The winding down of the pandemic is coinciding with the winding up of summer. The streets are ablaze with out-of-state license plates, dog leashes run crisscross applesauce across the sidewalks and the blare of car alarms fills the air.
The 130th Maine Legislature can’t catch a break. Holding infrequent in-person sessions in the spacious Augusta Civic Center instead of the much smaller chambers at the State House, the Legislature is once again on hold after two legislators reportedly tested positive for COVID-19. Barring additional cases, the Legislature will resume the week of May 17.
The days grow long and the 130th Legislature lumbers on. A mystery to the average bear in the best of times, we now see Augusta as through a glass, darkly. Many of the key indicators relied on by those who stay close to the process are missing.
Just six months from the last congressional election, attention is turning to the next one in November 2022. Republicans think they smell blood in the water around Democratic Congressman Jared Golden. That could be premature.
Raise your hand if you want to have a town. Not just an address, but a town where you feel like you belong. A town with good schools, good restaurants, good neighbors, maybe a library. A town where people will leave you alone until you need something, then they’ll be there for you.
Much of the political turmoil surrounding us has to do with candidate elections. In order to fix what ails us, the focus should be not on who’s running but on the electoral process itself. Unfortunately, current “reform” efforts often have more to do with limiting voter access than with making voting simpler and more secure.
Welcome to a legislative rabbit hole—the concept draft. It is a way of submitting legislation that is much abused, though it had merit as originally designed. What if this newspaper’s editor accepted “concept columns”? Title: “Concept Drafts.” Column, in its entirety: “Concept drafts may be good or bad.” It states a point of view but doesn’t give readers their money’s worth.
This year, Democrats own the Blaine House and both chambers of the Maine Legislature. With that ace in hand, they are moving at speed to try to quickly pass a majority budget, a feat that has not occurred since 2005.
Four days before the first anniversary of Gov. Janet Mills’ first COVID emergency proclamation, the Maine Senate defeated a legislative attempt to “terminate the state of emergency first proclaimed by Governor Janet T. Mills on March 15, 2020.” The resolution that would have ended the Governor’s emergency authority was introduced by Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford and fended off in the Maine Senate by a 19-15 vote.
Once upon a time, state elections in Maine were Everyman’s game. Anyone could jump right in. The parties would scare up a driver to get the candidates going door-to-door, and with a good dose of elbow grease a candidate would rise or fall on his or her own merits.
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