” …string lights are draped from the rafters and a table for 60 is set with white tablecloths, mismatched china, candles, and flowers. Dinner guests, cocktails in hand, amble about the barnyard and soak up the glorious view before taking a place at the table. One of the farm managers … or perhaps Chellie Pingree herself, tells diners about the harvest and offers a toast. Then a feast … is served.”
– Downeast Magazine, May 2013
Nothing embodies the contradictions in U. S. Rep. Chellie Pingree’s life better than the $85-per-person barn “suppers” served at elegant Turner Farm, which Pingree and her wealthy financier husband, Donald Sussman, own on the island of North Haven.
Pingree first came to Maine as a self-described “hippie back-to-the-lander” who plowed her energies into establishing a low-budget organic farm in the 1970s. Now, Pingree and Sussman’s Turner Farm, which Sussman acquired in 2008, is the rusticator’s dream version of Maine dirt farming: a saltwater property with a gorgeous view, a massive barn topped with a cupola, state-of-the-art hoop houses for growing vegetables, a goat dairy, and chicken processing equipment.
Pingree’s journey from thrifty countercultural farmer to well-heeled agricultural impresario is mirrored by the journey she’s made as a political donor.
Pingree, a Maine state legislator from 1992 to 2000, was elected to Congress in 2008, where she has served ever since. In between, she was head of Common Cause, where she earned a national profile advocating to get big money out of politics.
She brought that perspective to Congress, where she helped write the Fair Elections Now Act, which would establish a public finance system for candidates in federal campaigns. That bill was never voted on.
She’s established a reputation as an advocate in Congress for small farmers and agricultural policy reform. Fortune and Food & Wine magazines joined in naming Pingree this year one of the top “women in the food and drink world … who influence the way you eat and think about food.”
Her political contributions between 1994 to mid-2011 reflected her public stance that money should be kept out of politics, as well as her limited capacity to contribute. Pingree’s total donations to candidates running for national office during that period were $2,950.
But after that her donations skyrocketed over a very short time. From June 2011 to November 2012 – a period of only 17 months – she donated $105,600 to Democratic candidates to Congress and to the party committees that funnel donations to candidates.
“I guess what changed,” Pingree said in an interview with the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, “was I got married.”
Her marriage to Sussman in June 2011 has allowed Pingree to quickly become one of the state’s top 10 political donors.
This election cycle, she has given $121,653 so far to Democratic campaigns and candidates on both the state and federal level. That includes $67,195 in donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, $5,200 to U.S. Senate candidate Shenna Bellows, $2,600 to U. S. House candidate Emily Cain and $3,000 to gubernatorial candidate Mike Michaud.
Asked why she had chosen to give to candidates and what she hoped to accomplish with her giving, Pingree responded:
“I’ve been a longtime supporter of public financing of campaigns and a constitutional amendment that would roll back the Supreme Court decisions that have led to unlimited corporate spending on elections. I think we need a limit on campaign spending, but in the meantime I’m going to do everything I can to elect more Democrats and bring back a Democratic majority in the House so we can pass an increase in the minimum wage, take action on climate change, reduce the burden of student debt, and make the economy work for everyone.”
