By Michael Shepherd - May 23, 2022
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Good morning from Augusta. There are 22 days until Maine's June primaries.

What we're watching today

Political strife at the university system is being lumped into Republican attacks on the governor facing reelection. University of Maine System Chancellor Dannel Malloy is facing big political problems just as his three-year contract is set to expire on June 30. The board of trustees is considering whether to retain the former Democratic governor of Connecticut after faculty senates at four of the seven system locations took no-confidence votes in him.

Malloy's biggest issues are the most recent, led by a boondoggle of a search for a new president of the Augusta campus. The selected candidate was the subject of two no-confidence votes at his current institution that were not disclosed to the search panel. He agreed to withdraw from the position on Sunday. He will be paid what would have been his first year of salary at $205,000. Nine faculty members at the University of Maine at Farmington have also been laid off, prompting outcry at that campus.

There is also long-term angst about the system's direction. Under former Chancellor James Page, the system looked to boost collaboration between the campuses to fix an organization that Page said in 2018 was "wrongly structured and wrongly sized in so many ways." Malloy has continued in that direction but with less buy-in across the system than Page, a Maine native who had a unique blend of business and academic experience when he was hired in 2012.

"I think his larger direction is not bad, that we've got to work together closely," outgoing University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings told WGAN of Malloy on Saturday. "I don't think he has necessarily done that in the most skilled way."

Malloy came to Maine fresh off his eight-year tenure as a governor. During his last full year in office, he polled as the nation's least popular governor with as low as a 21 percent approval rating. He was hired by the board of trustees in 2019 in large part due to higher education reforms he led in Connecticut, including a merger of the university and community college systems.

Plenty of Republicans were skeptical given Malloy's leanings and his hiring just after Democrats took control of Augusta in the 2018 election. But the university system does not neatly line up with party politics. The chair of the board of trustees at the time of his hiring was Samuel Collins, the brother of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Page got along well with former Gov. Paul LePage, once calling the Republican a champion of certain system initiatives.

The Maine Republican Party is now trying to tie Malloy to Gov. Janet Mills, the Democrat facing off with LePage in November, calling the chancellor her "handpicked" selection. (The governor only nominates the trustees who select the chancellor and she made six selections by the time of Malloy's hiring.)

That's proof that anything bad that happens during a governor's watch will be used against them during a campaign. But Malloy's problems have major policy consequences for some of the state's most important institutions and could lead trustees to try to find a savvier operator to execute its biggest goals.

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News and notes

— Longtime State House reporter Francis X. Quinn died in Massachusetts last week, according to his obituary in the Boston Globe. He worked for the Associated Press for 28 years, spending most of his time covering Maine politics and the Legislature in Augusta before his 2009 retirement. Hannah Pingree, who was House speaker at that time and now directs the governor's policy office, remembered Quinn as "an old school newsman" who "knew everything going on from the top to the bottom of the State House."

— We look to be headed toward a low-turnout June 14 special election for an open Maine Senate seat in Hancock County between former Sen. Brian Langley, R-Ellsworth, and Rep. Nicole Grohoski, D-Ellsworth. Only 375 people in the district requested an absentee ballot as of Thursday, or just over 1 percent of registered voters. Democrats are dominating with 242 requests to just 57 for Republicans, but the share is too small to make much of at this point.

BDN writer Jessica Piper contributed to this item.

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What we're reading

— A gas station visit by the two Maine Republicans at the top of the 2022 ticket showed how rising costs will dominate politics this year. But the problems are not going to be solved by politicians here, leading to a circular debate.

— When asked whether the leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft decision that would overturn abortion rights shook her faith in the court, Sen. Susan Collins pivoted to the leak itself and past comments from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, calling both attacks on the court's credibility.

— An investor planning $150 million worth of housing projects centered on luxury rentals is making a big bet on southern Maine's housing shortage. Read our housing coverage.

— This map predicts where Maine's worst browntail moth outbreaks will be. Here's your soundtrack.

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Photo of the day

Bates College students sit on the lawn and work on beading and cross stitch projects in Lewiston on Sunday. From left are Hallie Hayne, Tia Freund, Alice Wruck and Isla Cotter. Erin Hanlon sits with her back to the camera, at right. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn via AP)

📷 Lead photo: University of Maine System Chancellor Dannel Malloy listens to presentations during a Sunday board meeting at the Glickman Library at the University of Southern Maine. (BDN photo by Sawyer Loftus)

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