Who pays to lobby in Augusta.
Registered lobbyists, the clients that hire them and the lobbying compensation reported, from the Maine Ethics Commission's lobbyist disclosure records.
registered lobbyists
People registered for lobbying year 2026 as a primary lobbyist (214) or lobbyist associate (111), counted once each, including registrations later terminated (276 are on active registrations). Not counted: 342 legislative designees (state agency staff the Commission lists separately) and 1 registration the export lists with no lobbyist type. Separately, 101 lobbying firms are listed for 2026.
clients (lobbyist employers)
Distinct clients (employers) with a 2026 joint registration, as the Commission's system identifies them; they hold 473 registrations, one per lobbyist they hired (400 distinct names ignoring capitals).
| Central Maine Power Company | $100,016.00 |
| Oxford Casino - Churchill Downs Inc. | $71,400.00 |
| Maine Optometric Association | $61,108.00 |
| Comcast Cable Communications Management, LLC | $52,901.00 |
| Altria Client Services LLC | $51,683.70 |
| JGT2 Redevelopment LLC | $51,465.25 |
| Charter Communications Operating, LLC | $46,405.91 |
| Energy Efficient Investments | $45,000.00 |
| Maine Association of REALTORS | $43,500.00 |
| Virtual Gaming Worlds | $40,000.00 |
| Maine Health Care Association | $39,601.33 |
| Maine Insurance Agents Association | $39,000.00 |
| Paid Family Medical Leave Trust | $38,400.00 |
| American Chemistry Council | $37,500.00 |
| Penn Entertainment | $37,500.00 |
| Maine Alliance for Economic Growth | $36,645.00 |
| AGC Maine | $34,000.00 |
| Retail Association of Maine | $32,666.68 |
| Advantage Capital Partners | $32,500.00 |
| Maine County Commissioners Association | $32,408.00 |
Compensation for lobbying that the client's registered lobbyists reported on their monthly activity reports to the Maine Ethics Commission for lobbying year 2026 (Dec. 1, 2025 - Nov. 30, 2026): the total the lobbyist and lobbyist associates received or expect to receive from this client for lobbying in each month (legislative branch, executive branch and constitutional officers combined), added up over the reports listed by Oct. 30, 2026 for December 2025 through September 2026 (plus 2 reports for later months filed early). It is compensation only: lobbying expenditures the client reimburses and money spent on or for officials are reported separately on the same forms and are not included. For a lobbyist who is the client's own employee, the law has the pay figured from hours spent lobbying at the regular rate, so it is not that person's salary. Reports for October and November 2026 are mostly not yet due, so these are not full-year figures.
Sources: Maine Ethics Commission, lobbyist disclosure Advanced Search: Monthly Reports, Comp. for Lobbying, 2026, and the monthly activity reports (PDF); Maine Ethics Commission, lobbyist disclosure Advanced Search: Lobbying Clients, Lobbyist / Associate and Lobbying Firms, lobbying year 2026; Maine Ethics Commission, lobbyist disclosure Advanced Search: Legislative Documents & Issues Lobbied, 2026; Maine Ethics Commission, Lobbyists (registration and monthly reports); 3 M.R.S. section 312-A (definitions, including the lobbying year); 3 M.R.S. section 317 (monthly reports).
How to read this
Maine's lobbying law (3 M.R.S. chapter 15) has a lobbyist and each client (the law's word is employer) file a joint registration once the lobbyist spends more than eight hours in a month lobbying for that client for pay. Registrations run for the lobbying year, which the law defines as Dec. 1 through the next Nov. 30, so lobbying year 2026 began Dec. 1, 2025. Registered lobbyists then file a report for each month: compensation for lobbying, expenditures the client reimburses, money spent on or for officials and their families, and the bills and issues lobbied. A lobbyist may ask to skip reports after the session ends if no more lobbying is expected, which is why few reports are on file for May through September. The table adds up the compensation on the 1,379 2026 activity reports the Commission's Advanced Search listed on Oct. 30, 2026, by client. Registering and paying lobbyists is lawful and public; these records do not show that any official acted because of it.
What is not here yet
- Reports for October and November 2026 are mostly not yet due (the October report is due Nov. 16, 2026); only 2 October report(s) were listed, and are included. The figures cover December 2025 through September 2026 (plus 2 reports for later months filed early) and are not full-year totals. Reports filed late for earlier months after Oct. 30, 2026 are not included.
- No-activity reports and months a lobbyist was excused from reporting (non-session waiver) carry no amounts and are not in the table; a client with no activity report listed shows as $0.
- Amounts are added up as filed, each rounded to the cent first: two reports give compensation to more than two decimals in the search (Cisco Systems, Inc., February 2026: 1060.096154; Maine Recovery Action Project, January 2026: 5090.465), counted as $1,060.10 and $5,090.47. Only the version of each report the Advanced Search listed on Oct. 30, 2026 was read; earlier versions of amended reports were not compared.
- Expenditure figures (expenditures_separate, expenditures_on_officials_separate) were read from the report PDFs with pdftotext; the Advanced Search gives no export of lobbying expenditures to check against. Compensation was checked against the PDFs.
- Only the reports the compensation search listed were read. The Commission's separate export of expenditures on officials (saved: expenditures-for-officials-2026.csv, 8 rows, $456.64) does not agree with them, and the difference is not resolved (verifier, Oct. 30, 2026): it has rows from May, June and July 2026 reports that are not among the reports read (so any money in them is not in these figures; reports with expenditures but no compensation may be missing in the same way), and its February 2026 rows for two clients (Charter Communications, two rows of $30.59; Maine Children's Alliance, two rows of $67.53) differ from the filed PDFs ($83.62 and $202.59). The figures here are the PDFs'.
- Grassroots lobbying spending (reported separately when it tops $2,000 in a month) and supplemental expenditure reports were not added up.
- Bill and issue entries list a compensation range per bill on the PDFs; those ranges were not used. Bill titles come from the Commission's Legislative Documents list for the 2024-2026 Legislature.
- Lobbyist counts rely on the Commission's lobbyist ids; a person registered under two ids would be counted twice. Not checked by hand.
Gaps in the lobbying records as of the date checked.