Judges Hint Maine Foreign Election Spending Law Chills Speech

Maine’s voter-approved law barring foreign governments and companies they influence from spending on state elections appears to violate the First Amendment, a panel of First Circuit judges suggested Wednesday.

The law, which applies to companies that are more than 5% owned by a foreign government, was passed after a subsidiary of Canadian hydropower company Hydro-Québec spent $22.4 million to influence Maine ballot questions about a controversial clean energy project.

“Your briefs do a lot of effort to try to convince us its possible that at 5% there will be this foreign speech problem. Not likely, not often, just possible,” Judge ...