By Michael Shepherd - May 26, 2023
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📷 This undated photo shows a home in Southfield, Mich., that was foreclosed and sold for $24,500 after the owner failed to pay $285 in taxes, penalties and interest. (AP photo by Ed White)

Good morning from Augusta. Friday is a getaway day for the Legislature for what's shaping up to be a lovely Memorial Day weekend, with only a short committee schedule on tap. The Daily Brief will be off until Wednesday, May 31.

What we're watching today

Maine likely needs to change a longstanding law around seize homes. A increasingly divided U.S. Supreme Court was united on one issue this week, siding with a 94-year-old Minnesota woman whose condominium was seized by her county over a relatively small tax bill.

Most states allow local governments to sell tax-delinquent properties after a certain period. But only Minnesota, Maine and 10 other states allow them to keep the amount above and beyond the amount due in a practice that the Pacific Legal Foundation, the conservative group representing the Minnesota woman, calls "home equity theft" by government.

In the Minnesota case, the woman owed $2,300 in taxes, plus nearly $13,000 more in penalties, but the county kept the $40,000 that it got for the home. Between 2014 and 2021, 43 Maine homes were taken like this, with owners losing 88 percent of equity, the Pacific Legal Foundation said.

Maine's high court upheld the law in a 1974 case over a $399 tax bill in Auburn. Lawmakers added protections for seniors in 2018. Republican lawmakers led by Rep. Chad Perkins of Dover-Foxcroft have introduced a bill this year that would require municipalities and the state in unorganized areas to let homeowners to claim the excess money.

The Maine Municipal Association, which represents cities and towns, has opposed eroding the existing law, as their counterparts across the country did in the Minnesota case. The group said it was monitoring the high court's decision, which was handed down quickly after last month's arguments made clear justices were sympathizing with the plaintiff.

Now it looks clear that the Legislature will have to move some sort of fix to the existing law similar to one proposed by Perkins. The Democratic-led Legislature has let the bill languish in a committee since a February hearing, but it may have to pick it up to avoid leaving cities and towns in legal limbo.

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News and notes

📷 Sen. Mark Lawrence, D-Eliot, reviews papers in the Senate chamber at the Maine State House on April 12, 2022, in Augusta. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

🏦 There was an innocent explanation for a 2022 campaign mystery.

◉ An incident that raised concerns of theft in Maine's Clean Election program around the 2022 campaign of state Sen. Mark Lawrence, D-Eliot, was easily explained after an investigation by the Maine Ethics Commission.

◉ In the middle of 2022, Lawrence's campaign incurred three unauthorized debits to an unknown person, a trash hauling service and a natural gas company. It turns out that the transactions were due to an error by a depositor who had the same account number as Lawrence's campaign except for the last digit, and the money has since been reimbursed.

◉ Ethics commission staff raised the flag on this in a February memo that did not identify whose campaign had this problem, calling it "a matter of concern that someone caused these funds to be used for purposes unrelated to any political campaign." The explanation turned out to be quite innocent.

⛓️ A revamped prison that turned into a campaign issue takes a first step.

◉ On Wednesday, Gov. Janet Mills and Corrections Commissioner Randall Liberty will cut the ribbon on the redesigned Maine Correctional Center in Windham, which has been configured to give more space for rehabilitation programs including addiction treatment.

◉ This was a campaign issue between Mills and former Gov. Paul LePage in 2022. He railed against her administration's shelving of his plan to build a drug treatment facility at the center. The Mills administration countered by saying his project was $75 million over budget by the time they got it, and that their more individual approach to treatment was working.

◉ The reconstruction in Windham has been unfolding gradually over the past few years and has been scheduled to finish this year.

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What we're reading

🗳️ The governor's paid leave criticisms may push Maine toward a referendum.

🌬️ This Bangor-area group prepares the region for more extreme weather.

🧲 Northern Maine's magnet school needs $2 million to avoid cuts.

🪖 An unearthed jacket gives a glimpse into a Maine prisoner-of-war camp during World War II.

🦝 An attempted raccoon pedicure may have exposed Mainers to rabies. Don't take your raccoon to town. Here's your soundtrack.

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