By Michael Shepherd - April 28, 2023
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📷 Hometown Gas & Grill owner Fred Cotreau greets customers on Jan. 14, 2023, in Lebanon. A Mega Millions ticket purchased there won a $1.35 billion grand prize. (Portland Press Herald photo by Derek Davis via AP)

Good morning from Augusta. Legislative committees are in Friday for hearings on "forever chemical" bills and work on housing measures, among other things. Here's the agenda.

What we're watching today

With help from a lottery prize, lawmakers should have more money to argue about this spring. Many eyes are on the state's Revenue Forecasting Committee, which is likely to finalize key predictions on Wednesday to determine how much the Legislature has left to spend when it considers adding to the $9.9 billion budget passed by Democrats last month.

The news is looking good. Income tax collections for the current fiscal year are up by nearly $138 million over the past round of projections, due in part to the $52 million gained from the winner of a $1.35 billion Mega Millions jackpot. Forecasters had not finalized their recommendations by the time this newsletter went out, but their comments suggested a short-term bump in revenue.

Any surpluses would continue the pandemic-era trend of tax revenues vastly exceeding past projections, although it is getting less dramatic than the surpluses fueled by a wave of federal aid earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, which bailed out state budgets that may have been upside down otherwise.

Maine's budget, passed over Republican objections last month, fell about $600 million short of the past revenue projection of $10.5 billion for the two-year budget cycle. Mills and Democrats stripped most new initiatives from that document, planning to pass another budget bill before the Legislature is set to adjourn in June. These new projections will give them their bottom line.

The next set of questions will be around whether Democrats will involve Republicans in this new plan, or whether the minority party is burned enough by the second majority budget in two years to sit out spending talks. The latter seems to be likely if they cannot get Democrats to agree to a round of income tax cuts that they were seeking in talks over the last package.

If lawmakers are indeed gifted more money, Democrats will tout the governor's financial management and will put together a more aggressive spending agenda. Republicans will argue that the government is taking in too much money and could easily put together a tax-cut package.

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News and notes

📷 Gov. Janet Mills speaks at a campaign rally on Nov. 2, 2022, in York. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

🎤 The governor's key abortion measure gets a marathon hearing Monday.

◉ Groups on both sides of the stark abortion-rights divide are whipping testimony on Mills' controversial bill that would allow post-viability abortions that doctors deem medically necessary. It is in for what will likely be hours worth of testimony before the Legislature's health committee on Monday at 9 a.m.

◉ An anti-abortion group run by Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, is recruiting people to sign up to testify, as is the political arm of Planned Parenthood on the abortion-rights side.

◉ Almost all legislative Democrats are sponsoring Mills' bill, meaning they already have the votes to pass it over what is likely to be united Republican opposition. They will cite a recent University of New Hampshire poll showing majority support for the measure, while conservatives will emphasizing the governor's reversal from a 2022 campaign in which she said she wanted to no changes to abortion access law.

🏈 Advertising and other concerns mark the pushback to sports betting rules.

◉ Maine's gambling regulator this week published the comments it got from tribes, gaming companies and support industries on its proposed set of sports betting rules, which attracted attention when they were released earlier this year for strict limits on TV advertising and insurance requirements.

◉ Tribes, which will exclusively run the mobile market while casinos and off-track betting parlors, submitted reams of proposed changes to the rules, criticizing them for licensing requirements that do not usually apply to tribes, the broad advertising restrictions and rollout timing and sequencing. The Maine Association of Broadcasters said advertising rules may be unconstitutional.

◉ "The commencement of sports wagering in Maine is already long overdue, but flawed regulations and a haphazard roll out will only serve to counteract the important step the legislature took with this passage of this legislation," Chiefs William Nicholas of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township and Rena Newell of the same tribe at Sipayik, said in a letter.

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What we're reading

👷 It could take months to restart construction on the hydropower corridor.

🧾 Mills won wide support for modernizing and expanding business tax breaks.

🙏 A prosecutor with a role in a marijuana ring wants to practice law again.

✂️ Blue Hill's high school cut 12 positions due to declining enrollment.

⛓️ Penobscot County wants to hire a marketing firm to sell its stalled plan to build a new jail. Here's your soundtrack.

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