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New Endangered Species Act rules consider climate impact on ME wildlife
Conservationists in Maine said reinstated protections of the Endangered Species Act could help wildlife already struggling to adapt to climate change.
Economic impacts will no longer be considered when listing certain species as threatened or endangered but the threat of climate change will be a factor.
Anya Fetcher, federal policy advocate for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said so-called “blanket rule” protections will also be revived.
“This is basically, while they are considering whether they should become endangered, they’re going to continue to protect those species as if they were,” Fetcher explained.
The Trump administration removed protections for threatened species along with other key aspects of the law. Fetcher acknowledged the new rules are likely to be challenged by Congress similar to other climate and environmental regulations.
Conservation powers will also be extended to federally recognized tribes, allowing them the same opportunities to protect wildlife, including some of Maine’s most iconic species such as the piping plover and Canada lynx, which are losing critical habitat to development and a changing climate.
Fetcher pointed out one-third of Maine’s species are vulnerable to climate change, including more than half the state’s birds.
“Our wildlife is part of what makes Maine so special,” Fetcher asserted. “Protecting critical habitat and the incredible wildlife that we have here is vital to our economy as well.”
Fetcher added the Endangered Species Act has been helpful in protecting species such as the bald eagle, once on the brink of extinction but now a common sight in Maine. Nearly 500,000 public comments were considered in the new rule-making process.
The post New Endangered Species Act rules consider climate impact on ME wildlife first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Opinion: Janet Mills wields her veto pen against the most vulnerable. Again.
Last week, Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a small bill, one that received no formal opposition in committee and would have helped some of our most vulnerable Mainers stay out of jail, get jobs, and rebuild their lives.
LD 2246 would have ended our three strikes law against petty theft. As Michael Kebede of the ACLU of Maine put it, under current law, “Stealing three loaves of bread on three separate occasions… could mean five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.”
“[LD 2246] will ensure that Maine does not needlessly punish people who commit crimes of poverty,” he added.
It would also ensure that someone isn’t labeled a felon for life for making a few small mistakes or for making a decision while in survival mode.
Beyond the stigma, having a felony on your record leads to immeasurable hardship. Matthew Morgan, president of the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, testified in support of the bill, saying, “Three petty shoplifting cases where a person without money steals food could result in him or her being made a felon for the rest of his or her life. The imposition of a felony conviction with its many impacts on housing, employment, firearm possession, and more should require far more egregious conduct…”
Even the Criminal Law Advisory Council, known to be relatively conservative on criminal justice reform, did not oppose the bill, and instead testified neither for nor against.
But Mills, a former criminal prosecutor, has rarely been a fan of criminal justice reform. In 2021, she vetoed a bill decriminalizing sex work (and putting the onus on the Johns and traffickers where it belongs, rather than on sex workers and trafficking victims). She has also vetoed two bills overhauling our poverty punishing bail code.
Perhaps worst of all, she vetoed a bill by state Rep. Grayson Lookner that would have closed the Long Creek Youth Development Center, the state’s only youth prison. The bill also would have provided resources to get children the community support they need, instead of letting children be sucked into a criminal justice system that does everything to keep them there.
As a recent New York Times/Bangor Daily News investigation showed, this veto in particular has allowed a system to continue failing our lowest income kids, as non-incarceration alternatives remain neglected. The article stated, “Nearly three years ago, Maine lawmakers hoped to be in the vanguard of a national movement to transform how governments deal with teenagers who break the law. The legislators passed a bill aimed at closing the state’s only youth prison and expanding programs with a better record of rehabilitating adolescents. But Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat and longtime prosecutor, vetoed the June 2021 measure, even though the facility, Long Creek Youth Development Center, had repeatedly been faulted for harmful treatment and dangerous conditions.”
Sadly, this pattern of the governor to veto bills that will help our most vulnerable does not simply extend to criminal justice issues. During her tenure, she has vetoed legislation to raise wages for farmworkers, to give tenants more than 30 days notice before being evicted without cause, to strengthen the negotiating rights of overworked teachers and public employees, and to empower workers to protect themselves from bad employers.
Perhaps what is most frustrating about her veto of the bill to end three strikes on petty theft, beyond the human impact, is that she says she vetoed it because it “would make Maine an outlier from New England states.” And yet, when it comes to gun safety, she says about her proposals, “They are not a cookie cutter version of another’s state’s laws; they are Maine-made and true to our culture.”
Whether LD 2246 is actually an outlier (it isn’t), or whether it is a tried and true reform (it is), it would have improved the lives of people who desperately need help. She shouldn’t have vetoed it.
The post Opinion: Janet Mills wields her veto pen against the most vulnerable. Again. first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Tax Fairness — An Explainer
What is tax fairness?
Taxes help pay for things that benefit everyone, like good schools, clean air and water, and safe roads. Businesses also need these things to succeed, along with a healthy, housed, and educated workforce, modern infrastructure, and affordable energy. Fair taxes mean everyone pitches in according to their means, so those who have less pay less, and those who have more pay more. Unfortunately, the vast majority of states still have upside-down tax structures, meaning that families with wealth pay a smaller portion of their income in taxes than families with low income. That’s not fair.
Most public services are funded by a mix of income, property, and consumption taxes. Some states decide to get rid of income taxes altogether. But when they do, they often raise other taxes and reduce support for essential services and infrastructure. This hurts people with low income the most and worsens economic and racial inequality. Ultimately, the “no income tax” approach to taxation means people with low and middle income end up contributing a greater share of their income towards shared services and infrastructure than people with wealth but get less of the benefit. That’s not fair either.
- Unfair tax structures worsen income inequality. New state-by-state analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that on average, the least wealthy 20% of taxpayers pay state and local tax rates that are nearly 60% higher than the wealthiest 1%. In 41 states, the wealthiest 1% are taxed at a lower rate than everyone else. In the most unfair states, families with low income pay three to five times as much of their income as those with wealth.
- States described as “low tax” are often high tax for families with low income. When states move to eliminate or flatten personal income taxes, they often make up for the lost revenue by raising other taxes, like property and consumption taxes. These taxes hit people with low income hardest, as they typically spend about three-quarters of their earnings on items subject to sales tax, while top earners only spend about one-sixth of earnings on these items.
- Unfair tax structures and enforcement worsen racial inequality. Taxing people with lower income and their work-based income at higher rates than wealthy people and their unearned income negatively and disproportionately impacts people of color. In the US, the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family, and yet Black Americans have been found to be three to five times more likely to be auditedthan taxpayers of other races. Wealthy white people are also significantly more likely to have sources of unearned income, including stock.
- Unfair tax systems shift costs to workers and small businesses. Taxpayers with higher incomes can exert political influence and employ advisors to exploit complicated loopholes and accounting schemes to avoid paying what they owe. Following the Trump tax cuts of 2017, corporations spent $1 trillion on stock buybacks, further enriching shareholders while workers’ wages stagnated. Maine enacted a policy to stop big box stores from employing shady practices to reduce their property taxes and shift costs to local communities, which has cost other states millions in local tax revenues.
- Unfair tax structures cost the US billions every year. The US Treasury estimates the wealthiest 1% use loopholes and other strategies to hide their wealth and underpay their taxes by $163 billion each year. Tax avoidance by the wealthiest 1% accounts for nearly 30% of what the government is shortchanged annually.
According to ITEP’s analysis, Maine is one of only seven states with tax structures that reduce rather than increase inequality. In New England, only Vermont has fairer tax structures.
In recent years, Maine has made strides to increase fairness by targeting tax credits to people with low income. For example, Maine has increased its Earned Income Tax Credit fivefold since 2019, removed minimum income qualifications for its child tax credit and sales tax credit and introduced a dependent care tax credit and a property tax fairness credit.
In contrast, Florida, which has the least fair tax system in the US, relies heavily on sales taxes because it doesn’t have an income tax, and it lacks targeted tax credits that create balance for families with low income. As a result, families with low income in Florida pay almost five times more of their income in taxes than the wealthiest families do, and 35% more than their counterparts in Maine.
By maintaining a fairer tax system, Maine has also been able to sustain the funding to enact bold policies that build economic opportunity and further reduce costs for working families, including free school meals, free community college, child care and energy subsidies, paid family and medical leave, expanded access to Medicaid, and new affordable housing construction.
FLORIDA: The most unfair in the U.S.
MAINE: The 7th fairest in the U.S.
Income taxes
Income taxes play a significant role in our economy, but just as important are the taxes that go unpaid. The “tax gap” — the difference between what taxpayers owe and what they pay — was $688 billion in 2021. That represents a quarter of the federal tax receipts and about 3% of the nation’s total economic output. This gap comes from wealthy people and corporations exploiting loopholes, complex schemes, lax reporting laws, and gutted enforcement capacity to hide their income, along with other nonfiling, underreporting, and underpayment.
On average in the U.S., income tax rates go up as income goes up. Additional tax credits targeted to working families with low-income help offset other forms of taxes that are less fair. However, there’s a hidden issue with income taxes: money earned from investments, like stocks and bonds, isn’t taxed as it grows, unlike income from working. This makes it even tougher for working class families to get ahead.
Minnesota has the second fairest tax structure in the nation after Washington, DC. Like Maine, it has robust tax credits for working families, a state-level estate tax, and limits itemized deductions for the wealthy. But what sets Minnesota apart is its approach to taxing high investment incomes and its graduated income tax brackets that apply higher rates to higher earnings. While Maine’s income tax bracket also increases with the amount of income earned, it only has three brackets. The top tax rate starts at just $61,600 for single filers and $123,250 for those married filing jointly, resulting in a large share of middle-income families paying the same rate as millionaires in Maine.
ITEP’s charts show the share of family income spent on income taxes after tax credits and exemptions are factored in.
Corporate income taxesBusiness income reported on individual and corporate tax returns accounts for 44% of the tax gap. While the federal government has started taking steps to tackle this issue by improving IRS capabilities to target high-income and large corporate tax evaders, as well as implementing an alternative minimum corporate tax, many states, including Maine, lag behind. In Maine, there’s very little information available about whether corporations operating here are paying their share of state taxes because reporting requirements are minimal.
Much of Maine’s corporate tax base is comprised of multinational corporations like Amazon, Walmart, Apple, Microsoft, and pharmaceutical companies. These corporations sell their products in Maine but are based elsewhere. They pay taxes based on a percentage of their income from sales here. But when these corporations hide their profits in offshore tax havens, those profits aren’t included in the federal or state tax calculations. Each year, tax haven abuse costs the US $60 billion and Maine an estimated $52 million. Many of the big corporations dodging taxes are the same ones getting special tax breaks from both federal and state governments.
“Pass-through” entity income taxes95% of businesses in the U.S. today are “pass-through” entities not subject to the corporate tax paid by C-corporations. Pass-through entities, such as partnerships, S corporations, and sole proprietorships, allow income to “pass through” to their owners, who then report it on their individual income tax returns. Because these entities underreport at a high rate, they represent the single largest source of the tax gap.
Pass-through entities have minimal reporting requirements and are rarely audited, creating a fertile environment for underreporting, evasion, and tax haven abuse by the wealthy. While sold as a small business benefit, more than 60% of the 2017 tax cut directed at pass-through entities ultimately benefitted the wealthiest 1%, at a cost of roughly $50 billion in revenue each year. Many of these tax benefits are set to expire in 2025. In Maine, the Legislature recently considered a bill that would have created a new pass-through entity tax that, instead of reigning in pass-throughs, would have made even more loopholes and tax breaks available.
Property taxes
On average, property taxes can hit families with low income the hardest because those families typically spend a greater share of their income on property taxes than everyone else. This includes both renters and homeowners with low income. Many states with flat or no income taxes look to property taxes to raise revenue. New Hampshire, which has no personal income tax, relies heavily on property taxes to make up revenue, resulting in the third highest property tax rate in the nation. All but the wealthiest 5% in New Hampshire pay a greater percentage of their income in property taxes than families in Maine.
Sales and excise taxes
Taxing the things people buy has the most unfair impact on families with low income. Sales and excise taxes are also the most common way for states that have eliminated or flattened their income taxes to make up for lost revenue. For example, in Washington state, families with low income pay a portion of their income in sales taxes that is seven times higher than the wealthiest families, and almost twice as much as their counterparts in Maine.
End corporate tax haven abuse with complete reporting. Worldwide combined reporting would require corporations and their subsidiaries to report global profits and pay taxes on the portion of their business done in Maine, leveling the playing field for local businesses paying taxes fairly.
Make corporations file state income tax disclosures. It’s impossible for state and local governments to know if corporations are paying their share because little to no reporting is required on the state level. Research by the Economic Policy Institute found that in seven states, 60% of corporations pay $0 in income taxes, including many with over $1 billion in federal taxable income. The Maine legislature passed a bill that would require Maine Revenue Service to report how many of the largest corporations doing business in Maine pay $0 in taxes.
Apply the federal corporate minimum tax on the state level. In 2023, the federal government enacted requirements that corporations with profits over $1 billion pay 15% of profits reported to shareholders. Also known as the “real profits tax”, it will prevent ultra-wealthy corporations from getting away with paying $0 in taxes. Aligning with federal policy will help prevent ultra-wealthy corporations from avoiding their obligations in Maine.
Reform or end wasteful corporate tax subsidies. Federal and state governments give away billions in taxpayer money to profitable corporations every year with little transparency or accountability built in. Corporations that receive subsidies often spend the money on stock buybacks and executive pay while their workers’ wages stagnate. Maine gives away over $1 billion in business tax breaks each year — almost as much as the state spends on education. Many of these subsidies are unproven or proven to be ineffective. States should implement subsidy guard rails like requiring sunset dates, income tax disclosures, and impact data, and by prohibiting stock buybacks and executive raises. Subsidies shown to be wasteful and ineffective should be scrapped.
Expose and prosecute ultra-wealthy tax evaders. The new IRS funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act will allow the agency to prioritize auditing and collecting from ultra-wealthy tax evaders like Microsoft, which owes $29 billion in back taxes resulting from avoidance schemes. Sustained funding and the resulting increased compliance will raise an estimated $851 billion over 10 years. Increasing funding will raise even more. Every $1 of IRS spending on audits of top earners delivers more than $12 of tax revenue.
Sunset income and estate tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. In 2017, Congress passed a tax plan that primarily benefitted the wealthiest 5%, giving income tax cuts more than triple the value of those received by the bottom 60% of earners and doubling the amount the wealthiest households can pass on tax-free to their heirs. Allowing these provisions to sunset in 2025 will restore an estimated $350 billion in revenue per year. Maine’s estate tax excludes $6.8 million of inherited income from taxation, primarily benefiting the wealthiest Mainers.
Enact a mansion tax in the form of a progressive real estate transfer tax. Families with low and middle income are competing with more buyers than ever in a state where housing stock is limited, prices for homes are higher, and more homes are second homes or not owner occupied. Maine’s real estate transfer tax is assessed as $2.20 for every $500 in purchase price when property is sold. Creating a new transfer tax bracket for higher value real estate sales would ask more of those with higher wealth and provide new revenue to fund affordable housing solutions.
Enact a millionaire tax, raising income taxes on high earners. Maine’s current tax code requires middle class families to pay the same rates as millionaires. Creating a new bracket for those with higher income would add fairness. ITEP analysis estimates that adding a surcharge of 3% on income over $1 million and 6% on income over $10 million would isolate impact to the wealthiest 0.2% in Maine and would bring in an additional $99 million in revenue each year.
Restore and expand tax credits for families with low and middle income. Expansions of the federal Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, and tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage in 2021 all contributed to a significant reduction in poverty and helped working families make ends meet, but were ultimately allowed to sunset. In recent years, Maine has expanded the dependent care tax credit, property tax fairness credit, and earned income tax credit, but there is more to be done to make the tax code fairer for all.
Did you know…?- Since 2020, the world’s five richest men more than doubled their collective wealth to . That’s a rate of $14 million per hour. Meanwhile, 4.8 billion people were poorer in 2020 than they were the year before.
- Over three decades, the net worth of the wealthiest 1% of Americans grew by $21 trillion, while that of the bottom 50% dropped by $900 billion. The bottom 50% of American households owns just 2% of the nation’s wealth.
- 35 major US corporations, including Tesla, T-Mobile, Ford, and Netflix, paid less in federal income taxesbetween 2018 and 2022 than they paid their top five executives, despite being profitable during that time period. While together those 35 corporations paid their executives $9.5 billion, their combined tax bill came to a negative $1.8 billion. Not only did they not pay their share, they were also rewarded with lucrative tax breaks.
- 75% of the super-rich support a 2% wealth tax on billionaires. More than half also agree that the concentration of extreme wealth is a threat to democracy.
- One year’s worth of uncollected taxes would have covered an extension of the expanded child tax credit through 2025. Or it would have paid for nearly all the non-defense discretionary spending of the federal government.
- In 2022, CEO pay was , on average, than the pay of a typical worker.
Taxes and Racial Equity: An Overview of State and Local Policy Impacts – ITEP
The Pitfalls of Flat Income Taxes | ITEP
State Taxation of Capital Gains: The Folly of Tax Cuts & Case for Proactive Reforms | ITEP
Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Five Years of the Trump Tax Law | ITEP
Top 1% Up $21 Trillion. Bottom 50% Down $900 Billion. | People’s Policy Project
Inequality Inc.: How corporate power divides our world and the need for a new era of public action | Oxfam
Originally published by the Maine Center for Economic Policy
The post Tax Fairness — An Explainer first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Podcast: Rent relief, abortion access, wind power and student dept relief!
Today on the Beacon Podcast, Ben and Esther discuss updates from the legislative session including the new pilot program for housing subsidies, the outcome of Planned Parenthood’s proposed constitutional amendment regarding protecting access to abortion, and the Sears Island offshore wind proposal. Additionally, the two discuss Pres. Biden’s new plan to help erase or lower student debt for approximately 30 million people.
Ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.
Subscribe to the podcast feed using any podcasting app or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
The post Podcast: Rent relief, abortion access, wind power and student dept relief! first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Poll: Mainers strongly support rent relief, public health insurance option
Maine voters overwhelmingly back crucial housing reforms and a public health insurance option, according to a recent poll.
In the survey of 607 Maine voters conducted in late March by the Maine People’s Resource Center, a partner of the Beacon, 57% expressed support for “the creation of a new state rental assistance voucher program to help more Maine families afford housing,” with only 30% opposed.
Additionally, 62% of respondents favor banning landlord discrimination against tenants who receive rental assistance. The survey carries a margin of error of +/-4% at a 95% confidence level.
The polling comes as Maine lawmakers last week passed a supplementary budget proposal that includes $18 million in funding for a rental assistance pilot.
However, the Democrats’ proposed budget is currently in the middle of a legislative fight and the rental assistance pilot could get dropped.
Their spending plan taps into funds meant for transportation to meet other priorities and scales back a pension tax break passed last year. This reportedly has angered Republicans and risks a showdown with Gov. Janet Mills, who has veto power over the budget.
Cate Blackford, the public policy director for the Maine People’s Alliance, said the polling shows such a program is “desperately needed, right now, to ensure that all Mainers have a safe and stable place to call home. No matter who we are, where we live or how much money we have in the bank, we all deserve that. That means protecting renters today, as we work to meet our state’s housing needs for the future.”
A vital part of that protection, she said, is banning landlord discrimination against tenants who receive rental assistance, which three out of five of respondents supported in the poll.
“Incredibly, it is legal for landlords to discriminate against people who have some kind of rental assistance, and it’s often just a matter of course,” Blackford said. “But most Mainers believe tenants deserve better.”
Mainers also overwhelmingly back the establishment of a state public option health care plan that would provide competition to private insurers. A significant 60% to 24% margin of Maine voters supports this initiative. Among Democrats, 80% support the plan, alongside 56% of independents and a plurality of 46% of Republicans.
Furthermore, 52% of Mainers disclosed experiencing a denial or delay of care or payment by a health insurance company, contributing to a notable 62% unfavorable view of health insurance corporations.
Maine’s Office of Affordable Health Care recently issued a report exploring potential avenues for a public option health care plan in the state.
In the statewide presidential vote, a plurality of voters favor Pres. Joe Biden. However, in Maine’s Second Congressional District, a plurality supports former Pres. Donald Trump, while nearly a quarter of voters remain undecided or back another candidate. Biden holds a narrow lead statewide, securing 40% of the vote compared to Trump’s 37%.
Notably, the proportion of voters undecided or supporting a third-party candidate is higher than in previous elections at this stage. Biden leads by 10 points in Maine’s First Congressional District, while Trump holds a four-point lead in the Second District.
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Maine women veterans request counselors for military sexual trauma
Advocates for women veterans, who’ve experienced sexual trauma while serving in the military, are asking state lawmakers for much-needed funding.
Previous legislation backed the creation of two sexual trauma liaisons at community-based organizations in the state, but funding never came to fruition.
Executive Director of the Augusta-based Sisters-in-Arms Center, Rebecca Cornell du Houx, said lawmakers have a chance to help veteran survivors rebuild their lives.
“To have a consistent clinician there to provide that trauma treatment to the woman veteran in a place that they’re safe,” said Cornell du Houx, “I think, can really, really support their recovery.”
Cornell du Houx said one in three women soldiers experience some form of sexual trauma while in the military but many incidents go unreported.
There are more than 10,000 women veterans currently living in Maine.
Women veterans are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the homeless population, and are four times more likely to become homeless than their male peers.
Researchers also now identify military sexual trauma as the biggest factor driving a more than 60% increase in suicide rates among women veterans since 2001.
Cornell du Houx said while group therapy is available to these veterans, state funding would provide for more formalized treatment – especially for those coming off active-duty.
“I think if people knew the stories of what had happened to these women while they were in the service, just really disheartening stories of assault,” said Cornell du Houx, “I think that they wouldn’t hesitate to fund a position so that they could get help.”
Cornell du Houx said sexual trauma is most prevalent among lower-ranking seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, who are influenced to think that reporting an incident is a betrayal of a fellow soldier.
She said it’s important to support those who have come forward, to advocate for themselves and others, and who took an oath to serve their country.
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Opinion: The late Gov. Joe Brennan was a progressive champion
When the late Gov. Joe Brennan, who passed away this week at the age of 89, was first elected to the Maine legislature in 1965, the first bill he sponsored was to abolish the reprehensible practice of putting kids in jail for truancy. I don’t know if this was from his lived experience (he reportedly skipped school more than once to improve on his pool game) or from his innate ability to understand injustice. But, pushing juvenile justice reform like this was boldly humanitarian and progressive.
One of the last public positions he took, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1996 against Susan Collins, was to forcefully support an extension of the assault weapons ban, which Collins said she wanted to repeal. His house on Munjoy Hill had been shot up when his daughter was home and his son was in law enforcement. His stance was deemed too boldly progressive. Also risky. He lost that race.
In the 30 years between, Brennan fought for public power. He raised the minimum wage for our lowest income workers. He created the HOME program to help working class families buy a house they otherwise couldn’t afford. He developed one of the first programs in the country to provide low income home energy assistance.
He created the Public Advocate’s office, so consumers had someone, anyone, whose job it was to push back against power companies seeking more and more profits at the expense of our environment and our checkbooks (sound familiar?)
He fought the alcohol industry by pushing for much stronger drunk driving laws and he fought the car industry by passing Maine’s first seatbelt law. He set the stage for the Land For Maine’s Future program, which has now preserved 620,000 acres of Maine land. Forever.
In 1968 he supported a resolution on the floor of the Democratic convention opposing the Vietnam War (earning the wrath of Senator and Vice Presidential nominee Ed Muskie) and in 1986 he refused to send the Maine National Guard to train in Honduras because of the illegal war Ronald Reagan was waging against Nicaragua.
Brennan’s legacy isn’t perfect: His progressive credentials certainly take a hit with the rigidity with which he, and every governor since, enforced the Indian Land Claims Act, especially around self-governance and tribal sovereignty. The settlement was the largest of its kind at the time, and many saw it as a breakthrough for the Tribes in Maine, but ultimately it has not lived up to hopes and desperately needs to be reformed to better meet the spirit of what was intended.
Even Brennan’s reputation for fiscal conservatism was more in the progressive tradition of making government more effective for those in need. Improving our fiscal standing with bond markets, so we could borrow at lower risk. Balancing our budgets, so programs could be sustained over time. Creating the Finance Authority of Maine to ensure loans were administered responsibly and putting the Maine Housing Authority on solid financial footing so it could do all the good work it has done building housing for those in need.
That is a very different fiscal conservatism than what has been pushed by Republicans for a generation, one that seeks to starve government solely to undermine the effectiveness of the safety net so they can reduce tax rates for our wealthiest and increase income inequality.
I mention all this because the progressive drive of this great governor is getting somewhat lost in all of the accolades I have been reading. The memorials speak mostly to his personal integrity and generosity, both of which I experienced too often to count, which is certainly worthy of highlighting. Focusing on a person’s integrity, kindness, and how they treated others should be paramount to all of our legacies.
But for a politician who gave 60 years of public service to our state, I expect he would also want to be remembered for what he did and for the activist progressive ideology he espoused about government’s role: “The moral imperative of government is how you treat those in the dawn of life… those in the shadows of life… and those in the twilight of life. Government is the last and best hope for those in need.”
May all of us carry on his memory and continue his work.
The post Opinion: The late Gov. Joe Brennan was a progressive champion first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Housing advocates applaud inclusion of rent relief in Democrats’ budget plan
Housing advocates are applauding a spending plan passed by Democrats which includes $18 million in funding for rental assistance.
Legislative Democrats endorsed a proposed state supplemental budget on Saturday that included funds for a state-run housing voucher program pilot.
The plan, which passed the Democratic-majority Appropriations Committee in a 7-5 vote along party lines, goes beyond what Gov. Janet Mills has already called for to address the state’s housing crisis, which continues to deepen in Maine, as it does in many parts of the country, after decades of underproduction of affordable housing.
“We are excited to see a rent relief pilot program included in the budget that can provide Mainers most at risk of housing instability and eviction get the help they need to remain housed,” said Kathy Kilrain del Rio of Maine Equal Justice. “This will have a huge positive impact on the lives of many families and individuals. Everyone should have the safety and stability that having a place to call home provides. This is an important part of the solution to the housing crisis.”
The pilot would provide around 2,000 Mainers with between $300 and $800 in monthly rental assistance.
Maine Equal Justice and other housing advocates held rallies in Augusta this session to push lawmakers to fund rent relief, which they say is an important tool to keep low-income renters from falling out of the bottom of the housing market and becoming unhoused.
For many housing advocates, rent relief must be part of any serious policy package pursued by lawmakers to address the housing crisis. It’s one leg of a four-legged stool that also includes funding private and public affordable housing construction, funding homeless shelters, and regulating the private rental market.
Until now, lawmakers have been reluctant to regulate landlords or go beyond funding the same public-private housing development schemes they have been relying on for decades — the same schemes that failed to produce enough affordable housing.
In her amendment to her initial supplemental budget proposal, Mills called for directing an additional $22 million to federal low-income housing tax credits and the Rural Affordable Rental Housing Program — both programs that subsidize private developers to create affordable housing.
“Any help is welcome, especially by our elected officials. This is a humane and reasonable approach to handling homelessness by making sure people stay housed,” said Spencer Jacob, a tenant at Redbank Village in South Portland. “However, I fear that this relief is only going to be temporary. Rent will keep going up and Maine will need more funding each year to suffice the growing need for rent relief.”
But Democrats’ efforts to go further than they have previously to address the housing crisis may still face a legislative fight.
As the Bangor Daily News reports, the spending plan passed by Legislative Democrats on Saturday taps into funds meant for transportation to meet other priorities and scales back a pension tax break passed last year. This reportedly has angered Republicans and risks a showdown with Mills, who has veto power over the budget.
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Podcast: What it means to be a “movement journalist”
This week on the podcast, we bid a fond adieu to longtime Beacon reporter Dan Neumann, who is leaving us for the labor movement. Dan and Ben talk about some of their favorite Beacon stories and when the Beacon’s reporting has really made a difference. They also talk about what’s happening in the last part of the legislative session with housing, wind power and the budget.
Ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.
Subscribe to the podcast feed using any podcasting app or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
The post Podcast: What it means to be a “movement journalist” first appeared on Maine Beacon.
‘We need a true extreme risk protection order:’ Mainers call on lawmakers to pass red flag law
Maine Lawmakers heard from the public on Friday over a proposed red flag law, also called an extreme risk protection order, which is aimed at empowering not just law enforcement but also family members to petition a court to restrict access to firearms for individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others.
“I’m here to join the chorus of voices asking you to give Mainers a streamlined mechanism to protect our loved ones in crisis from harming themselves or others. We need a true extreme risk protection order to keep our family members and our communities safe,” said Yarmouth resident Cam Shannon, board chair of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.
The bill, LD 2283, presented by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), seeks to streamline the existing process in state law, bypassing the requirement for a mental health evaluation before obtaining a judge’s approval to remove someone’s firearms.
Introduced late in the legislative session, the proposal gained traction in response to pleas from citizens and advocates testifying on various gun reforms, particularly in the aftermath of the tragic Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston, which claimed 18 lives and left 13 others wounded.
“Constituents from across the state have shown up at rallies, they’ve made phone calls, written letters to the editor,” said Talbot Ross. “They’ve delivered the hours of public testimony that this very committee has heard. And they have been very clear: The epidemic of gun violence requires leadership, urgent leadership, and a comprehensive approach to public health and safety.”
Alongside this red flag initiative, lawmakers are mulling over additional gun safety reforms, including broader background checks encompassing private sales, a mandated 72-hour waiting period for purchases, and updates to the current yellow-flag law.
Maine’s current yellow-flag law, a compromise brokered between Gov. Janet Mills and the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, was at the center of a state investigation of the Lewiston shooting which found significant law enforcement error but otherwise offered little criticism of the current law.
The law, which requires a mental health evaluation for police to intervene and limit access to weapons, has faced scrutiny in light of recent events. Critics argue that its convoluted process creates loopholes, potentially allowing individuals to slip through the cracks, as illustrated by the Lewiston tragedy.
The proposed red flag law has garnered praise from members of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, who emphasized the significance of empowering families to intervene and remove firearms from loved ones displaying concerning behavior. They highlighted the strain on law enforcement tasked with assessing mental health under the current yellow-flag law, underscoring the necessity for Maine to enhance its gun safety measures.
“The bill gives family members, not just law enforcement, the opportunity to seek help for a loved one in crisis by petitioning a judge for the temporary removal,” Shannon said. “They are the most likely to recognize warning signs. They should be empowered to seek help when they are concerned.”
Maine has the chance to join 21 other states that have enacted red flag law. Many proponents believe lawmakers missed an opportunity in 2019, when Maine Republicans unanimously rejected Sen. Rebecca Millett’s original red flag law, instead aligning with the gun lobby’s assurances of safety. Rather than acknowledging the current law’s weaknesses, Republicans now seek to blame law enforcement for not enforcing the flawed law.
Some Democrats are urging Mills and other lawmakers to meet the moment now.
“This is a crucial moment in our state’s history, and we are here to meet that moment. It will take all of us working together and listening compassionately to chart a path forward,” said Sen. Eloise Vitelli (D-Sagadahoc County). “This bill represents one step in the march towards that progress.”
The post ‘We need a true extreme risk protection order:’ Mainers call on lawmakers to pass red flag law first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Opinion: Let’s make sure Republican votes matter in Maine (seriously)
If you are a Republican in southern Maine, your vote hasn’t mattered in a presidential election for 36 years. Literally.
And it won’t matter in 2024 or 2028 either, if how we tabulate elections remains the same.
Thirty six years ago was the last time a Republican presidential candidate won either the state or the First Congressional District (1988). In every election since, the Democratic candidate won both. Pretty handily.
In fact, even Republicans in the Second District were silenced in presidential elections for most of the same period. They were given a tiny voice in 2016 and 2020 when they voted for former Pres. Donald Trump, but even then, what Maine offered didn’t matter to the winner.
That’s because in the United States we do not have one-person, one-vote in our presidential races. Instead of the winner being elected by a majority of the votes around the country, we use an arcane “compromise” created by the same people who believed Black people were three-fifths of a human and women not smart enough to cast a ballot.
The system, called the electoral college, allocates “electors” based on the number of congressional seats we hold. This makes for the bizarre system we currently use in which candidates spend all their time in relatively few states, because the rest of the electors in the country just don’t matter.
For instance, between 2008-2016, Maine got an average of 1.6 visits by presidential candidates per general election. Wisconsin got 13. That’s over eight times as many visits, yet Wisconsin only has four times our population.
Or take Virginia which got 82 visits over the same period (16 times as many as us), despite only having five times our population.
Over and over again, Maine is disadvantaged by the current system.
Now, imagine a scenario where every vote mattered. Where every vote across the country was equal. Where, if a candidate moved 10,000 votes in Maine, it meant the same as moving 10,000 votes in Alabama. Where knocking on a door in Kittery to motivate a single voter to turn out for the candidate of your choice, meant the same as knocking on a door in Knoxville.
Right now, if the Maine GOP convinces a voter in Yarmouth to vote for Trump, it has zero impact on whether Trump wins. Honestly, it is the same for Democrats and Pres. Joe Biden. We know Maine will vote for Biden, and we really, really, really know the First District will vote for him.
But all that changes if Gov. Janet Mills allows the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill recently passed by the Maine legislature to become law.
NPV guarantees that the presidential candidate who wins the most votes across the country wins the presidency. That means presidential candidates must campaign for any and every vote they can get. Everywhere.
And just a quick note on constitutionality. While our federal constitution does not use the phrase winner-take-all for presidential races, it makes 100% clear that every state gets to choose how they allocate their electors, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors …” Article II, U.S. Constitution. So, for any states’ rights conservatives out there, this idea is right up your alley.
So far, 16 states and the District of Columbia have decided to allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national vote, for a total of 205 delegates. Maine would be the 17th and would bring the total to 209. Additionally, 74 more delegates are in play in seven states where NPV has passed at least one branch of their legislature.
Once we hit 270, it is game over.
So, let me repeat something you will not hear me say often: Let’s give Maine Republicans more voice in our presidential elections. They have been silenced and disenfranchised for far too long.
The post Opinion: Let’s make sure Republican votes matter in Maine (seriously) first appeared on Maine Beacon.
‘Big win but a small step:’ Maine House passes bill expanding some Wabanaki rights
With bipartisan support, the Maine House passed an amended bill on Tuesday that will expand the Wabanaki Nations’ jurisdiction over certain crimes.
LD 2007, which passed the House 82-62 and has the support of Gov. Janet Mills, aims to synchronize Maine’s legal framework with federal statutes concerning tribal court jurisdiction. It specifies the areas where the state holds either concurrent or exclusive authority over criminal prosecutions. Presently, among the four tribes in Maine, only the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes operate their own tribal courts. However, the proposed law would encompass future tribal courts of the Mi’kmaq and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians as well.
The bill now advances to the Maine Senate.
“Today was a big win but a small step moving forward so a big thanks and appreciation goes out to all that supported us on both sides of the aisle. We still have so much work to do and education to accomplish. LD 2007 is a step in that direction,” said Passamaquoddy Tribal Representative and Wabanaki Alliance board member Aaron Dana.
LD 2007, introduced by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), was originally drafted to implement many of the recommendations made in 2019 by a legislative task force formed to find a way to amend the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980.
The Settlement Act is a jurisdictional arrangement between the tribes and the state that Indigenous leaders have long criticized for leaving the Wabanaki Nations with less authority over natural resources, gaming, taxation, criminal justice and economic development on their lands than 570 other federally recognized tribes.
However, Mills signaled earlier in the session that she was still in opposition to several of the task force’s recommendations, but was open to adopting many of the criminal justice recommendations. The speaker, tribes and the offices of the governor and attorney general then worked together on a compromise bill that solely focused on expanding tribes’ authority over certain crimes.
The amended bill also would allow the Penobscot Nation a greater role in the management of its drinking water.
“Maybe one day the Wabanaki Nations can reclaim their inherent right to self-governance and be allowed their ability to succeed or fail on their own terms,” Dana said. “We are a very proud Wabanaki Confederacy, and we will always move forward in a good way. We will always look to our ancestral teachings and be the warriors our ancestors fought on behalf of and prayed so hard for us to be.”
Over the course of three successive Maine legislative sessions, proposals echoing the widely agreed-upon suggestions of the task force have been deliberated. Should LD 2007 be approved, it would mark the most significant alterations to the Settlement Act since its enactment by Gov. Joseph Brennan, a Democrat, in April 1980.
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Opinion: The law that could have prevented the massacre in Lewiston
Whether you believe Maine’s yellow flag law failed us because of human error or poor design (spoiler alert, it failed by design), one thing is clear — a much less bureaucratic version would have dramatically increased the chances of stopping Robert Card from shooting 31 people in Lewiston last fall.
In fact, it likely would have prevented it.
That is why House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross should be commended for her courageous move last week submitting LD 2283, An Act to Enact the Crisis Intervention Order Act to Protect the Safety of the Public. Red flag laws, or extreme risk protection orders, have been proven to deescalate emergencies and save lives.
In the face of furious Republican opposition which tried to kill the bill before it even got to committee, attacks by the gun lobby claiming the bill will “make it too easy” to take a dangerous person’s guns away, and no doubt some pressure from members of our own party, Speaker Talbot Ross put public safety ahead of political safety.
Political safety would have been for her to accept the absurd spin that our current laws failed because, as the Republicans and the gun lobby want us to believe, the cops were incompetent.
But the truth of the matter is that Maine Republicans, more than anyone, are responsible for the failure of our current law to prevent the Lewiston tragedy. In 2019, they voted unanimously against Sen. Rebecca Millett’s original red flag law (the law that Speaker Talbot Ross modeled hers from) and instead followed the lead of the gun lobby, which promised the public its law would be enough to keep us safe.
And now, instead of admitting their failure, Republicans desperately want to continue blaming the cops for not enforcing their law. A law that, by design and intent, made it as hard as possible to take someone’s guns. The yellow flag law is filled with so much red tape it basically ensured that Card, or someone else, had the best possible chance of falling through the cracks.
As a reminder, here is how our current law “works.” Upon receiving a tip that a person might be a risk to themselves or someone else, the police must contact the individual to assess the situation. If they are able to make contact and they determine the person is a risk, they can take the person into custody. Then, they must get a professional mental health assessment to determine if the person is indeed a threat. Then, the police officer must take that assessment to a court and a judge must sign off. Assuming all that happens without a hitch, and only after all that happens without a hitch, a police officer may finally go and take possession of the individual’s guns.
If that sounds cumbersome, littered with opportunities for someone to slip through the cracks, look no further than 18 dead on Oct. 25.
What would the law proposed by Speaker Talbot Ross do?
It would cut out all the stuff in the middle. If a family member, a member of a household, a law enforcement agency, or a law enforcement officer believes someone is a threat, they can go directly to a court to ask for the person’s guns to be taken away. That court can then order it immediately, while scheduling a full hearing for 14 days later. End of story.
If someone is fearful for their life, or fearful for the lives of others, including a potential suicide, a court can immediately take their guns. No requirement for a police officer to agree that the person is a danger. No taking the person into custody first. No mental health assessment.
This is how 21 states do it and this is how Maine should have done it back in 2019.
Card’s family members had spent six months begging for someone in authority to start the process that would have taken his guns, but were stymied by a law that had too much red tape. If we’d had an extreme risk protection order in place, they would have been able to start the process themselves and likely would have saved 18 lives.
The post Opinion: The law that could have prevented the massacre in Lewiston first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Opinion: Asylum seekers benefit Maine’s economy — lawmakers need to support them
This piece was originally published at the Maine Center for Economic Policy blog.
A major new study by the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) shows asylum-seekers and refugees provide net fiscal benefits to federal, state, and local governments, and these individuals perform similarly on various economic metrics to US-born Americans over the long run. The USDHHS report examined the costs to all levels of government from providing support for asylees and refugees during the period 2005-2019 and offset those against the estimated tax revenue from these individuals. At the federal level, there was a net fiscal benefit of $31.5 billion over this period; and at the state and local level, there was a net fiscal benefit of $92.3 billion ($125.7 billion of expenditures offset by $218 billion in revenues). The study confirms while people seeking asylum and refuge often require considerable public assistance when they first arrive in the country, they more than pay back that assistance through taxation over the long run.
Immigration more broadly also has significant economic benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently upgraded its long-term economic outlook to reflect higher than expected levels of immigration which CBO finds will result in $7 trillion of additional economic output over the next decade.
Meanwhile, there is also evidence of the benefits of immigration over the short term. As the economy rebounded since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrants played an outsized role in filling empty jobs, at the same time US-born Americans are experiencing record low levels of unemployment. In other words, immigrants are boosting the US economy without hurting Americans’ outcomes.
Lawmakers should champion policies that support immigrantsThese findings are particularly relevant for Maine lawmakers in the current moment. Even more than the United States as a whole, Maine has a very strong labor market and Maine employers are looking for workers. The latest data still shows two job openings for every unemployed worker in the state. Meanwhile, Maine is seeing higher than usual levels of immigration. Between 2013 and 2022, approximately one fifth of all the state’s population growth, just under 12,000 people, consisted of foreign-born residents.
The national experience demonstrates how this immigration flow can be a boon to Maine’s employers and economy. While many immigrants, especially people coming as refugees or seeking asylum need substantial support from state and local governments when they first arrive, after a few years their earnings rise substantially and their need for support diminishes.
Data from Maine also bears this out — while immigrants’ earnings are typically low in the first year or so in the state, these grow rapidly and their use of public assistance decreases. It should be noted that a major contributor to the lack of earnings in immigrants’ first years in the US is the bar on working for asylum seekers and refugees for at least 180 days (and delays in the application process can push this back even further).
Note: Use of public assistance programs is dependent on eligibility for non-citizens, which varies by program and immigration status, and which underwent several policy changes during the period analyzed.
All people and communities do better when everyone has the resources they need to prosper and thrive. Lawmakers should ensure immigrants, especially people seeking asylum and refuge, have the support they need during their time of arrival in the US until they are able to settle into a community, make connections, and begin working. Once they do so, the investments made in state supports will pay off through stronger economic growth and increased tax revenue. Maine legislators have already taken steps in this direction, for example expanding MaineCare eligibility for children and pregnant people regardless of immigration status in 2022. However, some assistance programs are under threat in the Governor Mills’ latest supplemental proposal, including food assistance for people who have recently received work authorization, and the ability of towns to offer general assistance to any Mainer who may be at risk of homelessness.
Maine Center for Economic Policy urges the legislature to reject the governor’s cuts and continue to work toward robust policies that protect immigrants as well as existing Mainers.
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Push for safe staffing levels in Maine hospitals gets bipartisan support
Marking the furthest any such legislation has gone in the Maine Legislature, the Maine Senate voted (22-13) on Wednesday to pass LD 1639. Known as The Maine Quality Care Act, the bill aims to address unsafe staffing levels in Maine hospitals by implementing minimum staffing requirements based on patient needs.
The vote was hailed as a major step by the Maine State Nurses Association (MSNA), the state’s largest nursing union, which has organized its members behind the bill.
“This is the most significant legislation for patient safety that has ever been proposed or passed in our state,” said MSNA president Cokie Giles, RN. “Our membership from Portland to Fort Kent has worked tirelessly to educate the public and our legislators about how important this bill is to protect nurses and their patients. We are ecstatic that this bill has taken another important step forward to becoming law in our great state. Nurses know that safe staffing saves lives.”
One Republican, Sen. Jim Libby of Cumberland County, voted alongside all the Democrats in the Senate, other than Sen. Joe Baldacci of Penobscot County who opposed the bill. The measure is presently awaiting a floor vote in the Maine House.
As Beacon previously reported, Maine nurses say understaffing is endemic to the hospital industry, where executives refuse to pay for a robust pool of registered nurses from which to draw when scheduling shifts.
In response Sen. Stacy Brenner (D-Scarborough) introduced LD 1639, which seeks to address these issues by establishing mandated minimum RN staffing ratios that adapt to individual patient care needs.
Brenner, a nurse and midwife with extensive nursing experience, emphasized the challenges faced by bedside nurses in her floor speech before the vote. “Colleagues, I tell you with humility, that being in the legislature feels like a relaxing hobby in comparison to working as a bedside nurse. The fear of near misses and possibly devastating errors from working over capacity builds a sense of moral injury, one shift at a time.”
Kelli Brennan, an RN at Maine Medical Center, said she knows other nurses who have left bedside care because of the conditions in hospitals today.
“If we want to fix Maine hospitals and our statewide health care system, we must enact reasonable and enforceable nurse-to-patient ratios,” she said. “RN-to-patient ratios will bring nurses back to the bedside, keep the nurses we have, and protect the patients we are all committed to serve.”
LD 1639 not only establishes staffing ratios but also safeguards nurses’ rights to advocate for their patients and protects whistleblowers who speak out about unsafe assignments. It mandates hospitals to post notices on minimum ratios and maintain staffing records, with enforcement authority granted to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Decades of studies support the correlation between nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes, with higher nurse-to-patient ratios leading to fewer complications and lives saved. The bill outlines specific ratios based on the acuity of patients, ensuring appropriate care for individuals with varying needs.
While Maine lawmakers have previously focused on incentivizing young people to enter the nursing field, LD 1639 represents a proactive approach to address immediate staffing challenges. Despite industry pushback, the bill’s passage signifies a significant victory for patient safety and nursing advocacy in the state, MSNA said.
The post Push for safe staffing levels in Maine hospitals gets bipartisan support first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Podcast: Women, Emily Cain wants you to run for office!
Esther is joined by Emily Cain to talk about her time as a legislator in Maine, her experience as the executive director of Emily’s List, and the climate for women candidates for office today.
Ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.
Subscribe to the podcast feed using any podcasting app or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
The post Podcast: Women, Emily Cain wants you to run for office! first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Faith leaders urge funding for Mainers’ needs amid record revenue surplus
Faith leaders in Maine are calling on lawmakers to pass a budget that makes record investments into housing, childcare, healthcare and other urgent needs at a time of a record revenue surplus.
“Maine has been lucky to have leadership that plans for the future with care and intentionality, resulting in a completely full rainy day fund. And, every virtue pushed to its extreme becomes a vice,” said Rev. Jodi Cohen Hayashida, an organizer with MultiFaith Justice Maine, referring to the statutory limit for the state’s rainy day fund, which cannot exceed 18% of total general fund revenues in a fiscal year. (Multifaith Justice Maine is a project of Maine People’s Alliance.)
“The rainy day fund is so full our leaders are barred by law from adding to it, yet the governor has advocated over a hundred million more,” she said.
Hayashida spoke at the Maine State House on Wednesday as Gov. Janet Mills is poised to release an amendment to her proposed $71 million supplemental budget that will outline how she plans to spend an additional $108 million in surplus revenues that state forecasters recently projected. That comes on top of a plan by the governor to stash away an additional $107 million in surplus announced last November in a new reserve for the next biennium instead of more fully funding programs to address critical needs.
The budget is now in the hands of the legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee. The budget they pass in the coming weeks will ultimately need Mills’ signature to go into effect.
Faith leaders said the projected surplus of nearly $373 million could go a long way in addressing the multiple crises facing the state.
In Maine, one in three Maine households report being unable to meet basic household expenses, and 20,000 to 40,000 households are behind in their rent and at risk of eviction.
And, on average, two people per day die from an overdose.
“I spend my days serving the people of my church, and our neighbors. Many unhoused folx have come into the double doors of the sanctuary looking for assistance, looking for help, looking for someone to care for them. Looking for someone to care about them,” said Rev. Sara Bartlett of the Second Congregational Church in Norway. “When we arrive at our church building, the early morning sun bringing the only warmth of the day, we see a pile of sleeping bags in our alcove and we aren’t sure if, under all those layers, we are going to discover a dead or alive human being.”
Rev. Al Boyce, lead chaplain for Volunteers of America Northern New England, echoed those concerns.
“As a long time member of the Maine clergy, I have observed first hand the despair when a senior seeks assistance for fuel and is denied,” he said. “I observe first hand the harsh financial limitations for those seeking general assistance because they must be almost homeless to receive needed assistance. I observe first hand how difficult it is for full-time workers in the state to make ends meet because they do not earn a living wage.”
The faith leaders’ warnings against frugality come amid tension between the governor and lawmakers about what should be prioritized in the supplemental budget this year.
Some lawmakers, such as Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook County) have balked at the proposal, particularly as the governor’s plan also walks back some of Maine’s commitments to immigrants, older Mainers, and childcare providers.
Maine lawmakers also have the opportunity to increase the minimum wage to $15 and enact protections for workers if they elect to include it in their budget.
“It no longer feels like careful stewardship to choose to save those millions of dollars instead of funding critical programs that could help alleviate the overwhelming need currently before us,” Hayashida said.
She then laid out some of the programs and services that are at risk of not making into the supplemental budget.
“With just $25 million of the $107 million Gov. Mills wants to add to the already-full rainy day fund, we could create a rental assistance program that would help more Mainers find and stay in their home,” she said. “For $7 million we could improve the way we pay childcare providers and still have millions left over to support raising the pay of teachers, school support staff and ed techs and fund dozens of recovery centers for Mainers struggling with substance use disorder.”
The post Faith leaders urge funding for Mainers’ needs amid record revenue surplus first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Mills’ farmworker minimum wage bill seen as progress but still creates ‘second-class’ workers
A bill supported by Gov. Janet Mills to make farmworkers subject to the state minimum wage would be a significant step toward rectifying a historical wrong, labor advocates say, but still would leave them as second-class workers in other regards.
LD 2273, a bill introduced by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) on behalf of Mills, would make farmworkers eligible to earn the minimum wage, which is currently $14.15 per hour.
However, Mills’ proposal would exempt farmworkers from other protections that other workers have, such as a private right of action, which allows an employee to sue their employer directly for wage and hour violations, as well as overtime protections and scheduled rest breaks.
“What is before you is a positive step forward and it is also deeply, deeply compromised,” Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO, said in a public hearing before the legislature’s Labor and Housing Committee on Tuesday.
“We have to recognize that for 90 years, and really longer if we’re honest, agricultural workers have been excluded from the most fundamental economic rights — the right to organize, the right to overtime, the right to a minimum wage,” he said. “We should not reproduce the exclusion that we have had for the last 90 years and again create a second-class status for certain workers.”
The bill comes after Mills, a conservative Democrat, vetoed a similar minimum wage bill last summer that would have also granted agricultural workers limited overtime protections.
After an outcry from labor unions and progressive groups, the governor issued an executive order directing the state Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to convene a committee made up of industry groups and farmworker advocates to study the implementation of a minimum wage for agricultural workers.
LD 2273 is the result of that process. Farmworker advocates gave their qualified support for the bill on Tuesday, while asking lawmakers to strengthen certain provisions.
Thom Harnett, a policy advisor for Talbot Ross and a former lawmaker who previously introduced farmworker legislation vetoed by Mills, stressed the importance of addressing several flaws with the bill while also ensuring the governor doesn’t veto her own bill.
Currently, the overtime protections in the bill are very weak, he said, allowing farmworkers to work up to 160 hours over a two-week period. He also criticized the removal of a private right of action in the bill, which would place all the burden on an understaffed Department of Labor to enforce the bill.
“This is bad public policy and runs afoul of American jurisprudence,” Harnett said. “A right protects you only insofar as you have a remedy for its violation. Under this bill, the person who was harmed has no ability to enforce their rights if the Department of Labor does not bring an action. No remedy means no right.”
As Beacon previously reported, both the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, which passed in the 1930s as part of the New Deal, excluded farmworkers and domestic workers. The carveout was intentional, as Congress moved to specifically exempt groups of workers who were predominantly people of color from labor standards to keep them in an economically subservient position.
Farmworkers remain an underclass of workers today. Currently, they are much more likely to live in poverty than other Mainers: about one-quarter of Maine farmworkers live in poverty, making them roughly 4.5 times as likely to live below the poverty line as other Maine workers.
If Mills signs the legislation, Maine would join a growing list of states that have attempted to remedy that historic wrong.
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Opinion: Slugger wants his money
Ah, the pull of baseball. As a long-suffering fan of the Mets, my favorite team, which hasn’t tasted the glory of a championship since 1986, I simply can’t resist every year when MLB.com asks if I want to renew my subscription to watch another season of disappointing games.
My second favorite baseball team is the Portland Sea Dogs. Well before I became the state senator and mayor of the city that represents them, I was regularly going to Hadlock Field to watch from the first base side, usually halfway up where I could get the best view of the field.
That said, just because I personally love the Sea Dogs doesn’t mean I believe taxpayers should fund millions of dollars in corporate welfare to improve the profits of the team’s out-of-state multi-billionaire hedge fund owners.
I am speaking, of course, about the $2 million income tax break recently voted 8-5 out of the legislature’s Taxation Committee to pad the profits of Silver Lake, the owners of the Sea Dogs through its subsidiary Diamond Baseball Holdings. The infusion of public cash will help pay for new locker rooms, batting cages, and an upgraded gym at Hadlock Field.
The cash-strapped Silver Lake, based out of Silicon Valley, has more than $88 billion in combined assets and its companies generate over $250 billion of revenue annually. And yet, it employs 215 day laborers at Hadlock Field who get to work only 70 days a year, with no benefits, and who likely average less than $20 an hour.
Did the supporters of this corporate welfare include anything requiring that these workers get a livable wage or benefits in exchange for this public money? Nope.
Let’s also not pretend that Silver Lake is some great company that cares about Portland or Maine. It’s a billion-dollar investor in Airbnb, which has accelerated Maine’s housing crisis, and Egon Durbin, the CEO of Silver Lake, sat on the board of Twitter (now X), which is accelerating the downfall of our democracy.
And let’s put to bed the trope that injecting public money into a sports facility somehow helps the local economy. Let me quote the Brookings Institute, one of the premier non-partisan think tanks in the country: “Decades of academic studies consistently find no discernible positive relationship between sports facilities and local economic development, income growth, or job creation.” (emphasis added)
When I was mayor of Portland in 2018 and former City Manager Jon Jennings tried to inject over half a million dollars of taxpayer money into upgrading the stadium lights, I immediately objected. Of course, Jennings made all the usual arguments — the team might be forced to leave if we didn’t make the investment — but I refused to back down in the face of dilapidated playgrounds, underfunded sidewalk repairs, and overdue ADA upgrades that were going unfunded.
I doubled down on that opposition once I discovered that the city lease with the Sea Dogs (Portland owns the stadium) threw off no money to the general fund. Everything the city collected in rent from the Sea Dogs went back into paying the team’s utilities and maintaining the stadium for its use. If only all tenants in Portland had such a deal!
Thankfully, once the Sea Dogs realized its request would face pushback, it backed off and the money was eliminated from Portland’s capital improvement budget.
Guess what happened next? The Sea Dogs paid for the lighting upgrade itself and the team is still here with long term plans to stay.
If the legislature rejects this deal, which it should, but I suspect won’t, the same will happen with these upgrades. The Sea Dogs will pay for them and the team will stay in Maine, because this is where it can make the most money.
(Special thanks to Maura Pillsbury at the Maine Center of Economic Policy for her research, which contributed greatly to this piece.)
The post Opinion: Slugger wants his money first appeared on Maine Beacon.
Maine healthcare advocates celebrate anniversary of the Affordable Care Act
Healthcare advocates marked the 14th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Obama-era landmark healthcare policy which greatly expanded health coverage in the US and in Maine, with a cake delivery to Sen. Angus King. King voted in favor of the bill in 2010, while Sen. Susan Collins, who did not get a cake, opposed the bill.
The ACA, enacted on March 23, 2010, broadened access to health insurance through the establishment of health insurance marketplaces, supported by federal subsidies to lower premiums and deductibles. Additionally, it enabled states to extend Medicaid coverage to adults with household incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. These expansions in coverage became effective in 2014.
For 2024, 21.3 million people selected a marketplace plan. In Maine, 61,300 residents have selected plans for affordable health insurance for this year.
Maine is one of 19 states that fully run their own Health Insurance Marketplaces. On top of this, Maine voters elected in 2017 to join the 40 states and the District of Columbia who have expanded Medicaid.
Since early 2019, when the state officially expanded MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, more than 109,000 people in Maine have enrolled in the public health insurance program.
Today, over 100 million Americans have coverage through either the ACA Marketplace or Medicaid expansion.
That comes as the last decade has seen a historic decline in the number of people without any coverage. The number of uninsured people nationwide dropped from 45.2 million in 2013 to 26.4 million in 2022.
“Gone are the days when being a woman was considered a pre-existing condition or sick children could be denied health insurance,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a statement. “And we’re not stopping. Our commitment to strengthening the ACA and increasing access to affordable, comprehensive health care coverage has never been stronger.”
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said that ACA coverage expansions, now entering their second decade, have helped millions and also provide the basis for further progress.
“On the ten-year anniversary of the ACA Marketplaces, HHS is releasing data that shows just how profoundly it has reshaped what health care looks like for so many Americans,” he said in a statement over the weekend. “The Marketplaces have become a pillar of American society, a guaranteed place where people can find affordable, quality coverage.”
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