<p>Two left-leaning organizations in Maine have threatened to donate $1.3 million to Sen. Susan Collins&rsquo;s next opponent if she votes to confirm Trump&rsquo;s pick for Supreme Court. ;</p>
<p>Mainers for Accountable Leadership and the Maine People&rsquo;s Alliance are running an unusual crowdsource fundraising campaign in which &ldquo;donors&rdquo; agree to have their credit cards charges a certain amount if Collins votes in favor of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. ;</p>
<p>Those asking Collins to vote &#8220;no&#8221; ;see Kavanaugh as a threat to women&rsquo;s rights, LGBTQ rights, and Obamacare. ;</p>
<p>The campaign against Collins is hosted by the San Francisco-based website Crowdpac.com, which on Monday announced it had raised $893,600. In May, Crowdpac CEO Jesse Thomas announced the site would no longer accept fundraising campaigns on behalf of GOP candidates because those candidates tend to support President Trump. ;</p>
<p>Collins, who has not yet announced whether she intends to vote for Kavanaugh, said the threat would have no effect on her decision. ;</p>
<p>The fundraising campaign is &ldquo;the equivalent of an attempt to bribe me to vote against Judge Kavanaugh,&rdquo; said Collins. &ldquo;If I vote against him, the money is refunded to the donors. If I vote for him, the money is given to my opponent for the 2020 race.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Leading elections lawyer Cleta Mitchell has called on the FEC and the Department of Justice to investigate ;Crowdpac and its campaign against Collins. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Federal law prohibits anyone from offering a member of Congress anything of value in exchange for a member&rsquo;s vote,&rdquo; explains Mitchell. &#8220;These people have conspired to do just that&hellip;in exchange for her vote on a specific matter before the Congress.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The campaign could also represent a violation of the US criminal code on bribery by linking official actions to monetary reward. ;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, ;Crowdpac insists it has been thoroughly vetted by the FEC and that its business model has been approved. ;Crowdpac is &ldquo;fundamentally different from a political action committee,&rdquo; insists company spokesman TJ Adams-Falconer. &ldquo;Crowdpac does not make contributions, process contributions, deposit contributions into a merchant or bank account in its name, or forward contributions to candidate committees&hellip;We always have been, and remain today, a for-profit corporation operating exclusively on a commercial basis.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Crowdpac insists the funds it is raising quality as &ldquo;nominee funds.&rdquo; But as Mitchell has pointed out, nominee funds are typically collected before a primary election and disbursed based on the outcome &#8211; not on how a member of Congress votes. ;</p>
<p>&#8220;What Crowdpac has done in this instance is to allow its platform to be used for a purpose quite different from the purpose approved in the FEC opinion,&#8221; says Mitchell. &#8220;There is no mention in the opinion of using their proposed vehicle as a means of giving or withholding financial support for members of Congress in exchange for their votes or other official action.&rdquo;</p>