🚬 A narrow House vote cut against efforts to further regulate tobacco.
◉ The Democratic-led Legislature is moving toward increasing Maine's anti-tobacco laws, awaiting votes on a push to ban flavored products and giving initial approval in both chambers to a ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies or stores containing pharmacies.
◉ There was an exception to this in the House on Tuesday, when a narrow 71-69 majority voted for a bill from Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, that would prohibit municipal flavored tobacco bans that have passed in his city and five other cities and towns across Maine.
◉ Perry has some self-interest in the subject, since he owns a convenience store in a city with a ban. But he said on the floor he would be fine with bans at higher levels of government, preferring federal action on the subject so all states and stores are held to the same standard.
◉ The bill still probably is not going anywhere. The Mills administration opposed it along with health groups, and Perry will almost certainly have a harder time getting his bill through the Senate under firmer Democratic control.
👶 Republicans scored a narrow victory on child care deregulation.
◉ The Legislature's biggest action on child care seems to be coming under a consensus package from Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and a mix of progressive and business groups. But Republicans have added an interesting new item to the hopper in narrow votes over the last few days.
◉ On Tuesday, the House narrowly passed a bill from Assistant Senate Minority Leader Lisa Keim, R-Dixfield, that would cement a pandemic-era rule change that would raise the number of children that an at-home child care provider can care for from two to three without certification. It could be four children if two are siblings, and the provider's children would not count.
◉ It has survived initial votes in both chambers despite the Mills administration opposing an initial version that would have raised the threshold from two to four. Deregulation has been a goal for Republicans in addressing yawning child care gaps across the state, and the progress of this attempt will be telling. |
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