Who were the biggest spenders on lobbying the 2024 Maine Legislature?

Legislators, state officials and advocates for various causes find moments to connect between session and committee work in Augusta. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a proposal to end the sale of flavored tobacco products last year, during the first session of the two-year cycle of the 131st Maine Legislature that finally adjourned earlier this month. 

The Maine House of Representatives tabled the bill in June of 2023 and did not take it up again throughout the entire 2024 session. 

While the legislation saw no official action, the lobbying machine was hard at work, as it was the top lobbied bill of the year with outside interests spending $158,151.43 through the end of April, according to reports the Maine Ethics Commission released on Thursday. 

Lobbying reports in Maine are jointly filed by lobbyists and their employer. These reports outline the specific bills lobbied, the total amount of compensation that firms pay their lobbyists, and the clients they represent. 

The second-most lobbied bill was similarly carried over from last year. This bill did become law, though without the governor’s signature. It allows municipalities to charge video service providers that use the “public right of way,” essentially meaning the town-owned land accessed by the company’s operations. Lobbyists spent $144,673.88 to try to influence this outcome.

These two bills dominated lobbyist spending by wide margins, with the next most lobbied bills subject to tens of thousands of dollars less in spending. 

After a flurry of spending in the final month of session, two competing proposals for a data privacy law rose to the third and fourth most lobbied bills.

Fifty thousand dollars were spent on each of these bills, which also had the most lobbyist reports submitted out of all legislation, demonstrating an outsized lobbying presence. Before last month’s filings, neither had been in the top ten lobbied bills, illuminating the money trail behind last ditch efforts to influence the outcomes of the proposed regulations, which both ultimately failed to pass. 

However, the majority of compensation for lobbyists this year went toward those focused on healthcare matters, with lobbyists receiving a collective $589,647.93 for that work. 

In addition to the flavored tobacco ban and data privacy proposals, many of the top bills lobbied this year did not ultimately become law. These included a plan, LD 1911, to undo part of the automotive right to repair law Maine voters approved in November and a measure to combat medical debt, LD 2174. 

Some of these heavily lobbied bills did pass, including LD 1537, which makes changes to the laws regulating products containing perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS, that the state originally passed in 2021. 

The supplemental budget bill, a plan passed during the second year of each two-year legislative cycle to make changes to the biennial budget, also saw high spending and was hotly debated until the moment of passage. 

In addition to lobbyists working directly on the legislation, many of these top lobbied bills also drew public attention with demonstrations and chamber floor debates. 

There are currently no nurse-to-patient ratios mandated by law in Maine, which LD 1639 sought to address by establishing minimum staffing requirements. The Maine State Nurses Association, a union representing about 4,000 nurses and caregivers across the state, organized rallies throughout the session urging the Legislature to pass the bill, which was carried over from 2023. 

The bill passed the Senate but never got a vote in the House, which a representative of the union said was because they didn’t have the votes needed.

LD 2213 had to do with electronic pull tab machines to benefit veterans and the Wabanaki Nations, though they did not have a hand in crafting the legislation. The Wabanaki Nations ultimately opposed the proposal after an amendment introduced later in session sought to put the question out to a statewide referendum using language they did not support, Penobscot Nation Tribal Ambassador Maulian Bryant said.

Lawmakers debated the referendum amendment during the final hours of the Legislature’s work on April 18 and, after several attempts to indefinitely postpone consideration of the bill, session adjourned for the year without the final enactment vote it needed in the Senate.  

“If the tribes are going to ever do a referendum on gaming, we really want to do our polling, be in the driver’s seat of it and not be a passenger in the process,” Bryant said.

Of 93 total registered firms, Mitchell Tardy Jackson spent by far the most on lobbying this year, $531,728.24 employing five lobbyists who represented 35 clients on a range of issues, including opposing the flavored tobacco ban, as well as opposing performance-based ratemaking for utilities. 

Also among the clients of the Augusta-based firm is the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade association for U.S. chemical companies, which lists subsidiaries of major fossil fuel companies and pesticides manufacturers among its membership.

The American Chemistry Council spent money on several PFAS-related bills considered by the Maine Legislature, including the changes to the 2021 laws as well as proposals that ultimately failed to pass such as one that would’ve required health insurance carriers to cover for blood testing for PFAS and another that sought to exempt agricultural products from PFAS reporting requirements. The council also spent money on a bill to proactively regulate a faux recycling process, which did become law. 

A firm run by the former chief of staff of Maine Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook) was the next top spender. The Resurgam Group put $312,718 toward the work of two lobbyists engaging 17 clients, which included the union representing nurses that tried to mandate staffing ratios through legislation, which Jackson co-sponsored. 

While the reports do not specify whether a lobbyist or firm worked for or against a bill, public testimony on the bills can provide some insight. 

For example, The Resurgam Group also lobbied on behalf of the Maine Service Employees Association, a union that represents more than 9,000 state workers, which testified this year in favor of a bill to close the pay gap between state government workers and their private sector counterparts, also co-sponsored by Jackson.

That bill died because lawmakers left it on the “appropriations table” (more about that process here). Technically, the Legislature passed an order allowing for some unresolved bills to be carried over into a hypothetical special session — though lawmakers say at this point that is highly unlikely. 

Third in spending was Resolve Government Relations. This Freeport-based firm spent $231,580.24, employing one lobbyist, J. Andrew Cashman, who engaged 14 clients, including many of the organizations — Google, Ford Motor Company, Anheuser-Busch, Doordash, the Maine Association of Nonprofits — that spent money to try to influence the outcome of the data privacy proposals. Cashman also testified on behalf of Ford in support of the right to repair changes. 

Maine Street Solutions, LLC, which has offices in Augusta and Portland, spent the fourth most on lobbying, $112,383, but engaged the most clients out of all firms.

The five lobbyists that this firm compensated represented 37 clients throughout the year on a range of issues, including the National Popular Vote, a movement that Maine joined this session after much debate. 

States that are part of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact pledge their Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate with the most overall votes across the country. The compact needs 270 electoral votes for enactment, and with Maine now on board, the compact has 209.

Fifth in lobbying spending was Drummond Woodsum Strategic Consulting, a Portland-based law firm, which spent $110,035.25 on its five lobbyists, who represented 18 clients.

Among these clients is Charter Communications, which supported the version of a data privacy proposal backed by tech and businesses. Drummond Woodsum Strategic Consulting also lobbied on behalf of the Wabanaki Alliance, a group that advocates for Maine to recognize the sovereignty of the Wabanaki Nations, which are currently treated more like municipalities, unlike the other 570 tribes across the U.S.

Among the legislation backed by the Wabanaki Alliance this session was a proposal to expand tribal authority over prosecuting crimes. 

Editor’s note: The section regarding the new “public right of way” rule was updated to be more specific.

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