State House age requirement advances

AUGUSTA – The opportunity for an 18-year-old to serve in the Maine House became only slightly more tangible Wednesday when the Maine Senate narrowly approved a proposed constitutional amendment lowering the current minimum age requirement from 21.

The 18-16 vote in the Senate followed last week’s action in the House on LD 1912 when the state representatives approved the proposal, 74-67. Both votes, however, are far short of the two-thirds majority required to place the resolution on a statewide ballot to allow voters to determine if they favor amending the Maine Constitution.

State Rep. Emily Ann Cain, D-Orono, the bill’s lead sponsor is also the state’s youngest representative at 25. She expects the measure could come up again in the House today. Cain hopes to steer the debate away from what she described as “the flip attitude” that holds “young people don’t have enough experience” to serve. She concedes she will have her work cut out for her in trying to convince two-thirds of the House to support her bill.

“I’m going to do my best,” she said. “It’s certainly raised the level of discussion around the state and I’ve been really pleased by the numbers of 18-to-20-year-olds who have joined in.”

Although the bill did not address the 25-year-old age requirement for members of the Maine Senate, several senators had plenty to say about the bill. Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono, reasoned if Americans can serve their country in the military during a time of war, they surely should be afforded the opportunity to run for state representative.

“We entrust in them our lives and yet we won’t allow them to serve in the House,” she said.

Sen. Debra D. Plowman, R-Hampden, argued against the bill, beginning her list of reasons for opposition with the fact that she “was once 18, 19 and 20.”

“I have to tell you that I made some of the worst decisions of my life in those three short years,” she said. “I’m also the mother of teenagers and I expect them to make some of the worst decisions of their lives during those times. … If you ever asked your teenager ‘What were you thinking?,’ they may not even be able to tell you the process about the thinking part because they were working with the feeling part.”

Sen. Phillip L. Bartlett, D-Gorham, reminded his seatmates that simply because an 18-year-old’s name appears on the ballot is no guarantee that he or she will be elected.

“They still have to go out and earn the respect and trust and of the voters just like every one of us,” he said. “So there’s a natural check on the issues of maturity and age.”

The tone of the discussion moved from maturity and responsibilities to darker suggestions of discrimination when Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, rose to speak.

“I hear these arguments and they feel so remarkably close to the arguments that were made about denying women the right to vote, or when we were talking about whether blacks should have the right to vote and the trials that used to go on at universities in which they would put marbles in people’s skulls to see who had a bigger skull and who had a bigger intellectual capacity based on their race. This is about allowing people the choice of who they want to represent them.”

Sen. Scott W. Cowger, D-Hallowell, ultimately laid the argument of whether age denotes wisdom to rest with some levity.

“Regardless of our age or what body we serve in, some of us – at times – continue to make poor decisions,” he said.