AUGUSTA — The state Senate on Tuesday sustained three of Gov. Paul LePage’s vetoes, including a bill that would have created energy efficiency standards for projects that receive state funding. Each veto was sustained largely on party-line votes. The efficiency bill, LD 1264, passed the Legislature with unanimous votes in both chambers last year but […]
Maine Legislature
Posted inLocal & State, Op-Eds
Analysis: Action by Maine Legislature may not help Maine get waiver for DHHS cuts
AUGUSTA — During a Dec. 15 press conference, Gov. Paul LePage said the Legislature will first have to approve his proposed cuts in the state’s Medicaid program in order to receive a waiver from the federal health care law to make some of those reductions legal. The governor went so far as to say that legislative action […]
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Advocates hope lawmakers consider victims while weighing bullying bills
AUGUSTA — As the Legislature’s Education Committee took another crack at a pair of anti-bullying bills that could increase civil penalties and create new mandates for school districts, one of the proposal’s sponsors on Monday urged lawmakers not to assign labels to victims. “The scope of bullying is wide and long,” Rep. Terry Morrison, D-South […]
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Democrats issue symbolic rejection of LePage’s DHHS budget plan
AUGUSTA — Democrats on Wednesday used a symbolic gesture to ratchet up their opposition to Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed $220 million cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services. After several work sessions and emotional public hearings, the governor’s budget proposal made its way into bill form on the first day of the second […]
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Committee rejects plan to end public funding for Maine governor candidates, but debate may not be over
AUGUSTA — Lawmakers on the Legislature’s Legal Affairs Committee on Wednesday unanimously rejected a bill that would have stripped public funding for candidates who run for governor. The committee vote looked like a win for advocates of the Maine Clean Election Act and a loss for the LePage administration. The governor has supported eliminating public […]
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Conservation group says DEP’s Flagstaff lapse intentional
AUGUSTA — An environmental group is accusing the state Department of Environmental Protection of deliberately relinquishing oversight of Flagstaff Lake in Eustis. Last month the DEP acknowledged that it had inadvertently ceded oversight of water quality and water levels at the 20,000-acre lake to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission following a reapplication by the Flagstaff […]
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Republicans won’t support LePage’s cut to elder care facilities
AUGUSTA — The co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget committee said his Republican colleagues can’t support one of the largest and most controversial cuts in Gov. Paul LePage’s Department of Health and Human Services budget proposal. Rep. Patrick Flood, R-Winthrop, the House chairman of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday Republicans won’t back the governor’s plan […]
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Political Pulse: Will LePage dominate 2012 like 2011?
Gov. Paul LePage owned Maine politics in 2011. If intrigue and controversy are the metric for memorable, it would seem hard to top the governor’s first year in the Blaine House. Comments like “kiss my butt,” “little beards,” “the idiots” and many others are notorious enough to stand without context. The governor’s verbal mishaps affected […]
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Political Pulse: LePage confident about MaineCare waiver; Democrats not so much
Nuggets from the notebook while wondering if some of Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed cuts in MaineCare will be well received by the federal government … Last week, the governor told reporters he was confident that the state could pressure the federal government to release the state from a provision in the federal health care law […]
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Report: 2010 election showed big spike in outside campaign spending in Maine
A study of Maine’s past three state elections released Friday shows a sharp increase in campaign spending by outside groups since 2006. The National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan group that partners with the Sunlight Foundation, released a report showing that the total independent spending on campaign ads, mailers and other communications […]