(Headline USA) Two utilities and two media organizations are suing over a referendum in Maine that closed a loophole in federal election law allowing foreign entities to spend on local and state ballot measures.
The three lawsuits take aim at the proposal overwhelmingly approved by voters on Nov. 7 to address foreign election influence.
The Maine Association of Broadcasters and Maine Press Association contend the new law that goes into effect on Jan. 5 imposes a censorship mandate on news outlets, which are going to be required to police campaign ads to ensure there’s no foreign government influence.
Meanwhile, Central Maine Power and Versant, the state’s largest electric utilities, each filed separate lawsuits raising constitutional challenges about the law they claim violates their free speech and engagement on issues affecting them.
The Maine Commission on Government Ethics and Campaign Practices is studying the federal complaints filed Tuesday and consulting with the attorney general, Jonathan Wayne, the commission’s executive director, said Wednesday in an email.
The attorney general’s office declined comment.
The federal lawsuits “speak volumes about what a deplorable state that we’ve reached in our politics,” said state Sen. Rick Bennett, who led the effort to put the proposal on the ballot.
“This is something that Mainers are united about,” Bennett said Wednesday. “Their voices are being drowned out by these people who are bringing the lawsuits.”
The referendum, which was approved by a margin of 86% to 14%, bans foreign governments—or companies with 5% or more foreign government ownership—from donating to state referendum races.
The proposal was put on the ballot after a Canadian government-owned utility, Hydro Quebec, spent $22 million to influence a project on which it’s a partner in Maine. That hydropower corridor project ultimately moved forward after legal challenges.
But there are implications for Maine-based utilities, too.
The law applies to Versant because it’s owned by the city of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Foreign governments also have a stake in Central Maine Power.
CMP’s corporate parent Avangrid narrowly missed the cutoff by one measure. It is owned by a Spanish company—not the government—and minority shareholders owned by foreign governments, Norway’s central bank Norges Bank and the government-owned Qatar Investment Authority, together fall below the 5% threshold.
But Qatar also has an 8.7% minority stake in Spain-based Iberdrola, which owns Avangrid and CMP, and that’s part of the reason CMP argues that the law is unconstitutionally vague.
Before the Maine proposal went to voters it was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who cited concerns about the proposal’s constitutionality and said its broadness could silence “legitimate voices, including Maine-based businesses.”
Federal election law currently bans foreign entities from spending on candidate elections but allows such donations for local and state ballot measures.
Maine was the 10th state to close the election spending loophole when the referendum was approved, according to the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., which supported the Maine proposal.
Bennett, a Republican representing the city of Oxford, said other states’ laws have withstood legal challenges even though some of their definitions are more stringent than Maine’s.
He also said it was ironic that Versant would sue for a right that it doesn’t have in Canada.
“In Canada it is completely illegal for any foreign individual or corporation to be involved in any of their elections,” he said.
The referendum is not the first issue that Maine has face this year with respect to foreign election-meddling.
However, it is unlikely that there is any political or legal recourse to prevent a pair of globalist foreign oligarchs from buying up many of the state’s local media outlets in a devious bid to influence U.S. politics.
After switching over to a ranked-choice voting system prior to the 2020 election, Maine’s elections—and those of other ranked-choice states, like Alaska—are particularly susceptible to manipulation through outside special interests, who can effectively hack the elections by fielding and promoting an unlimited number of spoiler candidates to poach votes from the preferred party frontrunners.
In September, far-left billionaires George Soros of Hungary and Hansjörg Wyss of Switzerland quietly helped to form a coalition called the National Trust for Local News and proceeded to scoop up nearly two-dozen local newspapers.
The long-term aim may be to weaponize the outlets against Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine— thereby securing Democrats’ U.S. Senate majority in 2026—by sowing disinformation about phony Republican candidates that they plan to run against her and using them to draw votes from the incumbent.
There media stranglehold will also ensure that no Democratic challengers gain a foothold apart from the anointed candidate.
Among the papers that the duo recently purchased were the Portland Press Herald, the Lewiston Sun Journal and the Kennebec Journal.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
