By Michael Shepherd - May 2, 2023
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📷 Followers of a committee hearing on several bills to expand abortion access in Maine watch it on a TV set up to accommodate overflowing crowds in the State House on Monday. (BDN photo by Billy Kobin)

Good morning from Augusta. The Legislature is in. Here are the House and Senate calendars and the committee agenda, which includes an update on the child welfare system at 1 p.m.

What we're watching today

Testimony against the governor's abortion-rights expansion ran all night, but minds won't be easily changed. Anti-abortion activists jammed the State House on Monday to testify all night against a package of bills championed by Gov. Janet Mills, including the one that would allow post-viability abortions that are deemed necessary by medical professionals.

The Judiciary Committee hearing began Monday at noon and wrapped up Tuesday at 7 a.m. Roughly 65 people testified in person in support of the measures, which is a lot for a normal hearing in Augusta. That group included Dana Peirce, who found out at 32 weeks that her fetus had a likely fatal anomaly and got an abortion in Colorado because Maine law did not allow it. Mills has said Peirce's story prompted her support for the measure.

But that side was swamped by 650 people who signed up to argue against the proposals, led by faith groups including the evangelical Christian Civic League of Maine. One man testified in the form of a prayer at 10:45 p.m., following round after round of faith-based arguments against the measures.

"You created these babies in your image and there are adults here before me that should be protecting their lives, yet there is a bill that is atrocious," he said.

Marathon hearings in Augusta are rarely representative of public opinion. Rather, they measure the depth of feelings on an issue. But Republicans will see the gap between the sides from Monday into Tuesday as a justification of their fight with Mills after she reversed herself after saying in the 2022 campaign that she wanted to see no changes to abortion access laws.

Supporters have pointed to a recent University of New Hampshire poll finding a majority of Mainers back the governor's bill. Polling on this issue is fickle based on the wording of questions. National surveys generally show strong opposition to abortions late in pregnancies but strong support for them in the case of serious fetal abnormalities.

These legal changes had an air of inevitability from the first day Mills rolled them out. When the key measure was printed last month, enough Democrats were on the list of co-sponsors to pass it outright. Only seven Democrats did not sign on, mostly from rural areas and Franco-American strongholds.

While it may force some into difficult votes, nothing changed this week to keep the measures on a likely track to passage. As testimony kept going, one top Democrat vowed to keep the pedal down on the issue.

"In addition to defeating anti-abortion bills, my colleagues and I will protect Mainers' rights to access reproductive health care, including abortion," Assistant Senate Majority Leader Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, said in a Monday post on Facebook.

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News and notes

📷 Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, listens during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 8, 2023. (AP photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)

🥊 Expect a clash over a Maine senator's high-court proposal.

◉ The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a Tuesday hearing on proposals to force the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt an ethics code. Democrats are going to use Justice Clarence Thomas as an example after disclosures about his close relationship with conservatives megadonor Harlan Crow. Republicans are expected to rush to Thomas' defense, Roll Call reports.

◉ Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats is at the center of the issue with his proposal alongside Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, that would give the court a year to adopt a code, among other provisions. But action is unlikely given the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate alongside Republican leadership in the House.

🎤 Hearings are set on referendums that the Legislature may have whiffed on.

◉ Legislative leaders want to ask Maine's high court to settle a dispute with Mills over whether they missed their chance to enact four referendums slated for the November ballot by ending a legislative session and then beginning another to pass a partisan state budget last month. But for now, they are beginning to call hearings on the measures in the spirit of a 2019 law mandating them.

◉ The first two hearings come this week. On Wednesday, the voting committee will take testimony on the effort to ban foreign government spending on Maine referendums. An energy panel hearing will follow Thursday on the blockbuster initiative that would lead to an elected board taking over Maine's electric delivery system.

◉ The Legislature's procedural trick is the subject of more legal wrangling from conservatives. Two House Republicans are joining a citizen-initiated lawsuit from April that says Mills and lawmakers illegally colluded to call the session that lawmakers are operating in right now. We'll have more on that today.

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What we're reading

😬 Maine has reached just 4 percent of its electric vehicle goal.

🛒 Life goes on at a Portland homeless camp while officials debate its future.

🇺🇸 A Maine fighter pilot was shot down over Belgium during World War II. Pieces of the plane are coming back to his home state.

🍴 Bail was set at $500,000 for a man who allegedly mailed fentanyl to a Maine restaurant.

🦌 He found a dream buck in the Maine woods with one big catch. Here's your soundtrack.

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