The recent lawsuit against Avangrid, Central Maine Power’s corporate parent, only strengthens the argument for a consumer-owned utility, where the utility is responsive to its customers, who are the shareholders in the company. Avangrid is in trouble because of trying to raise profits in order to satisfy shareholders rather than their customers. They used an […]

Re: “Jim Fossel: Maine budget surplus presents an opportunity” (Dec. 5): Columnist Fossel’s argument that Democrats are taking the state of Maine’s projected $810 million surplus and are “dreaming up ways to spend it” makes no sense. The Democratic administration has been in power long enough to create this windfall. So, I guess they haven’t […]

Maine has a long history of protecting individual rights and keeping personal, family decisions out of the political sphere: one of the first three states to enact marriage equality through popular vote, in 2012; death with dignity, in 2019, and the right to a legal abortion affirmed since 1979, a protection that was updated just […]

Since 1975, Gallup polls document that fewer than 20 percent of Americans believe a woman’s right to choose an abortion should be banned in all cases. This small, but vocal, minority reports to be defending the right of a fetus to a life it cannot yet sustain outside the host’s body. The most vocal of […]

Postsecondary education is vital in securing good jobs and careers in the 21st century. Many economists now project that in order to maintain a middle-class lifestyle, an individual will require knowledge and skills available only through some sort of postsecondary education after high school. Although many entry-level jobs once required only job experience, employers in […]

Bravo for the inspiring Bill Nemitz column on Maine COP26 contributor Susana Hancock (Nov. 21). The U.S. could lead the world to a sustainable future, and Maine lawmakers are critical to this effort. With EU and UK carbon tariffs starting to hit U.S. products in 2023, economic pressure to join every other developed nation and […]

The late Sen. Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, was not only a supporter of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but also – in 1979 – expressed his support for direct elections: “Were we to switch to a system of direct election, I think we would see a […]