By Michael Shepherd - June 5, 2023
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📷 House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, speaks at the State House in Augusta on Dec. 7, 2022. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

Good morning from Augusta. Sorry for the extended absence through last week. I was struck down for a few days by COVID-19. Here's my soundtrack.

What we're watching today

An embattled budget will determine whether lawmakers can bring major bills to fruition. Last week was an important one in Augusta, where the Democratic-led Legislature moved paid family and medical leave, child care reform and an overhaul of the property tax freeze program for seniors through committees. But there are still some major obstacles for each of these items to clear with lawmakers trying to finish their work this month.

The major one is a spending plan that has been fraught virtually since the day Gov. Janet Mills rolled it out in May. The $900 million roadmap set aside several Democratic priorities and ignored a Republican desire for income tax, leaving those on both sides of Mills disappointed. The next day, House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, delivered a threat that she would not support the budget if Mills didn't back certain tribal-rights bills.

That threat is looking emptier as we go along. Lawmakers have kept crafting a budget, with members of the appropriations committee working over the weekend behind closed doors even after Mills delivered fresh opposition to the speaker's harried but bipartisan bill released last week that aims to allow beneficial federal laws to automatically apply to Maine tribes. It is a state version of an approach tried at the federal level by Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District.

Even though many Democrats disagree with parts of Mills' spending plan, it contains crucial items for many of them. For example, almost nobody in Augusta opposes the $400 million for transportation that aims to draw down up to a $1 billion in matching federal funds. Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, finally came to a deal with the Mills administration on his high-priority child care package, putting it on a steadier track to passage.

All of this is to underscore the difficult position that Talbot Ross has put herself in on tribal rights. She has apparently not moved Mills while the rest of the Legislature's work continues. Other priorities of hers, including an expansion of MaineCare to asylum seekers, are on precarious footing with the governor remaining silent on the issue.

Mills will also hold the key to paid leave getting through the State House, although progressives have a trump card by being able to put a referendum on their rival proposal on the 2024 ballot. But Mills will be a gatekeeper on the budget as well, and it looks like Democrats have a growing list of incentives to get a deal done there that at least satisfies their side.

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News and notes

📷 Former Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, speaks at an April 19, 2021, news conference outside the State House in Augusta on a proposal for an electric utility that would be run by an elected board. (BDN photo by Caitlin Andrews)

⚡ Proponents of a utility run by an elected board have a fight on their hands.

◉ Maine voters are evenly split on the blockbuster utility referendum on the November ballot, according to a poll released last week by Digital Research, Inc. It found 41 percent in favor of the question backed by the political group Our Power, 40 percent opposed in alignment with the major utilities and the remaining 19 percent undecided.

◉ Proponents may see this as a welcome sign, given that they have barely spent any money on their political effort so far relative to the millions in ads alone from the parent of Central Maine Power Co. and other opponents. But the backers have a major fight on their hands, and utilities clearly have an opportunity to win over voters at the margins.

◉ Among the poll's other findings are record-low approval for President Joe Biden in Maine, former President Donald Trump commanding a fractured Republican primary field, steady approval ratings for most big-name Maine politicians and supermajority approval for another ballot question to ban foreign government-owned companies from spending in Maine referendums.

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What we're reading

📝 A report finds no fault in the attorney general's handling of a relationship with an employee.

⬆️ Maine's congressional delegation was united on the debt ceiling deal.

🐦 Birds here are in trouble amid a wider decline across the continent.

🌑 Ready or not, thousands of people are coming to Houlton.

🏳️‍🌈 This small Waldo County town is celebrating its first Pride month.

🪵 Here are 5 log cabins you can buy in Maine for $350,000 or less.

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