By Michael Shepherd - Sept. 23, 2022
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📷 Portland Mayor Kate Snyder speaks at a city homeless shelter groundbreaking ceremony on Riverside Street on March 29, 2022. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 46 days until Election Day.

What we're watching today

A strong mayor in Maine's largest city could shake up statewide politics. Progressives in Portland have been on a winning streak since 2020, when five out of six referendums on the city ballot passed on issues including the minimum wage and rent control. That wing got control of the City Council in 2021. It was a warm-up for what they are trying to do now.

There are 14 questions on this year's ballot, with the biggest changes coming from a charter commission looking to strengthen the mayor, allowing them to present the budget, veto measures, manage a city administrator and nominate heads of city departments. Other questions, including one phasing in an $18 minimum wage and phasing out the tip credit, are on the ballot as well.

All of the questions are the culmination of a years-long war between a more business-friendly group of Democrats in the city and progressives. It has led some figures once seen as staunch liberals to come out against them, with former U.S. Rep. Tom Allen of Maine's 1st District telling reporters he feared an "attempted revolution" in city government.

It makes for an uncertain political future in the city. It was not long ago that progressives were losing big battles. Mayor Kate Snyder ousted Ethan Strimling in the 2019 election after Strimling refashioned himself from a consensus candidate in his first race to a battler with city administrators in the second. He has remained one of the city's most visible figures since his loss.

Since the scope of her job may be changing, Snyder has said she will not run for reelection in 2023. The Portland Press Herald found little smoke this month in the coming battle to replace her, with many city politicians saying they want to know what the job is before they go for it.

It is worth thinking about what this job would look like on the statewide stage. Mayors do not emerge often there, particularly because of a general New England tradition instilling them with little power. The most famous former mayor is former Gov. Paul LePage, the Republican elected out of Waterville who stormed a primary based on Tea Party support in 2010. His job was a strong one with rare partisan affiliations plus veto power.

A strong, popularly mayor in Maine's most liberal city would immediately rise to one of the highest-profile positions in a state with relatively few straightforward stepping-stone offices. Many Mainers do not know who legislative leaders are. Lawmakers elect the attorney general and secretary of state, dampening their profiles outside of Augusta. The Portland mayor would get significant attention.

The shift also comes as Maine's congressional districts are polarizing even further, with southern Maine getting significantly more Democratic and the 2nd Congressional District continuing along a conservative trend line. Any Portland mayor would be looked at as a potentially strong challenger in any 1st District congressional primary down the road. The right kind could be statewide timber after an era in which 2nd District Democrats have had more success.

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News and notes

📷 Former President Donald Trump visits the Treworgy Family Orchards in Levant on Oct. 25, 2020. (AP photo by Alex Brandon)

🔇 Republicans "SHOULD VOTE NO" on a Maine senator's electoral reform bill, the ex-president says.

◉ The pronouncement from former President Donald Trump came after the Democratic-led House approved a Wednesday bill aiming to shore up archaic language and other vulnerabilities that Trump tried to exploit after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

◉ This measure is more sweeping than the version expected to have the best chance to pass, led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. It has drawn more than 10 Republican sponsors, meaning it should have enough support to get through the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, is expected to back it, Politico reported this week.

◉ Trump called Collins "wacky" in January when she began to publicly push for such a measure. While he still has a major hold on his party, the bill looks to be headed toward passage in the upper chamber with senators in far different positions than the Republicans trying to win back the House.

🎣 A dam owner pressures the governor again on a new campaign issue.

◉ The owner of the Shawmut Dam in Fairfield argued in a Thursday filing that an enhanced fish-passage plan it sent to federal regulators is further evidence that the state should sign off on a key water-quality permit for the dam by mid-October.

◉ The Mills administration has been locked in a war with the dam owner, which is a subsidiary of the global investment giant Brookfield Asset Management, since it proposed removing this dam and three others last year. That plan is now off the table, but the state declined to approve a new permit for the Fairfield dam in July, citing changes being made in a federal proceeding.

◉ Things are ramping up in the home stretch of Mills' reelection campaign. LePage called a news conference last week to hammer her on the dam's vital link to the Skowhegan paper mill and the local chamber of commerce released an economic impact study on the dams this week.

🚔 A party-bending police endorsement features in a new congressional ad.

◉ Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine's 2nd District, is continuing to play to the middle of the electorate with a new ad released Friday that features members of the Maine Lodge Fraternal Order of Police discussing the group's endorsement.

◉ It was split between LePage and Golden this year, leading former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, Golden's Republican challenger, to say the group "had the wool pulled over their eyes." Members did not like that quote.

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What we're reading

💻 The Mills administration stood by an online lesson featuring a video calling terms including Trump's slogan an example of "covert racism" after Republicans used it in their campaign to replace her.

⛪ Cheverus High School in Portland was the only religious school to apply for a state tuition reimbursement program after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision against Maine, the Associated Press reported.

🐭 Maine's life sciences industry is the fastest-growing one in the state, spurred along by the pandemic.

⛔ Three dining halls and a residence hall were closed as a result of a steep enrollment decline at the University of Maine in Orono.

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