Scarborough Republican Amy Volk has been elected by her fellow GOP senators to serve as assistant majority leader. She’ll replace Sen. Andre Cushing of Newport, who resigned from the position last month, saying he didn’t have the time to do the job.
Volk says with both Senate President Mike Thibodeau and Majority Leader Garett Mason running for governor, “It could potentially make my role a little more important than usual, neither is eligible to return in any case.”
Volk says she supports a change in state law that prohibits candidates from raising money through a separate political action committee, but says that will require more work to raise funds to support candidates for the Senate.
“It does make fundraising a bit of a challenge, because so many Senate candidates in particular do run as Clean Elections candidates, and therefore cannot do any outside fundraising whatsoever,” she says.
Cushing has said he chose to leave his leaderhip post because he no longer had the time to do the job well. In August, Cushing was fined by the Maine Ethics Commission for violations of campaign reporting rules, and has been targeted in a lawsuit brought by his sister.
