The Legislative Session At a Glance

The first year of the 131st legislative session was historic for Maine People’s Alliance and our state. Mainers’ activism and advocacy helped create some landmark victories, including passing paid family and medical leave, expansion of Maine’s child tax credit, improvements in our childcare system, policies to make Maine’s housing crisis less painful for the people hurt most by it, an increase in legislator pay that will allow people with lower incomes to run for office, and meaningful action on both the climate emergency and our state’s green jobs industry.

At the same time, some of the boldest and most progressive legislation was defeated or held over, especially when it ran up against wealthy and powerful lobbying interests; and we continued to come up against a “scarcity” mindset that cruelly pits people against one another, even as the state set up ongoing tax breaks for wealthy corporations. And, once again, we found that righting wrongs rooted in xenophobia and racism is much, much harder than it should be.

In the last year, we were reminded of something again that we’ve long known – when we work together, we can win. Because Maine urgently needs a strong paid family and medical leave program for all workers, MPA, Maine Women’s Lobby, and many other organizations led a signature campaign to put the creation of a robust program on the ballot.

Mainers from all around the state worked together to gather more than 80,000 signatures. The pressure that this put on lawmakers and Gov. Janet Mills led directly to the passage of a very similar program this July.

There were some other major victories for children and families in Maine. These included the passage and funding of a bill to fix a major flaw in the design of the state version of the child tax credit, making it fully refundable so the families who most need the credit will finally have access to it; and a bill to help address Maine’s serious childcare shortage by improving compensation to childcare workers, making it easier for the owners of childcare centers to provide care for families with scholarships and subsidies, and ensuring more Maine kids are eligible for Head Start programs.

MPA worked with a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers to raise legislator salaries, making it easier for people who are younger, have lower incomes, and who have less flexible jobs to serve as elected officials. This new law, which raises legislators’ pay from roughly $27,000 to a still-extremely-modest $45,000 for the two-year session, could play a major role in helping the legislature better reflect the people of our state.

The progress we made this session on these vital issues has been inspiring, and more importantly, these policies will make life better for people all around our state. The same is true for the new policies around Maine’s wind power industry, which will make Maine an important part of our region’s shift to renewable energy sources and support the creation of more green jobs. Unfortunately, though, this session has also been marked by compromise and delay.

Gov. Janet Mills and the legislature deserve credit for proposing, passing and funding important housing first programs, which will make a substantial difference for Mainers experiencing chronic homelessness. At the same time, several critical bills designed to combat the state’s acute housing crisis by creating new support and protections for renters ran up against strong opposition. This came from landlords’ lobbying groups and was often based on the broadly-held belief that property rights are sacred and absolute. Those bills died in committee or were held over.

Similarly, the legislature passed a landmark wind power bill that will create high-quality green jobs – but several other climate priorities were defeated or held over.

In spite of the escalating overdose crisis in Maine, a bill to permit communities to establish harm reduction health centers (also known as safe injection sites) did not have quite enough votes to pass, but the legislature did pass and fund a bill for a study of such centers.

At a time when so many Mainers needs (for housing, healthcare, childcare, and more) are not being met, the governor also made the decision to create the Dirigo Business Incentive Program((https://www.mecep.org/blog/10-unanswered-questions-dirigo-business-subsidy/), a large, ongoing corporate subsidy that will rob this state of tens of millions of dollars in revenue that could be used for proven strategies to directly address those needs and build our state’s future.

And disappointingly, there was steep resistance from some corners of the legislature in addressing Maine’s long legacy of racial injustice. These included defeating a bill to restore MaineCare health coverage to low-income Mainers regardless of their immigration status, which the Senate voted down; and failures to override vetoes on two major bills: One to ensure that the Wabanaki have access to most federal laws that benefit Indigenous tribes around the country, and one to extend minimal labor rights to Maine’s agricultural workers.

Change is hard, and policies that make sweeping change inevitably run up against resistance from entrenched institutions who stand to lose money or power as ordinary people gain influence. But, as we saw, when everyday people get organized and push back, we can win.

We’re excited about continuing to help MPA members push for the things we all care about, and to keep fighting for a world where everyone has what they need, contributes what they can, and no one is left behind.

Gov. Janet Mills advances abortion rights, housing first, childcare affordability and more, vetoes farmworker and tribal rights bills

This year, Gov. Janet Mills supported significant investments in affordable housing and education, including Speaker Talbot-Ross’ housing-first proposal, extending public commitments to free community college, and fighting hunger with free school meals. Mills also put her weight behind important pieces of legislation to protect and expand access to abortion in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

She signed several bills that will make a big difference for many Mainers, including legislation to establish a robust paid family and medical leave program in Maine, policies to create a “housing first” program, modernization of Maine’s version of the child tax credit, and reforms to help address Maine’s serious childcare shortage.

Mills also signed bills to raise legislator salaries, to create high-quality green jobs through investments in Maine’s wind power sector, and to support gender-affirming care for older teenagers.

Unfortunately though, these investments came alongside Mills’ ongoing refusal to raise state revenue by taxing the wealthy, and tax and cash giveaways that strongly hindered the state government’s ability to take action on some of our most urgent needs.

In December, 2022, she spent nearly $400M on $450 energy relief checks to Mainers, including households making up to $200k/year. This decision ate up nearly the entire budget surplus, making it much more challenging to fund transformational initiatives in housing, healthcare, criminal justice, and care.

And this spring, Mills’ proposed budget created a large, ongoing corporate subsidy that will cost the state tens of millions of dollars per year that could be used to directly address Mainers’ needs.

With her vetoes, Mills stood in the way of addressing several systemic racial inequalities in our state:

Consistent with her past stances on tribal rights and in spite of a massive public campaign and bipartisan support in both houses of the legislature, Mills vetoed a bill to ensure that the Wabanaki have access to most federal laws that benefit Indigenous tribes around the country.

She also vetoed a bill to extend minimal labor rights to Maine’s agricultural workers, who are disproportionately Black, Latino, and Indigenous. The bill would have protected farmworkers from being forced to work more than 80 hours of overtime in a consecutive two-week period, from being forced to work more than six hours without being offered a break to rest, and from earning a minimum wage of only $7.25/hour. These vetoes follow a pattern of Mills often valuing industry voices over those of marginalized workers.

MPA members have often felt frustrated by Mills’ lack of support for the progressive policies on the issues most important to Maine workers and families, like housing and health care.

Mills did show, however, that she can be moved. In the last year, MPA, Maine Women’s Lobby, and many other organizations led a signature campaign to put the creation of a robust paid family and medical leave program on the ballot, and Mainers from all around the state worked together to gather more than 80,000 signatures.

Mills initially opposed the paid family and medical leave policy proposed in the referendum, but eventually signed a similar policy advanced by the legislature with some changes she proposed. She cited the referendum campaign as the reason for her decision to reverse course and support a strong paid family and medical leave program.

While Mills did not support a number of priority issues for MPA members this session, we know that her positions can be moved with enough public pressure. We urge MPA members to keep speaking up!