Good news for Chellie Pingree supporters: the veteran politician is back in the game. Though the former Maine state senator lost her bid to unseat Republican US senator Susan Collins this past November, the exposure she gained from the high-profile race (in which she netted 42 percent of the vote) has landed her a new job: president and CEO of Common Cause, a nonprofit organization dedicated to governmental reform, based in Washington, DC.

Common Cause was a major player in the recent fight to pass the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform act (ultimately enacted as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002), and has a 33-year history of championing everything from tax reform to sunshine laws. Pingree, for her part, campaigned on a platform that called for affordable prescription drugs and an end to offshore corporate-tax shelters, among other progressive planks.

Q: You have a reputation for being a pretty strong liberal, and a lot of your high-profile political efforts have been very issue-oriented. Now you’re heading a nonpartisan organization that focuses its advocacy on the nuts and bolts of how our government works. What’s your perspective on switching gears like this?

A: Well, I think it’s just a great opportunity to take another tack on many of the same issues. I’ve been a strong advocate of the clean-elections law in the state of Maine, and much of the work we’ve done was on campaign-finance reform, so I understand how central that often is to things like health-care costs and economic issues. I think there’s a very strong relationship, and Maine has actually been a great place for being a leader on very progressive ideas about this.

I often say to people, " It’s not that we don’t know how to lower the cost of prescription drugs in our country, it’s that so much money is spent on lobbying Congress that nobody has the political will to do the right thing. " So I think there’s a huge connection there.

The other thing about being partisan is that there’s no question that I ran for office as a Democrat, and I have deeply held ideological beliefs, but I think this is about issues that shouldn’t be partisan. They’re good ideas — everybody ought be in this fight together, whether it’s around campaign-finance reform or corporate accountability. I just like to see it as good ideas, and I hope people of both parties participate.

Q: It’s interesting that you emphasize the nonpartisan appeal of these ideas. Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe is urging Democratic presidential candidates to opt out of the public-financing system because of the spending limits it places on primary campaigns, and meanwhile, the McCain-Feingold act is being challenged by everyone from NOW to the NRA. Do you think there’s genuine resistance in the US to removing special-interest influence from governance, or are opponents pointing out legitimate flaws in these reform attempts?

A: Well, it’s a great question, and many of these are issues that I’m really just learning about now myself, because I’ve been so involved in the process from, for instance, the perspective that we have in Maine around clean elections. So I think it’s a combination of both.

I think, frankly, the reason we had to pass clean elections by a citizens’ referendum in Maine is because many people who engage in the political process don’t want to change the system. But the other thing is, there are some legitimate flaws — in the presidential system, especially — and that’s one thing [about which] Common Cause is trying to enact some important reform for this election cycle.

It really was a system designed for campaigns of a long time ago, and we have these front-loaded primaries and many candidates are facing challenges that are different than they were a decade or two ago. There really is a need for reform. So I think there are legitimate concerns about some of the reforms, and their intended and unintended consequences. But, on the other hand, I think people in the political process tend to resist change.

Q: In its recent article about your new position, the Portland Press Herald put a lot of emphasis on the fact that your Senate campaign raised more than $1 million in soft money — which some see as hypocritical given that Common Cause fought so hard to ban these kinds of contributions.

A: Well, the good news is McCain-Feingold finance reform banned soft money as of November 6. So, had I been able to run under their system, [I wouldn’t have taken soft money].

Every candidate runs under the existing systems that are available to them, and we did what we thought was important in a race where we knew the Republicans were going to spend a lot of soft money. So the Democrats did the same on behalf of us. But what I’ve said to many people who have asked this question is: nobody knows better than a candidate how important this reform is. And I understand a lot of it from the inside, the practicalities. So I think taking this position is a great opportunity to work on reform issues as somebody who’s had a lot of experience.

Q: Having run the gauntlet in a campaign where, between you and your opponent, about $9.2 million was raised, do you see any ways to make political races less expensive?

A: Well, there are many proposals on the table, and no system has come closer to really solving this problem than the one in Maine — clean-elections laws — but another major national proposal right now is for free media. The majority of [campaign] money goes to spending on the media, and today TV is a huge part of informing the voter about who you are and what your issues are. So looking at free media, [for] which there will be proposals at the federal level this year, I think is another important way to go after this whole system.

Q: Repealing the changes to the gift-ban rule in the House of Representatives seems to be a top priority for Common Cause right now. Can you talk a little bit about the background on this, where the situation currently stands, and what your organization is doing to fight the changes?

A: This was a proposal that was enacted in the 1990s; everybody thought it was a good idea at the time, and to repeal it so quickly basically based on a fundraiser that [Texas congressman] Tom DeLay wanted everybody to attend does not seem in keeping with keeping the public’s confidence in good government. So this just did not seem like a good move on behalf of the Congress, and that’s one of the reasons why Common Cause got engaged in it.

Q: What other big issues is Common Cause currently dealing with?

A: They work on a wide variety of issues looking at the impact of money in politics. There’s a fairly significant research arm that’s working in several states right now, looking at the influence of tobacco money in the state legislatures. They’re interested in corporate accountability and many of the reforms around the Securities Exchange Commission. Whistleblower legislation, which is before Congress; public financing in several of the states — they’re dealing with some issues down in Arizona right now; redistricting, which is a big national issue; corporate accountability, which they’ve done some things around Enron and Harvey Pitt, and I’m sure will continue to do so.

And then they actually took a stand on full congressional debate over the war in Iraq, and they’re going to have another board meeting on March 7. So I don’t know what they’ll decide, but they tend to get involved at the level of making sure that citizens have a voice in the government, and this is one area where a lot of people feel like they don’t have a voice.

Q: Are there any new areas of advocacy that you’d like to see Common Cause take on, issues that the organization isn’t currently working on?

A: I think there will be several. But one of the things I’m trying to do, being new on the job, is combine all of my good ideas with taking the opportunity to listen and get to know what they’ve been doing over the years, so I can find a way to work it all together. They operate in 35 states and they have 200,000 members, so some of it is just figuring out what issues are extremely important to me, and [which issues] I think are ones where citizens need more involvement, and kind of combining it with what they’ve been doing and what’s going on out there in the states. So some of it’s going to be a little bit of a learning experience for me.

Q: It’s been said by some that our nation appears to be turning into an oligarchy, with big businesses running the show. Do you think government has relinquished too much control to industry, and if so, is it possible to regain a balance?

A: Well, I think that’s the importance of citizens having a voice, and one of the reasons over the years that Common Cause has done a tremendous amount of research into the effect of money in politics on everything from tobacco to pharmaceuticals to their most recent studies about chemical manufacturers is to show that, all too often, big amounts of money have more say in the process than a citizen’s democratic vote. And I think the importance of citizens’ lobbies is to restore that balance.

Q: Do you think you’ll run for office again someday?

A: I would love to have an opportunity to run for office again, but I saw this as a great way for me to continue to be engaged in the process, at a time when this seems like the right thing to be doing.

Jess Kilby can be reached at jkilby[a]phx.com