By Michael Shepherd - Dec. 13, 2022
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📷 Gov. Janet Mills listens to a voter at the polls in Portland on Nov. 8, 2022. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Good morning from Augusta.

What we're watching today

Relations between the governor and Senate Republicans start at a low point. It usually takes longer than the swearing-in day for some of Maine's leading politicians to get upset with each other. But the dispute over the $473 million heating aid bill tanked by Senate Republicans last week is already leading to a raw dispute between their leader and Gov. Janet Mills.

Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, said the Democratic governor was "lying" about the scope of negotiations over a bill that would fund $450 relief checks to 880,000 Mainers, plus $71 million for other heating and housing aid programs. Mills' office shot back by saying Stewart has inaccurately described talks and said his caucus "simply wanted to say no."

There is more to this than just partisan politics. While Stewart and his members have insisted on a public hearing on the measure for transparency's sake, House Republicans largely voted for the aid package. House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, said the bill was not perfect but noted that Mills opened aid to more Mainers as he lobbied for.

It is a bit of a Rorschach test for members as well. Libertarian-leaning Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn linked his vote to opposition to COVID-19 policies that Mills was able to implement with emergency powers earlier in the pandemic, saying his caucus must work to restore "transparency, accountability and public input." In a column for two central Maine newspapers, Stewart did not openly oppose funding sources for the Mills-led measure but criticized transfers from other areas of the state budget.

These Republicans argue that their demand for a public hearing should be easy to meet and that Democratic legislative leaders could quickly seat committees, hold a hearing and advance the bill. That may be true, but they have been alone on that process concern to date. Senate and House Republicans are going to have to be united in many of their tests going forward to put forward coherent alternatives to the policies of Mills and Democrats.

The raw language and an inability to agree on a heating aid package may not bode well for the upcoming session. Thorny items will come before the new Legislature, including a push to create a paid family and medical leave program that has a progressive referendum drive hanging over it. Mills has shown a penchant for consensus solutions on big issues like that before, but there are already some negotiating problems.

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News and notes

📷 Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined at left by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, speaks to reporters following Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, at the Capitol in Washington on Nov. 29, 2022. (AP photo by J. Scott Applewhite)

💍 Mainers will watch the president sign a landmark LGBTQ-rights bill.

◉ President Joe Biden will hold a White House ceremony celebrating passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. It also includes religious protections that helped it win the support of 12 Republicans in the Senate and 39 in the House.

◉ It was sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine leading negotiations on the Republican side. Collins will attend the ceremony. Gia Drew, the executive director of the LGBTQ-rights group EqualityMaine, will also be there and is already apologizing for late Christmas cards as a result. Watch the ceremony at 3:30 p.m.

🔍 Lawsuits alleging priest abuse pile up in Maine in part due to a new law.

◉ Three new lawsuits this week brought the total to 11 by the Associated Press' count after Mills and the Legislature passed a law last year repealing the statute of limitations on civil claims of child sexual abuse.

◉ The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, which argued against the law, has been the focus of the lawsuits. The three new ones filed this week come from men who allege sexual abuse by the late Rev. John J. Curran between 1962 and 1964 when they were between the ages of 11 and 14.

◉ Curran, who died in 1976, has been the subject of sexual abuse allegations for nearly three decades. The Legislature renamed an Augusta bridge in 2009 that had long been named for Curran.

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What we're reading

🚨 The Castine crash that killed four college students on Saturday was so severe that investigating it could take weeks.

🚫 Political unrest in Peru led Bangor High School to cancel a planned trip.

🐟 This fish has been in Maine lakes since the ice age. Climate change and non-native species threaten it.

🐻 The University of Maine's mascot switched from a bear to a moose and back again.

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