A national real estate group has spent nearly $56,000 to support four candidates running for City Council in Portland – and the candidates didn’t even know.

Nancy English, Brandon Mazer, Catherine Nekoie and Jake Viola were all listed on a campaign finance report filed by the National Association of Realtors this week that shows the group has spent money to forward their campaigns.

But all four candidates said they knew nothing about the group, have had no contact with them and don’t know what the money is being spent on.

The group is registered with the state of Maine as a political action committee but is not registered at the municipal level. It reported spending $21,000 to support Mazer and Viola each in the at-large race, and $6,500 each to support Nekoie and English in the District 2 race.

The finance report says the group is purchasing “marketing items.” There is an attached oath that states the report is for independent expenditures and not in connection with any of the candidates.

The National Association of Realtors is a national PAC that has been around since the 1990s. It has routinely spent millions on both Democratic and Republican congressional campaigns and on lobbying efforts in Washington.

Because the group is reporting only a one-time expenditure, City Clerk Ashley Rand said it doesn’t have to register as a local PAC, which is required to file regular spending reports with the city.

In 2022, the group donated $100,000 to Enough is Enough, a local PAC established to fight the city’s citizen referendum process, but has not contributed any money to Portland politics in the last several election cycles. Rand said as far as she knows the association has never given to individual candidates in Portland before.

The Maine chapter of the National Association of Realtors did not respond to questions Friday about the spending.

WHAT THE CANDIDATES THINK

English and Viola said they want the group to stop spending money to support their campaigns.

“I didn’t ask for any support and I don’t want the support,” said Viola. “There is no place in local elections for dark money, I want to win because of my character, I want to win because of my competence. I do not want to win because of dark money.”

Viola said if he wins a seat on the council he plans to introduce a resolution to ban all outside spending on municipal elections.

English said that if it is legally possible, she would absolutely support such a ban.

“This is a little town, we don’t need these outside interests weighing in. We have our own feuds among each other but we don’t need outside interests diving in to make things worse and elicit more cynicism and suspicion,” said English.

Mazer and Nekoie said that while they had no idea about the support from this group, they aren’t focused on limiting outside spending right now.

“I don’t have any control over what outside groups do. I don’t know where they’re spending the money,” said Nekoie. “I just can’t control it. I’m really focused on my district and my race in this very, very local neighborhood.”

Mazer also said he was focused on connecting with Portland voters and drew parallels to the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America spending money on flyers for candidates they support.

“Trying to control what independent groups do is not a priority of mine at this point. To keep the integrity of clean elections there shouldn’t be any coordination one way or another. So these groups can do what they want, I’m going to just stay focused on running my race,” said Mazer.

CLEAN ELECTIONS

Groups like Enough is Enough and the DSA sometimes spend money to support candidates in municipal elections by printing flyers or sending out mailers, but the National Association of Realtors is a much larger PAC with a national presence. Such groups rarely get involved in municipal elections, Rand said.

All 12 of the candidates running for Portland City Council this fall are registered clean elections candidates. While the program bars candidates who opt-in from receiving campaign donations, it doesn’t have any control over how independent groups spend their money, so long as the candidates have not coordinated with groups spending money to support them, Rand said.

The clean elections program was set up to give candidates funding from the city to support their campaigns, rather than candidates needing to solicit individual donations. The idea was to make it possible for regular people – those who work busy jobs or are new to politics – to fund campaigns and to move candidates away from seeking funding from special interest groups and a small number of wealthy donors.

Last election season was the first cycle in which the city’s program was used and clean elections candidates got significantly more money from the city than traditional candidates were able to raise on their own.