📜 Maine and the high court

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By Michael Shepherd - July 1, 2022
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What we're watching today

The implications of recent high-court decisions on Maine go past the ones that have grabbed the most headlines. A wild 10 days of Supreme Court decisions with large effects on the state began with last week's decision against Maine's ban on public funding for religious schools, carried through the landmark Friday overturning of federal abortion rights and ended Thursday after Democratic leaders here assailed a decision weakening the Clean Air Act.
The immediate stakes in all of those cases are clear. The state has maneuvered around the court's education decision for now, but more legal wrangling is probably coming. Abortion rights are shielded here for now, although state-level politicians must now answer for how they would limit or increase protections going forward. Weakened federal air-quality regulation shows the limits of state climate action favored by Gov. Janet Mills.
There is more underneath the surface. Mills is facing a November challenge from former Gov. Paul LePage, who is running on agenda of school choice and a "parents' bill of rights." While he has not outlined the specifics of those items so far, it has sounded like he favors a sweeping voucher program that would allow parents to take shares of public funding and use it as they see fit. Any such plan would be hotly debated on the stump and in the State House, where LePage has never proposed something quite so big.
For Democratic states, the court's environmental ruling will make collective state action more important over the long term. Maine has been fighting conservative-led efforts to gut air-quality protections alongside other liberal-leaning states on that issue.
But the biggest efforts are also hard to pull together. For example, the state never fully signed on to a regional effort aimed at reducing transportation emissions that was bound to fall harder on more rural states. Massachusetts pulled out late last year, effectively killing the project. We also know how its bid to access Canadian hydropower is going after Maine voters rejected the Central Maine Power Co. corridor that is still locked in a layered court fight.
One also has to wonder how the court's long-term trend of returning issues to a virtually gridlocked Congress or the states will affect Maine. Under Democrats, the state typically favors strong federal regulations, but the state is typically fighting the federal government over something. The best current example is over regulations on the lobster industry that are aimed at protecting the right whale under the Endangered Species Act.
Those regulations are opposed across the state's political spectrum, for messing with the lobster is a third rail here. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled against lobstermen trying to roll back federal rules, but the industry is predicting a long series of fights against them. Many of Maine's best-known politicians are upset with the high court now. Someday, they may be looking to it for help.

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What we're reading

— A conservative activist suing Hermon schools is being represented by a lawyer once barred by a judge from representing Alex Jones after the conspiracist was sued for calling a Connecticut school shooting a hoax.
— Long-aging Maine was the only state to get younger between 2020 and 2021 due to a wave of migration.
— Tight budgets and runaway prices marked Maine's housing market over the first half of 2022. Read our coverage of real estate and housing.
— In a strange case filed in federal court, a Maine dog breeder has sued a New Hampshire man for spaying a golden retriever with a champion pedigree in violation of a contract to breed her. Here's your soundtrack.

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News and notes

FiveThirtyEight released initial modeling on Thursday for gubernatorial and congressional races.
— Mills has a 75 percent chance of beating LePage. (That's only a slightly better bet than Hillary Clinton at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. She won, right?)
— Former Rep. Bruce Poliquin. a Republican, was only narrowly favored at a 52 percent bet in a toss-up race in the 2nd District with Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, with national factors going up against Golden's early polling lead.
— Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree of the 1st District is expected to cruise to an eighth term.
Maine's senators did not change course after President Joe Biden called on the Senate to ditch the filibuster to pass abortion-rights protections Thursday. Neither Susan Collins nor Angus King have supported doing so yet.
— On Thursday, Collins called it "exactly the wrong approach" and highlighted a bid she is leading to codify protections that does not seem to have enough support among her fellow Republicans to pass.
— King's office did not directly answer a question on whether his thinking has changed, but the independent who caucuses with Democrats has called Collins' bid "a tall order" that could find more post-ruling support.
An election denier is coming to Maine and backing a Republican legislative candidate.
— Former Army intelligence officer Seth Keshel, who falsely claims that President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory was illegitimate and touts a plan that would require all Americans to re-register to vote, was named as one of four leaders of the "election denial movement" in an NPR story on Thursday.
— This week, he endorsed Reagan Paul, the 23-year-old Republican nominee for an open Maine House seat in the Winterport area. Rep. Scott Cuddy, D-Winterport, is not running for a third term, leaving Winterport Town Councilor Margaret English-Flanagan as the Democratic nominee.
— In the post noting Keshel's endorsement of Paul, he says Paul supports his plan for elections and she notes "election integrity issues" in Maine. (We have shot down past claims others have cited in arguments for an election "audit" here.) Keshel is speaking in Ellsworth on July 15.

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Photo of the day

Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale leaves the Portland Sea Dogs dugout after pitching four innings in a rehab start on Thursday night at Hadlock Field. Sale allowed one run on four hits. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

📷 Lead photo: At least 1,000 people protested on the steps of Portland City Hall on June 24, 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

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📜 Maine and the high court

What we're watching today

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Photo of the day

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