An Act To Require Closed-captioning for Certain Political Advertisements
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 21-A MRSA §1125, sub-§6, as amended by PL 2007, c. 443, Pt. B, §6, is further amended to read:
6. Restrictions on contributions and expenditures for certified candidates. After certification, a candidate must limit the candidate's campaign expenditures and obligations, including outstanding obligations, to the revenues distributed to the candidate from the fund and may not accept any contributions unless specifically authorized by the commission. Candidates may also accept and spend interest earned on fund revenues in campaign bank accounts. All revenues distributed to a certified candidate from the fund must be used for campaign-related purposes. The candidate, the treasurer, the candidate's committee authorized pursuant to section 1013-A, subsection 1 or any agent of the candidate and committee may not use these revenues for any but campaign-related purposes. A television advertisement purchased with these revenues must be closed-captioned when closed-captioning is available from the broadcasting station who will broadcast the advertisement. The commission shall publish guidelines outlining permissible campaign-related expenditures.
Effective September 12, 2009