By Michael Shepherd - July 12, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. There are 119 days until Maine's November elections.
What we're watching today
Maine's largest city is on the cusp of a strong-mayor experiment that is largely untested here in the modern era. A progressive Portland charter commission has advanced a major reform package for city government that would increase the power of the elected mayor to allow them veto power, the authority to propose a budget and to issue executive orders.
This strong-mayor proposal has been one of the most hotly debated ideas around Portland government over the last five years, which have been marked by tension between city councilors and activists in the city. Former Mayor Ethan Strimling warred with the council during a lone term in office during which he criticized the more substantive role of the city manager, who reports to the council as a whole. Strimling was ousted in 2019 and has gone on to champion a strong-mayor position as well as other progressive causes.
The 2020 formation of the charter commission was the first in a string of victories for that rising activist wing in Portland. Since then, they have passed far-reaching referendum questions, including a $15 hourly minimum wage, rent control and stricter building standards, and wrested the council from a group of more business-friendly Democrats in the liberal bastion of Maine. They will try again in November with more items, including an $18 minimum wage.
But the strong-mayor position is perhaps the biggest change coming to Portland politics. Mayors in Maine are typically city council members even if they are elected separately, getting a small stipend to run meetings and represent the community publicly. When Portland switched to the elected mayor position in 2011, the city made it a full-time position but extended little power.
There are two mayors in Maine's 23 cities with veto power. One is in Westbrook, where Maine's only strong mayor resides now with hiring and firing authority. The other is in Waterville, once the hometown of former Gov. Paul LePage, Maine's most famous former mayor who drafted off his wars with a Democratic council to rise to the Blaine House in the 2010 tea party wave.
Maine has plenty of other big-name politicians in history who are former mayors, but it is a bully pulpit that has not commonly translated to major electoral success. A strong mayor position in Portland would add another major office to the Maine's landscape, although virtually all living former mayors in the city oppose the change for concentrating too much power in one person.
The tension between the direct will of voters and their intentions as expressed through the diffused council will be at the center of remaining debate in Portland. Progressives have clear momentum right now. If they succeed, the first person in the position will have to navigate a city far more complicated than anywhere else in Maine with a stronger mayor. It would be fascinating to watch, even if you are among the ones who want to look away.
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News and notes
Sen. Susan Collins said she made the best decision she could on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
— The Republican senator voted for the conservative justice in 2018, insisting that the conservative justice told her he viewed Roe v. Wade as "settled law." In June, he voted as part of a 6-3 Supreme Court majority to overturn it, calling the case wrongly decided.
— "I made the best decision I could based on the information I had at the time," Collins told CNN on Monday.
— Collins told The New York Times last month that she felt Kavanaugh misled her on the issue after the paper obtained Collins' private interview with the justice during his confirmation. When Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, announced his opposition to Kavanaugh in September 2018, he said the justice was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade or at least "whittle away its protections."
The governor is attending the dedication of a Lewiston mixed-income housing development on Tuesday.
— Gov. Janet Mills will help open Gauvreau Place, a 35-unit development for people and families.
— She is trying to make housing a major issue in her race with LePage after entering office by releasing housing bonds that he blocked and amid a stark housing crisis centered in southern Maine.
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What we're reading
— Embattled University of Maine System Chancellor Dannel Malloygot a one-year contract extension on Monday from the board of trustees with tighter terms that acknowledge recent controversies, including the bungled search for the president of the system's Augusta campus.
— The names of health care workers who sued the Democratic governor over her 2021 vaccine mandate were made public this week after a successful lawsuit from the Portland Press Herald and sister papers.
Nate St. Jean gets a look at the Ring Nebula through a Dobsonian telescope sporting a large, 15-inch mirror on Saturday night in Brunswick during a star party put on by the Southern Maine Astronomers organization. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)
đź“·Â Â Lead photo:Â Former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling holds a sign during a press conference at City Hall on Nov. 4, 2020. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)
