Jon Reisman

The special “emergency” legislative session has mercifully almost completed its work and mission to advance leftist lunacy and screw over anyone who doesn’t agree, especially in rural Maine. 

Legislators passed a Democrats-only supplemental budget that raised spending, taxes, and partisan temperatures across Maine, funded generous services for illegal immigrants/future Democrat voters, declined to fix or repeal an expensive family and medical leave initiative — which will hobble small businesses, particularly in rural Maine and the 2nd Congressional District — insisted that there are more than two genders and that believing otherwise is ignorant transphobic bigotry, and doubled down on climate and energy policies which are driving up our electric bills, subsidizing green energy cheerleaders/parasites (two of whom — Hannah Pingree and Angus King III — are the leading Democratic candidates for Governor) and doing absolutely nothing to avert climate change. Thank you. May I have another?

In the final weeks, legislative Democrats voted to turn Maine into a Sanctuary State (must protect those future Democrat votes), declined to adequately fund Maine Veteran Homes, reluctantly held a statutorily required public hearing on the “red flag” gun confiscation initiative, and tried to silence/ignore Maine State Police testimony that suggested gun control advocates, including the Democratic chair of the Judiciary Committee, had their gun-grabbing heads up their asses or stuck in the sand, take your pick.

Most of the legislation I cared about had already been summarily defeated, but the final weeks brought defeats on equity, climate, and election policy. 

Equity: LD 1593 would have required State agencies promoting equity (which is all of them) to define equity and develop metrics to measure it. There is no definition of equity in Maine State Government, and the Democrats obviously like it that way because LD 1593 was defeated on party-line votes in both the House and Senate. Promoting an undefined policy goal is pure policy malpractice, and it will now continue unabated and unchallenged. Thank you. May I have another?

Climate: Earlier in the “normal” session (before the “special” emergency session necessitated bypassing a Democrats-only budget), party-line votes defeated LD 495, which would have required that regulatory efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions estimate and disclose how much climate change the regulations were averting and at what cost to consumers in terms of energy prices. Can’t have that! An honest, bipartisan climate policy is simply out of the question.

A second climate policy front opened up when LD 1494 proposed to expand the use of the state’s flawed and audit-flagged no-bid contract procurement process in implementing the flawed climate action plan (which included a major, undefined equity component). My testimony suggested that combining the woke climate plan with the “materially weak” audit-flagged procurement process was a prescription for fraud and corruption. Party-line votes propelled the resolve forward, and all sorts of economic rewards and no-bid contracts will now flow to Democrat climate activists. Unfortunately, we won’t know what they are doing or how much (if any) climate change they are averting. (Actually, we do know. The answer is no climate change averted at great cost to the public, but great gain to climate apparatchiks.) Thank you. May I have another?

Elections: LD 252 sought to repeal the National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact, which Maine joined last year after a party-line vote and without the governor’s signature. My testimony last year on the NPV noted that had it been in effect in 2016 and 2020, it would have disenfranchised every right-of-center voter in the 2nd CD, which was why the Democrats passed it. They were shocked when Trump won the popular vote in 2024. Had the Compact been in effect, it would have disenfranchised every left-of-center voter in the 1st CD. That was enough to convince a few 1st CD Democrats to support repeal, which narrowly passed in the House but not in the Senate, thus killing the repeal. After all the bluster and rhetoric about “Democracy,” the willingness to disenfranchise voters is just incredible hypocrisy. That was special. 

Thank you. May I have another?

Jon Reisman is an economist and policy analyst who retired from the University of Maine at Machias after 38 years. He resides on Cathance Lake in Cooper, where he is a Selectman and a Statler and Waldorf intern. Mr. Reisman’s views are his own, and he welcomes comments as letters to the editor here or to him directly via email at [email protected].