By Michael Shepherd - Sept. 22, 2022
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📷 Sportsman's Alliance of Maine Executive Director David Trahan listens to early reports on Maine's last bear-baiting referendum on Nov. 4, 2014, in Orono. (BDN photo by Michael C. York)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 47 days until Election Day.

What we're watching today

Cooperative Democrats and disagreements with the former governor upend a high-profile endorsement process. Few groups in Augusta have been as interesting over the last few years as the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine. The conservative-leaning hunting and fishing group is best known for fighting referendums on gun control and banning bear baiting, but Maine's four-year period of Democratic control has changed its standing.

That is largely because the two Democrats sitting at the top of the ticket — Gov. Janet Mills and Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District — have been friendly to the group in policy areas from gun rights to conservation. Disagreements on that latter issue dating back to former Gov. Paul LePage's led the Republican to pull out of the group's 2022 candidate surveys.

All of that has upended things for the alliance, which abandoned endorsements this year in favor of a 12-page guide to Maine's federal and state elections that was released on Thursday. Mills got an A grade, while LePage drew an incomplete score after his withdrawal. Golden got an A+ and former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican, got an A after the group endorsed him in 2018. The group's grades favor Republicans in legislative races.

None of this is all that surprising given the mix of top-tier issues over the last few years. While Mills supported gun control measures during her 2018 primary, she warded Democrats off from advancing them after she was elected, eventually replacing a so-called red flag bill with a "yellow flag" compromise brokered in part bythe sportsman's alliance.

After ignoring the group's survey in 2018, Golden has also become an ally. He has opposed Democratic gun control measures and put forward a safe-storage measure backed by the alliance and its director, former Republican state Sen. David Trahan.

When Congress was negotiating over a recent gun, mental health and school safety bill, he and Sen. Susan Collins worked closely with the group, particularly on a provision that would allow funding to bolster the "yellow flag" law here and more-stringent versions in other states. Poliquin opposed that measure, aligning with the National Rifle Association and House Republican leaders, but the alliance still calls him an ally.

The story with LePage is more complicated. During his tenure, he stridently opposed gun control measures along with the sportsman's group, but he also held up land conservation bonds that it supported. He often criticized land removed from the tax rolls, although Maine's share of tax-exempt land was larger at the beginning of his tenure than the end. Flush with revenue, Mills has expanded a key conservation program.

LePage was interviewed by the alliance, but he did not answer all of the survey questions. After an interview cleared up some of the gaps, he asked the group to pull his survey from consideration. It left the answers confidential, but the group laid out some areas of disagreement in conservation and federal funding for certain projects.

His answers show he is still reticent to embrace land conservation while mapping out a political comeback. Mills and Golden have also taken gun-rights issues more off the table in these two races than any other pair of high-profile ones in some time in Maine politics. Some will still be disappointed that one of the major groups in state politics is not issuing endorsements anymore.

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News and notes

📷 Former Gov. Paul LePage campaigns at gun shop in Gray on, Aug. 31, 2022. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

📹 Under attack, LePage campaign is talking about abortion.

◉ The anti-abortion Republican has often sidestepped the issue after the June decision from the U.S. Supreme Court striking down federal abortion rights. While he has said he has "no reason" to challenge Maine's expansive abortion laws, he has not ruled out allowing restrictions if returned to the Blaine House.

◉ Mills and Democrats have hammered LePage on the issue in a pro-abortion rights state. The Democratic Governors Association is running an ad that clips the last three words of a 2018 quote from LePage as he spoke about abortion as a litmus test for senators on judicial nominees: "[Abortion rights are] the law of the land,” he said. "If they can make a case for getting rid of it, let’s do it."

◉ The ad jumps off of that to say LePage supported allowing abortion bans even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life was in danger. The former governor said in a June statement that while he opposes federal funding for most abortions, he supports it in those exceptional cases.

◉ His campaign struck back with a video from his daughter, Lauren LePage, calling the ad's claims "ridiculous" and saying he has never opposed abortion in those circumstances.

📁 Maine's indigent legal services system says it needs more money quickly.

◉ The Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services is requesting more than $13 million by the end of this year to raise hourly attorney wages from $80 to $150 while it faces a worsening crisis in staffing cases.

◉ The request was outlined to lawmakers on the Legislature's watchdog committee on Wednesday. Commissioners and staff plan to lobby Mills for a solution from the executive branch, but the agency suggested that lawmakers return to Augusta soon to deal with the matter.

◉ Long-documented problems with the system have already resulted in a lawsuit against the state. The commission voted last month to recommend a $62 million budget for next year, more than double the current one.

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What we're reading

🌞 After bucking President Joe Biden on spending, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District used a news conference with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, to lean into his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.

🚗 An Uber driver was charged with sexually assaulting a woman in Bangor in the first. It was the first reported case of its kind in the city, but it is among thousands of similar reports nationally dating back to 2019.

🏡 Maine home sales continued a steep decline in August accompanied by a nearly equal price increase over last year.

🍔 You might run into robots on the University of Southern Maine's campus. Pay them no heed, they are only delivering food. Here's your soundtrack.

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