Portland Press Herald: Liberal watchdog group requests investigation of Poliquin for alleged ethics violation

Larry Noble, chief legal counsel for the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., told the Press Herald in September that the agreement shows an unusual level of coordination between candidate campaigns and the NRCC.

“I question whether (the NRCC) can do an independent expenditure with anyone who signs one of these things because they’re basically helping run the campaign,” said Noble, a former legal counsel for the Federal Election Commission. “They’re requiring the campaign to meet certain standards and to provide so much information about how the campaign is going to operate, the issues it’s going to deal with, what its proposals are going to be. To me, that really undermines the NRCC’s ability to do any independent expenditures.” ...

However, such limitless spending requires the committee to operate independently of a candidate’s campaign. If Noble is correct in suggesting that the agreement Poliquin signed ties the NRCC too closely to his campaign, then Poliquin would lose a critical source of financial support during his bid for a second term in Maine’s 2nd District.

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