By Michael Shepherd - March 3, 2022
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Good morning from Augusta.

What we're watching today

Local Republicans invoking the president and Democratic bids to strengthen abortion rights preview key 2022 arguments. It seems like lots of our Maine political coverage is starting to say two things all the time: Campaigns are getting more expensive and they increasingly look like others across the country. Those phenomena are not changing at this rate and 2022 is beginning to look like an interesting study in nationalization.

President Joe Biden carried Maine easily in the 2020 election, but he is unpopular, sitting just below a 41 percent approval rating, according to RealClearPolitics averages. If the trend holds, it should be a good year for Republicans up and down the ballot. In Maine, they are recruiting candidates down to the legislative level by telling them just that.

There is another side to this, however. Maine has gotten more Democratic since former Gov. Paul LePage won his final term in the last Republican wave year of 2014. Around the country, Republicans are also moving to restrict voting laws and abortion access, two areas in which Maine has liberal laws and attitudes. After LePage and fellow Republicans took control of Augusta in 2010, they voted to eliminate same-day voter registration. Voters upheld it overwhelmingly.

A striking fundraising email from Maine Senate Republicans' campaign arm on Wednesday was built around Biden's State of the Union address and a picture of the president, saying "Biden's spending is increasing your costs" and Maine Democrats "are following their leader." Former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican running for a return to the Maine's 2nd District, issued a seven-tweet thread hammering Biden. It did not mention Rep. Jared Golden, the Democrat he is running against.

Democrats are in kind of an opposite position to their 2020 posture, when a huge, national campaign against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins made the Republican vulnerable at first but later backfired on Democratic nominee Sara Gideon. They are now defending officeholders including Gov. Janet Mills and Golden, both of whom are generally reliable Democrats but have had prominent disagreements with progressives.

Many Democrats are leaning into the voting-rights and abortion debates. Mills has expanded abortion access during her tenure and Democrats are trying to reconstitute buffer zones around Maine abortion clinics while avoiding free-speech challenges that have plagued more expansive laws in the past. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat widely seen as a future prospect for high office, has touted Maine's voting laws outside the state and pushed for more liberal federal policies as well.

This is going to wash out somehow. Biden's unpopularity could sweep out a lot of Maine Democrats. The incumbency factor and positions on hot-button issues could save some of the state's most prominent politicians. All of these things could happen, as we saw in a series of mixed elections here in 2016 and 2020. It is why our politics have become so fascinating in the last decade or so.

State House news and notes

— The Maine Legislature will meet for floor sessions six times in March to take up bills that have been reported out of committees, Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, announced Wednesday. That will be March 9, 17, 22, 24, 29 and 31. The scheduled end of this year's session is April 20.

— Top Maine lawmakers will hold a Legislative Council meeting at 3:30 today to review State House COVID-19 protocols after recent changes in federal mask guidelines. Masks have still been a political issue in the building after House Republicans forced a floor vote last week on keeping mask policies in effect.

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What we're reading

— The Maine Department of Health and Human Services dropped plans to close a Wilton call center employing roughly 45 people after saying landlord agreed to fix issues with the building. The Wednesday move was a win for the local legislative delegation that came about two weeks after the plans were aired publicly, threatening jobs in a town that lost a bigger call center in 2019.

— John D. Williams, who killed a Somerset County sheriff's deputy in 2018, is seeking a new trial after his lawyer learned a state trooper was disciplined a day before testifying against Williams. The trooper was suspended a day for failing to report and document alleged misconduct after a state police lieutenant hit Williams while taking him into custody. The Maine attorney general's office is arguing the discipline is immaterial to the case.

— An ambitious Maine housing policy overhaul unveiled by House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, on Wednesday is being opposed by an advocacy group for cities and towns. The sweeping package of recommendations has much that lawmakers will likely agree on, but it would also bar municipal limits on annual building permits in a state with a long history of local control.

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Follow along today

9 a.m. A long day of work on tribal-rights measures is on tap in the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. It is scheduled to run into the afternoon and lawmakers will move along to Mills' proposed compromise with tribes that would give them control of a new online sports betting market. Watch here.

The utilities committee will work on two broadband bills, including one to allow the Caribou Utilities District to offer broadband service. It is opposed by established internet service providers in an emerging trend. Watch here.

10 a.m. The budget committee continues to work its way through public hearings on Mills' spending proposal. The criminal justice, transportation and labor panels will join appropriators throughout the day as they take testimony on different areas of the document. Watch here.

12:30 p.m. Mills will join Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and state leaders to announce the recipients of grants under the Maine Working Communities Challenge, which will give three-year awards supporting local plans to grow economies. Register for the event here.

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📷 Lead photo: President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., watch, Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Washington. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP)

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