By Michael Shepherd - March 6, 2023
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📷 Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined at left by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 12, 2020. (AP photo by J. Scott Applewhite)

Good morning from Augusta. Legislative committees are in Monday, when the budget panel will hold the first work sessions on the two-year spending plan. Here's the full agenda.

What we're watching today

A Maine senator rejoins a sentencing reform push with others across the political spectrum. This might be the year for a sentencing reform package that narrowly missed passage in 2022, with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, rejoining one of the most diverse groups of supporters that you will see in a bitterly divided Washington these days, from lawmakers to interest groups.

The EQUAL Act would eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Backers note that 90 percent of people incarcerated for crack offenses are Black. Powder cocaine is effectively the same drug, so the measure has become a point of agreement between limited-government and civil rights groups.

Those aligned on the bill include the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council's political arm to the American Civil Liberties Union are in favor of the measure. The sponsors run from Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on the Republican side to Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Collins signed onto the bill last week, and she also co-sponsored it last year. It overwhelmingly passed the House last year with help from Maine's two Democratic members, Chellie Pingree of the 1st District and Jared Golden of the 2nd District. President Joe Biden vowed to sign it if it got to his desk.

But it stalled in the Senate was not included in a year-end spending proposal, which led to criticism of leading senators by one of the groups that backed it.

"This is the triumph of politics over people, and it’s sickening," Kevin Ring, the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said then. "We will keep fighting until this disparity is eliminated and everyone who is behind bars because of it is freed."

Backers are just now gearing up for another run through the chambers. By the end of last year, there were 35 co-sponsors in the Senate, and Collins is only one of nine now on that side. But it got to 11 Republican backers last time, indicating that it could get through the upper chamber if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, brought it to a vote.

Not much has changed on the Senate landscape since then. The bill could face a harder path to a vote on the House side, where Republicans took the chamber back from Democrats in 2022. Nearly a third of the caucus voted against the measure last time, although the new House speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, voted for it. That will give proponents some hope.

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News and notes

📷 Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, left, and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, talk as lawmakers and intelligence advisers arrive for a briefing at the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 9, 2023. (AP photo by J. Scott Applewhite)

🧾 Maine's junior senator makes some promises on Social Security reform.

◉ With attention building around their bipartisan Social Security reform talks, Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, said in a Friday statement that they are considering dozens of changes in addition to a high-profile idea of raising the retirement age, including locking early retirement at 62, protections for lower-wage workers and ways to increase benefits.

◉ The retirement age change has already been criticized from the left by Collins who likely would be central to any deal on the matter because of her centrist position in the chamber. King and Cassidy are also mulling a sovereign wealth fund that would invest borrowed money to shore up the program.

◉ "Under what we are discussing, millions would immediately receive more, and no one would receive less," the pair said, adding they will publicly release their proposal when it is fully developed.

🛷 A dog-sledding race turned northern Maine into a political hotspot.

◉ The capital for the weekend was Fort Kent, where the Can-Am international dog sled races were swept by women for the first time when Katherine Langlais of New Brunswick knocked off a 10-time champion in the 250-mile race, which finished early Monday.

◉ Collins gave opening remarks, while Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, brought fellow lawmakers including House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, to his district for a town-hall meeting. (Sens. Stacy Brenner, D-Gorham,and Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop, sang some karaoke at the Mooseshack in Fort Kent, according to one Facebook commenter.)

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What we're reading

🔥 The fire marshal's office is accused of retaliating against investigators.

🌐 A small town struggles for broadband aid despite Maine's windfall.

☎️ Lawmakers are considering making jail calls to lawyers free, the Maine Monitor reports.

💦 Maine Public reports on a new push to protect groundwater.

🔨 This Maine settlement's only public building is getting renovated.

🏀 This blown call proved Maine needs replay in the basketball tournament, columnist Lucas McNelly argues. Here's your soundtrack.

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