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What we're reading
— Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, emerged from a meeting with President Joe Biden's U.S. Supreme Court nominee to say Ketanji Brown Jackson showed “what I want to see in a judge.” Read more from the BDN's Jessica Piper on the meeting that got national attention on Tuesday.
— Calls to cut the gas tax from Republicans including Gov. Paul LePage are being met with resistance from business groups that advocate for steady transportation funding. Details from LePage in Yarmouth here.
— The Maine Republican Party has reserved $3.9 million in TV ads to aid LePage in his 2022 campaign against Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat. It's far beyond their 2018 mark.
— High fuel prices are prompting a "late-season surge" of demand for federal heating assistance, according to organizations that administer the aid. It came as regular gas prices in Maine surged past a Great Recession record. (The old record is higher on an inflation-adjusted basis.) |
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Follow along today
9:20 a.m. Former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican, is expected to speak to reporters outside the State House before he delivers signatures to qualify for the primary ballot in Maine's 2nd District. He and LePage have made events of their deliveries, while Rep. Jared Golden, the Democrat who ousted Poliquin in 2018, handled the exercise quietly.
10 a.m. The House and Senate are in. The calendars have growing lists of bills coming divided out of committees. In the House, measures up for potential votes today include one to assess state fees on certain vacant homes with money going to offset property taxes. The Senate could consider Democratic-led bills to encourage climate education in schools and implement climate recommendations and one Republican bill on track to die that would prohibit state COVID-19 vaccine requirements for five years. Watch the House here and Senate here.
12 p.m. A coalition of groups from the American Cancer Society to the Christian Civic League of Maine will rally outside the State House in support of a bill that would ban flavored tobacco across the state.
1 p.m. Democrats led by Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, will hold a news conference on a package of bills aimed at reducing energy costs and providing rate relief on the heels of an accountability bill and a relief program recently rolled out by Mills. |
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| 📷 Lead photo: Rep. Chris Caiazzo, D-Scarborough, sits at his desk in the State House in Augusta on Dec. 7, 2018. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett) |
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