Domestic violence bill rejected again in House

AUGUSTA – Efforts to revive a domestic violence bill failed when the House rejected LD 1119 on Thursday night for the second time in eight days. The revote was necessary after the Senate passed the bill earlier this week by 23-11.

The bill would give a judge the right to ban possession of firearms by any subject of a temporary protection from abuse order in domestic abuse cases. Judges now have the power to ban possession only after a permanent order has been issued. Opponents called the measure a gun bill, while supporters called it a domestic violence bill.

Familiar voices and familiar comments were heard in the debate Thursday night before the bill was rejected by a vote of 90-55. The House vote on May 16 was 89-50. The bill is now marooned between both houses and almost certainly doomed.

The bill was lost when Rep. Edward Povich, D-Ellsworth, the chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, said it simply would not work. He said the key to controlling domestic violence was to arrest the perpetrators and toughen the bail code, to keep them in jail. That would help the domestic abuse problem and preserve residents’ Second Amendment rights, which would have been compromised by the bill. “This is a gun bill,” Povich said.

The only state that has such a law is Massachusetts, said Rep. Stavros Mendros, R-Lewiston. “We left there a long time ago. Let’s not go back,” Mendros said.

The protection from abuse order process is often abused to gain an advantage in divorce cases and should not be the basis for taking guns away, said Rep. James H. Tobin, R-Dexter.

The bill would take weapons away without due process, said Rep. Lois Snowe-Mello, R-Poland.

There was a family split in the debate as Rep. Christopher Muse, D-South Portland, supported the bill and his brother, Kevin M. Muse, R-Fryeburg, who said he was “defending the family honor,” spoke against it. Combating domestic violence by taking guns away is “attacking the wrong end of the problem,” the Republican brother said.

Supporters argued in vain that the Legislature had to do something about the spiraling problem of domestic violence, which causes half the homicides in the state each year.

Rep. Linda Rogers McKee, D-Wayne, said: “We won’t know it work unless we try. If we want to help the domestic violence problem, let’s give it a try.” Although victims have asked the Legislature for help, “We won’t give them what they want,” she said.

What good is a protection from abuse order if it does not remove weapons from a volatile situation? asked Rep. Lillian LaFountaine O’Brien, D-Lewiston. She cited a Lewiston case in which a wife was shot to death while being escorted by police by a husband under a protection order. If his guns had been taken away, that woman might be alive today, O’Brien said. “Let’s give the courts the help they need,” she said.