Former Maine Republican Party Chairman Rick Bennett is running as a publicly financed candidate for the Maine Senate in 2020.

Bennett, of Oxford, who also served in the Maine Legislature, including two terms in the House and four in the Senate, has registered as a Clean Elections candidate with the Maine ethics commission, which oversees the state’s campaign finance laws.

Bennett was chairman of the Maine Republican Party from July 2013 to February 2015. He has also been the party’s state executive director, vice chairman and secretary.

In 2000, Bennett was elected president of the Maine Senate in a historic power-sharing agreement that had an evenly split Senate share the post between Democrats and Republicans.

He was his party’s nominee for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in 1994 but lost to Democrat John Baldacci.

Bennett also ran in the U.S. Senate primary in 2012 after Sen. Olympia Snowe announced her retirement, but lost that race to then-Secretary of State Charlie Summers, who was defeated in the general election by former Gov. Angus King.

Bennett will be running for the Senate District 19 seat now held by Republican James Hamper, who is term-limited from running again.