrote Mitchell. “That would help both of us, I think.”

So the final lesson here, I think, is: If you are going to rely on a super PAC to finance your campaigns, it would be wise not to have it run by lobbyist Scott Reed, and dependent on legal advice from Cleta Mitchell.

It is not yet clear whether any of this will matter in Maine politics. The latest NY Times/Siena University poll of likely voters has Collins up by 3% over Jackson, but the polling took place between September 15 and 22, largely before the ProPublica report was published on September 22.

But as a lesson on money in politics, Citizens United style, it should scare the dry rot out of any politician wanting to remain an inertial incumbent. There are too many sloppy donors who don't know how the game is played. There are too many lazy lobbyists and political lawyers willing to drop their guard in a casual email or text message. There's just way too much, way outside of your control, driven by an insatiable, constant demand for more money.

Maybe, after the dust settles on the Collins scandal, maybe enough politicians will see enough value in reducing the role of money in their own campaigns, in avoiding the inevitable dumb as a brick donors and operatives, maybe then we will see a push for real campaign finance reform. Supreme Court and Citizens United be damned,

I'll wait.