Portland City Council candidates jointly condemn PAC spending as election nears
A television ad paid for by the Campaign for Responsible Government PAC supporting Ilma Lopez for Portland City Council in District 5. (Screengrab via YouTube)
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A majority of candidates for Portland’s three City Council races have signed on to a joint statement condemning political action committee spending ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
The statement, which was released Thursday and has been supported by all but one council candidate, decries PAC spending as having an outsize influence on local elections — especially as many candidates are enrolled in the city’s clean elections fund, which caps spending.
“We strongly believe spending of this magnitude by outside groups has no place in Portland’s municipal elections,” the joint statement reads. “While we recognize that people outside Portland have an interest in our city’s future, these elections should be decided by the residents who will live with the decisions of the Portland City Council.”
The eight candidates said the statement reflects a united stand against PAC spending on council races, which has been relatively rare in Portland politics until recent elections.
While it was written as a blanket statement against “all outside spending and influence,” it specifically references a PAC known as the Campaign for Responsible Government, which is led by Portland attorneys David Soley and David Farmer. That PAC, formed in 2024, is carrying more than $50,000 in contributions and last week spent $20,500 to support Ilma Lopez in District 5. While other PACs have spent big in previous elections, it’s the only PAC registered in Portland that has been active in this year’s election.
In previous filings, the Campaign for Responsible Government said it planned to support Lopez, Jake Viola in District 4 and Kate Snyder for councilor at-large, though it has so far only spent on Lopez. All three candidates signed the joint statement and have said they do not want PAC support.
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Atiim Boykin, who is running against Snyder and Joey Brunelle for at-large councilor, said he chose not to sign on to the statement because it felt like a political move from the candidates most concerned with PAC spending impacting their campaigns — though he noted that he also doesn’t support PACs.
Candidates cannot legally coordinate with PACs, and expenditures on behalf of candidates often occur without a candidate’s knowledge or approval. Lopez, a clean elections candidate, said this week that she doesn’t support “outside expenditures in local Portland races” and that her campaign has not and will not work with any PAC.
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The joint statement from candidates says their position “is not an indictment of any candidate who benefits from independent spending.”
“We do, however, want to make our collective position abundantly clear: outside parties of all types should refrain from spending in our races.”
Farmer, administrator of the Campaign for Responsible Government, defended the group this week, saying its donors are simply concerned over the city’s direction but that it has instead been painted as “dark and nefarious.”
‘A STEP BACKWARDS’
The presence of PACs in Portland is a relatively recent trend that can be traced back to several high-profile referendum campaigns.
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Spending exploded in 2022 when the Enough is Enough PAC raised more than $430,000 to defeat a slate of citizen-initiated referendums backed by the Maine Democratic Socialists of America to strengthen rent control, restrict short-term rentals and raise the minimum wage.
In 2024, the National Association of Realtors spent more than $50,000 to support four Portland candidates, two years after it had given $100,000 to Enough is Enough.
It was that same year that the Campaign for Responsible Government formed and put its weight behind Sarah Michniewicz, spending $12,700 to support her and about $8,500 against her opponents and the Maine DSA.
The Maine DSA also spent about $16,000 that year to support its slate of candidates and oppose others, including Viola.
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Cassidy Lacroix, who is managing Jakobi Delgado’s campaign in District 5, said their campaign spearheaded the joint statement as a stance against all PAC involvement.
“This is about money involved in politics, not one PAC or another,” Delgado said. “The point of clean elections is to make sure people can trust politicians.”
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Portland candidates enrolled in clean elections are allowed maximum campaign funding of $12,498 for district races and $32,498 for at-large races.
Brunelle, the at-large candidate, has been outspoken on social media regarding the Campaign for Responsible Government. He said he pushed for Portland to implement its clean elections program in 2023 after large amounts of money from outside Maine began flowing into referendum campaigns, and in hopes of avoiding the same occurring with City Council races.
Brunelle said the recent trend is “running over the hard work people put into this” over several years to implement clean elections in Portland.
“What is happening right now is a step backwards,” he said.
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Viola, who is running against incumbent Councilor Anna Bullett in District 4, shared a video last week where he said PAC funding should have no role in Portland politics.
‘MOVE OUR CITY FORWARD’
When asked how the PAC chose its preferred candidates, Farmer said about 45 donors and interested parties researched candidates before the group took a vote on who to support.
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“Some of these folks I fundamentally disagree with on issues at the state and federal level,” he said of the chosen candidates. “But on the local level, we agree that the current majority on the City Council has failed the city.”
“We said, ‘Who do we think are the folks who are the most responsible and most able to take a look at these problems and move our city forward,’” he said.
Farmer said the PAC does not intend, as of this week, to spend in District 4 or the at-large race. but that could change depending on “what other groups and other people do.”
The money spent by the PAC so far was for a video advertisement showing Mayor Mark Dion endorsing Lopez. Farmer said the ad is positive and avoids attacks against the DSA-backed Michael Todd Chretien and other District 5 candidates.
Registered PACs in Portland also include Enough is Enough, the James Phinney Baxter Campaign Fund and the Maine DSA Campaign for a Livable Portland, but none have been particularly active this election season. The most recent Maine DSA campaign report shows a cash balance of $892 and no expenditures in support of candidates, while Enough is Enough and Baxter both show no new contributions or expenditures.
Snyder said she signed on to Thursday’s statement because she has already “been clear I don’t need or want PAC spending to influence my candidacy.” But she said some of the information circulating online has falsely tied her to the Campaign for Responsible Government and inaccurately claimed to have given her an unfair advantage.
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Brunelle is the only clean elections candidate in the at-large race, but Snyder said she has based her campaign fundraising on the maximum allowed under the clean elections fund.
In 2024, all 12 of the candidates running for Portland City Council were registered clean elections candidates. The next campaign finance reports are due Friday.
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PEOPLE BEHIND THE PAC
The Campaign for Responsible Government was formed after the Portland council voted in 2024 to divest in companies doing business in Israel, which Farmer said “changed nothing for the city’s operation” but “divided our community.” (Officials later said the city did not have investments in the companies included on the council’s list.)
The PAC’s top donors have included Bonnie Siegel, a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who was a strategist on Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign, and Judy Glickman Lauder, a photographer, philanthropist and wife of former Estee Lauder CEO Leonard Lauder.
The PAC had roughly $40,000 in funds heading into election season and gathered another $13,000 in contributions between mid-July and the end of September. Among the largest donations in that period were from David Soley, an attorney at Bernstein Shur whose family is among Greater Portland’s most prominent property owners; Lenny Nelson, a founding partner at Bernstein Shur; and Dan Kleban, the co-founder of Maine Beer Co. who ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
Also donating were Todd Goldenfarb, a developer with Mile Marker Investments and Portland Music Holdings, which is currently suing the city over halting the proposed Portland Music Hall venue, and Ned Payne, owner of several Portland properties and vice president of the Rental Housing Alliance of Southern Maine.
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Its treasurer is Bryan Dench, an attorney who served as treasurer for Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s reelection committee in 2014 and represented LePage in several legal battles. Dench serves on the board of Maine Right to Life, a pro-life advocacy group, and has previously been criticized locally for anti-LGBTQ views.
About a third of its contributions are from non-Maine addresses.
Farmer said donors come from a mix of political ideologies who agree that Portland needs change.
“It’s no different from what many other groups do,” he said.
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Tagged: campaign finance, city of portland, election 2026, Portland City Council
Andrew Rice is a staff writer at the Press Herald covering the city of Portland. He's been working in journalism since 2012, joining the Sun Journal in 2017, then the Press Herald in 2026. He lives in. More by Andrew Rice
