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| 📷 Senate President Troy Jackson, D- Aroostook, conducts business at the State House in Augusta on April 12, 2022. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty) |
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📪 We're seeing the first big money drops into legislative races.
◉ A wave of spending has come into State House races in the last week, led by the Maine Democratic Party throwing $175,000 alone into Senate races for mail and online advertisements.
◉ Their top priority was Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, in a frontline race with Rep. Sue Bernard, R-Caribou. He benefited from $37,000 in spending, far more than any other Democrat. Bernard also was the only Republican that Democrats spent against in this early round, showing that the party is worried about its leader in the upper chamber.
◉ That has basically been unanswered by Republican counterpart groups at a steep cash disadvantage this cycle due in large part to an everlasting surplus from Sara Gideon, the 2020 Democratic U.S. Senate nominee.
◉ One surprising spender came from nowhere. That was Rep. Dustin White, R-Presque Isle, whose political committee dropped $89,000 last week on a broad social media and mail effort. He broke with convention to spend on races outside his chamber, putting $30,000 into mail for former Gov. Paul LePage in his race with Gov. Janet Mills and sending $6,100 to aid Bernard. He could be setting up a leadership bid in a House caucus facing a power vacuum.
🍴 Chipotle's abrupt closure of a Maine store whose workers organized will be discussed in Congress.
◉ It is another example of the fallout from the July closure of the burrito chain's Augusta location, which was the first in the nation to file for union recognition. But Chipotle closed the location on the day of a federal hearing, leading top Democrats including Jackson and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of the 1st District calling it union-busting. Pingree asked for a federal investigation.
◉ The House labor committee is holding a hearing on organizing at 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday at which the Chipotle incident is expected to come up, the Maine AFL-CIO said. Watch it. |
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What we're reading
📕 A national social conservative group sank $100,000 into a text-messaging campaign linking Gov. Janet Mills to a LGBTQ book at the center of conservative book-banning efforts across the country, Maine Public reports.
🔦 Extreme weather is driving more major power outages in Maine, which saw 12 outages in 2021 that hit at least 50,000 people for an hour or more.
🚫 A former Maine guardsman accused of raping a fellow soldier got jail time for assault but avoided a rape conviction as part of a a plea deal.
💈 Duke Dulac, the legendary Augusta barber who ran informal political polls of customers and correctly predicted independent James Longley's gubernatorial upset of 1974, died at 89, the Kennebec Journal reported.
❌ Medway will vote to recall a "disruptive" select board member who is also an outgoing state representative.
💵 A shuttered Deer Isle nursing home has sold the rights to most of its beds, a move it says may fund its partial reopening. But some locals are skeptical.
🌱 This Maine artist designed an installation laden with "forever chemicals." It was no accident. |
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