By Michael Shepherd - Aug. 23, 2022
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📷 Caleb Long, then a senior at Bangor High School, competes in automotive service technology at the SkillsUSA Maine competition on March 3, 2017. (BDN photo by Linda Coan O'Kresik)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 77 days until Election Day.

What we're watching today

A fight between automakers and independent repair shops is brewing in Maine. One of the most interesting political stories in Maine that developed over the last week is not classically political at all — a right-to-repair referendum being proposed by advocates of independent repair shops.

It is a response to rapid changes in the automotive industry toward proprietary diagnostic and repair technologies in new vehicles that wirelessly transmit information to manufacturers. Those programs make it difficult or impossible for owners to fix issues themselves or take vehicles to local repair shops. Those shops, in turn, are worried about being progressively shut out of the market.

The proposed law is a straightforward one: Any manufacturer that sells a vehicle in Maine would have to make that information available to vehicle owners and independent repair shops.

But the various issues at play are not at all straightforward. A similar Massachusetts law is lingering unimplemented after a lawsuit brought by automakers that alleges states are not allowed to set laws like this and solutions must come at the federal level. So any law here will face hurdles.

It is virtually assured to be politically popular, though. In Massachusetts, voters approved right-to-repair legislation with a whopping 75 percent of votes in the 2020 election. It won a majority in nearly every single city and town after $43 million in spending made it the most expensive referendum in state history. (Our most expensive one was on the Central Maine Power Co. corridor, which had something to do with Massachusetts.)

While Massachusetts' population is five times bigger than ours, that campaign gives us a decent roadmap for what a Maine race on the issue would look like. Spending was more or less equally divided between the yes and no sides, with trade groups and Missouri-based O'Reilly Auto Parts spending millions for the question and General Motors, Toyota and Ford spending millions against it.

Caught in the middle will be Maine auto dealers that benefit from their relationships with manufacturers but would not want to be identified closely with the losing side of a question that looks like a good bet for passage. Proponents need to get their signatures first, but this could be a fascinating campaign.

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What we're reading

— A small gap in June primary turnout between Republicans and Democrats is one of many emerging signs that a wave election is not coming to Maine.

— The state blocked lawmakers from seeing confidential files on child death cases. Policymakers must now decide how to proceed in an election year.

— Businesses in Corinth began selling alcohol two months after voters ended the town's dry legacy.

— An Orono mother reached a $8 million deal with the federal government after a Brewer clinic failed to notify her of signs of abuse inflicted on her infant son.

— Here's why there are Maine townships named for defunct schools in Massachusetts.

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News and notes

📷 Former Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, talks about his consumer-owned utility proposal at the Belfast Rotary Club on Nov. 13, 2019.

Backers of a consumer-owned utility referendum say they are near their signature goal.

— Our Power, the group advocating for the public to buy out the infrastructure of Maine's two biggest utilities and put the system in control of an elected board, told supporters in a Monday email that it is 95 percent of the way toward meeting a goal of collecting 100,000 signatures for a 2023 referendum.

— Groups only need just over 63,000 valid signatures from Maine voters to make the ballot, but they generally build in large buffers to guard their efforts.

— CMP and allies are also trying to get a question on next year's ballot to force voter approval of the billions in borrowing needed to complete the consumer-owned utility. Proponents of the idea have tried to outmaneuver the utilities by adding a major condition for public approval to their proposed law.

The governor will face questions from a Bangor audience today.

— Gov. Janet Mills is the guest of the Bangor Rotary Club. The Democrat will take questions from members starting at noon for about an hour at Husson University.

— It is the third-to-last candidate appearance before the club. They have already hosted Mills' Republican opponent, former Gov. Paul LePage, and Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District. His Republican challenger, former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, is up one week from today and independent gubernatorial longshot Sam Hunkler ends the series Sept. 6.

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