Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

RACE FOR GOVERNOR

October 23, 2010

Cutler rejects claims in Democratic mailer

Libby Mitchell declines demand she denounce ad

By Rebekah Metzler rmetzler@mainetoday.com
MaineToday Media State House Writer

AUGUSTA -- Yes, he registered as a lobbyist four times over his 36-year career as a lawyer. Yes, his law firm represented oil companies. But did independent gubernatorialcandidate Eliot Cutler work for big oil companies as a lobbyist formost of his career? No.

The flap over a misleading mailer fromthe Maine Democratic Party continued the day after Cutler demanded Democratic candidate Libby Mitchell repudiate it during a public forum. On Friday, her campaign declined to.

"Libby believes that communications from the Republicans, the Democrats and Eliot's PAC should betruthful and that if Eliot believes something to be untrue, he should rebut it," said Dave Loughran, spokesman for Mitchell. "We're not in a position to go fact check every piece of mail or commercial that's out there. The Democratic party has presented their evidence saying it is factual, Eliot Cutler is putting his evidence out there saying it's not factual, the voters can decide which one of them lines up."

Mitchell, a Maine Clean Elections candidate, is barred from coordinating her campaign with the party or any other political action committee, but she can ask them to stop making mailings or running advertisements on her behalf.

Cutler became visibly upset with Mitchell during a forum hosted by the Natural Resources Council of Maine in Portland for not denouncing their mailing that besmirched his record on the environment.

"Eliot Cutler has been working as a lobbyist for big oil companies most of his career," the mailing says. "Helping companies like BP loosen offshore oil and gas drilling restrictions. Cutler helped China National Offshore Oil Company try to buy a major American company -- but that risky deal was forbidden by Congress because putting oil reserves in China's hands was a risk to national security."

Ted O'Meara, campaign manager for Cutler, said the mailing is "sickening."

"This is a guy who began his adult working career helping U.S. Sen. (Ed) Muskie write some of the most landmark, most important environmental legislation in this country. To have his entire career trashed by this mailer, calling him an oil company lobbyist, I think is just really sickening," O'Meara said.

O'Meara said Cutler did register as a lobbyist four times throughout his career, most of which was spent as a lawyer in Washington, D.C. -- on three occasions, Cutler registered so he could brief members of Congress on separate airport-expansion projects his firm was working on. The final time, Cutler briefed a member of Congress about a case his firm, Akin Gump, was working on to force the federal government to clean up nuclear waste from a spent fuel-reprocessing plant in New York, according to the Cutler campaign.

Akin Gump is one of the largest lobbying and law firms in Washington, D.C., and Cutler has worked as a partner there since 2000.

O'Meara said he assumed Akin Gump had some oil companies as clients, but the two facts do not make Cutler a "lobbyist for big oil."

The Maine Democratic Party, in a fact sheet released Friday, said Akin Gump was paid at least $4 million for lobbying on behalf of oil companies, such as BP, Hess, Conoco Phillips, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Sonoco between 2001-2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

"It's very clear that Cutler was a partner in a company that made millions of dollars by working with large oil companies and, you know, Cutler himself made money off of that work as a partner," said Arden Manning, chairman of the Democratic Victory 2010 campaign.

Cutler also started and ran Akin Gump's China office, living in Beijing for more than two years, according to his campaign biography.

(Continued on page 2)

Tweet