HB 1405: Banning Campaign Finance Activity During Session

Unfavorable · Government, Labor, and Elections Committee · March 4, 2026 Oral testimony by Andy Ellis, Green Party candidate for Governor

Full Title: Election Law - Campaign Finance Activities - Candidates for State Office
Sponsor: Delegate Healey
MGA Page: HB1405

Oral Testimony

Testimony as Prepared

My name is Andy ellis and I am a Green Party candidate for governor. I want to start off by giving a hardy thank you to all the sponsors of this bill. I believe that as  the only campaign participating in the gubernatorial public finance program if this bill were in effect today  ellis/Andrews for Maryland would be the only state government candidate who could raise money right now.

While I appreciate y'all looking out, I have to say I oppose this bill. 

The reason is simple: Incumbents maintain huge structural advantages over challengers and fundraising is one of those advantages.

If there is an imbalance that this bill tries to solve I don’t think the right way to solve it is to impose the same restrictions on all candidates that are imposed on incumbents.

But Here are three alternative ways to solve this problem 

End the prohibition on campaign finance activity during the session. 

Mandate the state board of elections to create a credit card processing option for candidate donations and institute real time reporting for any one who opts into it.

Require anybody running for state office to attend at least three hearings of this committee

All joking aside, this bill preserves the gubernatorial public finance exemption from the session ban and that’s a good policy incentive for people to use public finance, but if you want more people to use it the max donation for candidates in the public finance program needs to be raised . 

Right now  publicly financed campaigns for governor can raise 250 per  person, non publicly financed gubernatorial campaigns can raise 12k per person. That’s a 48:1 ratio, and that’s too much of an imbalance to encourage people to use the system. 

I encourage an unfavorable report on Hb 1405