Welcome to a legislative rabbit hole — the concept draft. It is a way of submitting legislation that is much abused, though it had merit as originally designed. What if this newspaper’s editor accepted “concept columns”? Title: “Concept Drafts.” Column, in its entirety: “Concept drafts may be good or bad.” It states a point of …
Welcome to a legislative rabbit hole — the concept draft. It is a way of submitting legislation that is much abused, though it had merit as originally designed. What if this newspaper’s editor accepted “concept columns”? Title: “Concept Drafts.” Column, in its entirety: “Concept drafts may be good or bad.” It states a point of …
This year, Democrats own the Blaine House and both chambers of the Maine Legislature. With that ace in hand, they are moving at speed to try to quickly pass a majority budget, a feat that has not occurred since 2005. For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Republicans, it is not some underhanded, …
Four days before the first anniversary of Governor Janet Mills’ first COVID emergency proclamation, the Maine Senate defeated a legislative attempt to “terminate the state of emergency first proclaimed by Governor Janet T. Mills on March 15, 2020.” The resolution that would have ended the Governor’s emergency authority was introduced by Sen. Rick Bennett of …
Once upon a time, state elections in Maine were everyman’s game. Anyone could jump right in. The parties would scare up a driver to get the candidates going door-to-door, and with a good dose of elbow grease a candidate would rise or fall on his or her own merits. That was in the days of …
Like a Maine crocus, “open primaries” poke their head above ground in Augusta almost every winter only to freeze to death in a late winter snowfall or wither and die in the spring. What’s up with that? A primary election is the process of nominating candidates for the general election. That happens in a number …
Last week, Maine Republican Party Chairwoman Demi Kouzounas announced a special meeting for March 13 to ponder Sen. Susan Collins’ vote to convict former president Donald Trump and consider “possible action from this committee.” The move was in response to what was called a “grassroots outcry” from Republicans “almost universally outraged” by the senator’s decision …
Margaret Chase Smith, we don’t need no stinkin’ declaration of conscience! As the chairman of a Republican Party committee in Pennsylvania said of Sen. Pat Toomey, “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing … We sent him there to represent us.” …
Well, friends and neighbors, how is the sign-up going for your COVID vaccination? The geezers among us, not mentioning any names here, are being identified as part of the problem, simply not computer literate enough to get themselves signed up. Oh yeah, say we geezers? Get a load of this. It is important to preface …
Governor Janet Mills issued her first executive order on Jan. 3, 2019, the day after she was inaugurated. It was “An Order to Require the Expeditious Implementation of the MaineCare Expansion.” That order is typical of the “first 100 days,” “let’s get to it” stuff of which politics is made. The Governor campaigned on the …
If you’ve been harboring the fond hope that the new year marked a change for the better, Waldo County Republicans will set you straight. They passed a resolution in December stating that Republicans Kevin Raye and Roger Katz “shall be censored and shall be prohibited/banned from running for any civil or public office as a …
COMMENTARY: “Former National Football League wide receiver Irving Fryar came out of a rookie orientation with the following advice to his colleagues: ‘We’re going to have some idiots come out of this room. Those of you feeling good about yourselves, stop it. You ain’t did nothing yet,'” writes Columnist Jill Goldthwait this week. “Legislators should heed his words. Despite the thrill of winning an election, the swearing-in ceremony and taking your very own seat in a historic chamber, it is easy to forget you have yet to do any of the work you promised when you ran for office.”
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