Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson backed millions of dollars in additional funding for a state academy while his son was simultaneously serving as the institution’s legislative lobbyist and working as a private lobbyist.
Jackson, who served as president of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024 and is now the Democratic nominee challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, cosponsored legislation in January 2024 that sought to substantially increase taxpayer funding for the Maine Maritime Academy.
At the time, Jackson’s son (and third cousin), Chace Jackson, was registered as the academy’s legislative designee — the employee designated to lobby the Maine Legislature on the institution’s behalf, according to a review by the Washington Free Beacon.
The bill, Legislative Document 2092, lists “President Jackson of Aroostook” among its Senate cosponsors. A fiscal analysis projected that the proposal would require an additional $2.6 million in fiscal year 2024-5, increasing to $5.5 million the following year and $8.4 million in fiscal year 2026-27.
Chace Jackson had registered as Maine Maritime Academy’s legislative designee in December 2022, identifying himself as the academy’s “legislative affairs coordinator.” He filed another registration in January 2024, this time using the title “legislative coordinator.”
The elder Jackson had already backed a substantial increase in the academy’s funding the previous year. In July 2023, he voted for a state budget that provided the Maine Maritime Academy with an additional $2 million per year, an increase the Maine Service Employees Association described as the academy’s “single biggest” funding increase in years.
The academy thanked lawmakers for the additional funding but said it still needed more money to keep pace with rising costs.
Jackson’s 2024 legislation would have provided the additional $13.4 million a year. The bill passed the Senate under Jackson’s leadership but ultimately did not become law.
Maine requires state departments and agencies to designate employees to lobby the Legislature on their behalf. The state Ethics Commission says an employee designated as a department or agency’s primary lobbyist must register with the commission. Chace Jackson, however, simultaneously worked as an outside lobbyist for the Resurgam Group, a lobbying firm founded by Troy Jackson’s former chief of staff and current campaign adviser B.J. McCollister.
Records reviewed by the Free Beacon show that Chace Jackson initially listed the Resurgam Group’s office as his mailing address on his Maine Maritime Academy legislative-designee registration and provided a personal email address rather than one belonging to the academy. His 2024 registration listed an academy email address, phone number, and mailing address.
A longtime Maine legislative staffer told the Free Beacon that the arrangement appeared to be an example of preferential treatment for the son of the Senate president.
“I can’t think of another time that has happened,” the staffer said of Chace Jackson’s simultaneous roles as a legislative designee and outside lobbyist, arguing that the arrangement suggested he was “skirting the rules.”
The overlap is particularly notable given Troy Jackson’s political rhetoric. Jackson has portrayed himself as a working-class opponent of the political “system,” describing himself as a “fifth-generation logger” and saying he entered the Senate race because “the status quo isn’t working.”
In an April gubernatorial candidate profile, Jackson blamed “special interests, high-priced lobbyists and corporate greed” for preventing legislation he supported from becoming law.
“I’m tired of folks being told to hold on, wait a little longer or that now is not the right time,” Jackson said. “All thanks to the work of special interests, high-priced lobbyists and corporate greed.”
Chace Jackson previously worked as a lobbyist for Preti Flaherty, one of Maine’s largest government affairs firms. In 2019, while his father was Senate president, Chace Jackson represented Global Partners LP as the company lobbied against legislation targeting its petroleum facilities following an emissions controversy.
One of the bills subsequently died in the Troy Jackson-controlled Senate.
In 2022, Chace Jackson joined the Resurgam Group. In 2024, the final year of Troy Jackson’s tenure as Senate president, the firm received $182,500 in lobbying compensation from nine clients represented by Chace Jackson, according to Maine lobbying records reviewed by the Free Beacon.
The younger Jackson’s political work for his father also predates his lobbying career. Troy Jackson’s 2014 U.S. congressional campaign paid Chace Jackson more than $32,000 in salary, making him the campaign’s highest-paid staffer. The junior Jackson subsequently contributed $1,833.78 to the campaign, although $1,750 of that contribution was returned.
A spokesman for the Jackson campaign defended the candidate, saying that “Troy Jackson has fought for working Mainers” and that his work is “guided by one goal: fixing our broken system so Maine’s working families stop getting squeezed while the rich get richer.”
It is unclear whether Chace Jackson still works for Maine Maritime Academy. The academy has not submitted legislative-designee registration forms for 2025 or 2026, and the Ethics Commission said it stopped requiring the academy to make those disclosures after determining it was no longer a state department or agency.
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