The Legislature’s budget writing committee engaged in its first public tussle Monday evening with a vote that wouldn’t have been necessary if not for the ongoing dispute between Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills. At issue was whether lawmakers should circumvent the governor’s authority to issue a $28,000 financial order that’s needed […]

  Lawmakers on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee took nearly three hours of testimony Monday on L.D. 467,  a bill that would have narrowed a resource protection area known as the Saco River Corridor. And then, after a brief caucus, the committee quickly killed the bill. It’s unusual, although not unprecedented, for a legislative […]

Good morning, It’s Franco-American Day at the State House and the speeches and presentations are likely to crowd out some of the legislative activity. The committee schedule is relatively light. There’s a public hearing on L.D. 537 in the Education Committee. The proposal would prohibit standardized tests on students in grades kindergarten through grade 2. […]

Good morning and happy Sunshine Week. The recognition of government transparency is apropos. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely candidate for president, held a press conference last week to explain her use of a private email server and to tell reporters that she’d deleted half of the messages. Clinton’s purge is presumably because the messages contained the […]