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| 📷 Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, listens during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 8, 2023. (AP photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades) |
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🥊 Expect a clash over a Maine senator's high-court proposal.
◉ The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a Tuesday hearing on proposals to force the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt an ethics code. Democrats are going to use Justice Clarence Thomas as an example after disclosures about his close relationship with conservatives megadonor Harlan Crow. Republicans are expected to rush to Thomas' defense, Roll Call reports.
◉ Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats is at the center of the issue with his proposal alongside Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, that would give the court a year to adopt a code, among other provisions. But action is unlikely given the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate alongside Republican leadership in the House.
🎤 Hearings are set on referendums that the Legislature may have whiffed on.
◉ Legislative leaders want to ask Maine's high court to settle a dispute with Mills over whether they missed their chance to enact four referendums slated for the November ballot by ending a legislative session and then beginning another to pass a partisan state budget last month. But for now, they are beginning to call hearings on the measures in the spirit of a 2019 law mandating them.
◉ The first two hearings come this week. On Wednesday, the voting committee will take testimony on the effort to ban foreign government spending on Maine referendums. An energy panel hearing will follow Thursday on the blockbuster initiative that would lead to an elected board taking over Maine's electric delivery system.
◉ The Legislature's procedural trick is the subject of more legal wrangling from conservatives. Two House Republicans are joining a citizen-initiated lawsuit from April that says Mills and lawmakers illegally colluded to call the session that lawmakers are operating in right now. We'll have more on that today. |
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What we're reading
😬 Maine has reached just 4 percent of its electric vehicle goal.
🛒 Life goes on at a Portland homeless camp while officials debate its future.
🇺🇸 A Maine fighter pilot was shot down over Belgium during World War II. Pieces of the plane are coming back to his home state.
🍴 Bail was set at $500,000 for a man who allegedly mailed fentanyl to a Maine restaurant.
🦌 He found a dream buck in the Maine woods with one big catch. Here's your soundtrack. |
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