Informally anyway, a group of UMaine professors omnipresent at Rotary Clubs and Chambers of Commerce meetings in the mid-1990s were known as the Gang of Five. The Gang spent about two years fomenting revolution in Maine. Their cause, however, wasn’t political; it was an attempt to persuade, cajole,… Read More
After years of stalling, the Senate finally begins debate Monday on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. The central feature of this important legislation is its ban on “soft money” contributions to political parties, the unregulated and unrestricted contributions that totaled nearly $488 million in the last election. Read More
A summer visitor asked a waitress in Kittery if it was all right to eat a new-shell lobster. She explained that the new-shells contain more water, but they are tender, tasty and easy to crack open. Her information had come from a leaflet sent by the Maine Lobster… Read More
President George Bush’s decision to have the United States abandon a responsible position on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, a contributor to climate change, makes more extreme cuts in emissions inevitable a few years from now and greatly diminishes the U.S. role in establishing international standards to meet this… Read More
No one should have expected much from last week’s White House meeting of President George W. Bush and President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea. Mr. Bush had just won a narrow victory in a campaign that stressed military toughness and pointed to North Korea, with its nuclear… Read More
The U.S. Supreme Court has thrown out a particularly mean device intended to promote term limits for members of Congress. U.S. District Judge Morton Brody threw out a similar Maine law four years ago. Now the highest court, acting on a Missouri case involving an amendment to the… Read More
Mainers this year will spend approximately $5 billion on health care, plenty to provide every citizen with a comprehensive health plan. But more than 10 percent of residents – 160,000 people – have no insurance, another large percentage have insurance in name only – $5,000 deductible, high co-pays… Read More
The Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee takes up today the renomination of Steve Wight to the Land Use Regulation Commission. The public hearing, at 1 p.m. in the State Office Building, promises a noisy afternoon of firsts. It will be the first time a… Read More
As the U.S. Navy court of inquiry into the USS Greeneville accident enters its second week, the testimony continues to reveal a tragic sequence of mistakes, miscalculations and miscommunications that led to the American submarine ramming the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru and the loss of nine lives. Read More
There’s a long-standing notion that the Senate is the deliberative side of the United States Congress, the House more given to headlong rush. The current status of President Bush’s tax cut in those chambers illustrates the difference. The fundamental concern in Congress and among the… Read More
On one level, the Healthy State House Challenge has all the symptoms of being just another public-relations stunt – well-padded legislators from both parties filled the Hall of Flags at noon last Thursday, the governor was there with his team of paunchy independents, all were weighed in, adipose-oriented… Read More
Your paper used poor judgment putting the sick zoophile from Dover-Foxcroft on the front page of your Web site. You have given the talk radio hacks in Massachusetts a lot of ammo to use. Part of our state’s problem, and especially in eastern Maine, is that rural Maine… Read More
The bill to ban elephants in circuses in Maine will be presented in Augusta at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, March 15 at the State House. I hope many people will be able to attend to help support this bill. If you cannot attend, please contact your… Read More
General Electric Power System’s announced expansion in Bangor yesterday was very good news for the entire region. The company, which is the cornerstone of the city’s industrial base, brings with its expansion not only 160 new jobs and an expression of confidence in the area’s work force; it… Read More
Consumers of electricity may be excused if they did not catch the full reasoning behind a federal commission’s recent decision to raise costs come April 1. The decision touches so lightly on the current reality of deregulated power markets that many people in the industry don’t see the… Read More
Don’t look out the window or you won’t believe this: Spring is coming. Sure, it’s a way off yet. And it will be well into April or maybe early May before things really warm up. But the winter is going to begin winding down before long. Read More
For the last several years, Congress has pledged to do just about anything to support special education – anything, that is, except actually fund its share of the mandate that requires “free and appropriate public education” to all handicapped children. Governors go to Washington to demand the money,… Read More
Experts say half of Maine’s students go to school hungry. Going without breakfast means they continue their 12 hours or so of overnight fasting through the morning. If they miss lunch, too, their fasting goes on into the afternoon. A special commission appointed by the… Read More
Sen. Susan Collins today is expected to introduce the Innocence Protection Act of 2001, as important a piece of criminal-justice reform as Congress will see this year. The simple goal of this bill is to improve the chances that the people the government executes are actually guilty of… Read More
A recent story in The New York Times shows the abuse of the narcotic painkiller OxyContin to be neither simply a Maine problem nor, perhaps, inevitable. As the state offers treatment to the growing number of those addicted, it should also review how this powerful drug was marketed… Read More
At 1 p.m. last Saturday, listeners whose public radio stations carry the live broadcasts of the New York Metropolitan Opera were settling in for a performance of “Manon,” Jules Massenet’s heartbreaking masterpiece about love and betrayal. Listeners to Maine Public Radio were settling in for a two-hour show… Read More
Whenever Gov. Angus King was asked to support an east-west highway across Maine a couple of years ago, and sometimes when he wasn’t asked, he told an anecdote about how the state of Washington was like Maine turned on its side. Its largest city, Seattle, on the West… Read More
Secretary of State Colin Powell has created a two-front test for his plan to improve U.S. relations in the Middle East while weakening Saddam Hussein’s military strength. Mr. Powell’s plan to ease general sanctions against Iraq but tighten others is being met with caution among Arabs and skepticism… Read More
Meeting this week in Washington, the nation’s governors strongly supported a policy that would have the federal government give states more flexibility and more responsibility in administering Medicaid, the national health program for the poor. Last week, state health officials sounded alarmed by President Bush’s plan to let… Read More
For the last 30 years, the Land Use Regulation Commission has served as the planning board that half of Maine, the unorganized territory, without local government of its own. The scope of the job – from industrial forest to remote loon-filled ponds – is as enormous as the… Read More
Lawmakers are fond of using homey examples to describe complex budget issues, so in the spirit of oversimplification, here’s one: If you knew your salary was about to be cut, would you use money in your savings account to pay down your mortgage or would you be more… Read More
Several years ago, as Maine finally began recovering from the recession of the early ’90s, experts warned repeatedly that the state would remain vulnerable to disastrous revenue collapses as long as its narrow sales tax base continued to rely so much on economy-sensitive car and truck purchases; lawmakers… Read More
Bangor attorney Bernard Kubetz tells a story of his first case 25 years ago, in which he represented a plaintiff in Waldo County against Lewis Vafiades. All through the pre-trial work and hearings, Mr. Vafiades treated him as gently as possible; he was helpful and complimentary to the… Read More
During the campaign, then-Gov. Bush was criticized as a clumsy public speaker with a tax-cut plan built upon fuzzy math. In his first major speech since his inauguration, President Bush revealed himself to Congress and the nation Tuesday as a fine and sincere public speaker. The math still… Read More
For the past six years, since losing control of Congress following the 1994 elections, Democrats have been on the right side of campaign finance reform, partly because the money-stained system is in desperate need of reform, partly because it’s easy to be for legislation that has no chance… Read More
Everett Steele figures he’s greeted 360 troop flights in the last 10 years at Bangor International Airport. That’s a lot of hand-shaking and “welcome homes” from the Korean War veteran who was at BIA when the very first troop carrier landed on the morning of March 8, 1991. Read More
Twenty-five years ago, when lawmakers proposed starting a medical school at the University of Maine, they had little trouble developing good reasons for wanting one. Primarily the concerns were about quality of care and a shortage of doctors in rural areas. Today, those needs persist and new ones… Read More
Arn Heggers, of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office in Portland, has some startling information for Maine fishermen: Of the 11 Maine fishermen who died at sea in the past year, five of the deaths involved the insulated, watertight survival suits required by law. In four cases, the… Read More
When the U.S. Supreme Court considers a case argued last week on the use of thermal-imaging cameras and the right, under the Fourth Amendment, “of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures,” they may well turn to a… Read More
With the economic slowdown, big houses are going begging across the country. Those multi-million-dollar palaces, with four or five bathrooms and a heated garage for the Ferraris and Bentleys, are suddenly stranded on the market, says The Wall Street Journal. Not so in Northeast Harbor,… Read More
John Fitzsimmons, president of the Maine Technical College System, is as amiable a person as you are likely to find in a state leadership role. But he was scathing – or as scathing as anyone looking for funding can be – when addressing the Legislature last week over… Read More
An experiment is useful only if it holds the possibility of failure. One of Maine’s experiments of the past five years has been term limits, which, while not a failure, has forced too many good men and women out of office. The time has come to recognize the… Read More
The investigation led by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana into the pardons issued by Bill Clinton at first looked like a vehicle merely to further embarrass the former president. Now, with the news that Mr. Clinton’s brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, was offered $400,000 to successfully lobby for a pardon… Read More
Today is Fitness Day at the Maine State House, when representatives from a half-dozen groups are expected to tell reporters how important physical activity is for everyone. Today also marks a week since Gov. King released his strategy for lowering medical bills in Maine. Feel free to start… Read More
For all the difficulties the health care system presents to Maine, there is one simple way residents could reduce obesity and the diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and cancer associated with it. A study released last week in the British medical journal The Lancet concludes that a soft drink… Read More
If you were appalled by the way votes were counted and recounted in Florida in the last presidential election, you probably don’t know a secretary of state. If you did know one, you would have already known, in the words of Arkansas Secretary of State Sharon Priest, that,… Read More
Legislators on the Criminal Justice Committee want to know how many convictions in what categories were turned up in Maine’s fingerprinting program of teachers and school staff. It is a reasonable request, but an illegal one, so far – the law is clear that such information is confidential,… Read More
A year ago, as the mounting ire of the flying public had lawmakers considering a Passenger Bill of Rights, the airline industry forestalled the force of law by voluntarily adopting a “Customer Service Commitment.” A new report, commissioned by Congress and just released, finds the airlines still more… Read More
Former President Clinton, in an op-ed piece in the Sunday New York Times, proved himself to be an able defense lawyer in explaining why he pardoned Marc Rich. There’s no surprise in his abilities, but his reasons for the pardon are still less than believable and, while few… Read More
Though the idea has attracted a lot more Democrats than Republicans, a petition from some of the nation’s wealthiest families to keep the estate tax is more than partisan noise. It makes important points, and rather than rush through the president’s proposal to do away with the tax,… Read More
Mainers smoke 2.3 billion cigarettes a year, 96 percent of which have filters. You’ll find the discarded remains of that 2.2 billion littering beaches, parks, sidewalks and roadsides, on top of the non-decomposing remains of the previous year’s 2.2 billion, on top of the… Used… Read More
When he was a U.S. senator, George J. Mitchell spent almost every weekend visiting various parts of Maine. He covered the whole state again and again. Today, as a Washington lawyer and part-time diplomat, he remains a virtual presence in every Maine high school, through the scholarship program… Read More
A long-standing regular feature of every legislative session is the debate on the cost and effectiveness of state programs to encourage business growth in Maine. In recent years, much of the debate has focused upon the Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement (BETR) program, the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program… Read More
The Legislature, apparently under the belief that life here is so sublime that all Maine needs is a chamois buffing to make it shine in splendor, has taken the time this session to engage in discourse on a tax break for chocolate, cell-phone restrictions and special recognition for… Read More
President George Bush recently displayed three American families who would benefit from his tax-cut plan as he began to push the plan through Congress. There isn’t a platform in the world large enough to hold the number of people eager to describe how to better deliver the tax… Read More
John DiIulio Jr., director of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is dedicated, smart, talkative and outspoken. Especially outspoken. The other day, he came out against the repeal of the estate tax, one of President Bush’s favorite proposals. He told The… Read More
Almost every state sells itself as a tourist destination, some more convincingly than others. Maine’s natural beauty, its open spaces and three-season activities (spring is a bit of a bust) give it a huge advantage over most. Its problem has been being able to afford to tell people… Read More
The large majority of Maine veterans do not use VA health care facilities and it is a good thing they don’t. The number visiting Veterans Affairs Medical and Regional Office Center at Togus last year jumped to 22,000 from 17,000 the year before and veterans are once again… Read More
President Bush continues to endear himself to the public with his “regular guy” image, now it’s his folksy practice of giving cute nicknames to members of Congress. Sen. Olympia Snowe is “The Big O” (the letter, not the number) and Sen. Susan Collins is “Sweet Susan.” OK, so… Read More
Six years of squabbling that put the United States nearly $1 billion in debt to the United Nations were swept away last week when the Senate voted without a single dissenting vote to back a repayment plan in exchange for a future reduction in the U.S. share of… Read More
Each time another too-hot Internet company starts selling off its office furniture on the way to bankruptcy, a plan by two Colby professors to save Social Security looks more like a smart investment. Congress should think so, too, and seriously consider their proposal. Economics Professors… Read More
An illegal “pyramid” scam has been secretly sweeping Maine. It is a get-rich-quick scheme that often calls itself Women Helping Women, a name swiped from a longstanding legitimate organization that supports battered women. It works like this: Women who enter the scam in groups of… Read More
The related actions last week of Sen. John McCain seeking compromise with Democrats over a patients’ bill of rights and President George Bush responding with a set of principles to guide the debate suggest that the three-year fight to protect patients soon could be resolved. Both leaders have… Read More
Maine is setting a new standard of beauty as it refurbishes the seat of government in Augusta. The Capitol, always lovely as well as imposing since it was built in 1832, is taking on new grandeur. And the State Office Building, which for so long has set the… Read More
In his annual State of the Judiciary address Tuesday, Chief Justice Daniel Wathen described to the Legislature the long and difficult evolution of attitude his branch of government toward family violence. How the phrase “rule of thumb” comes from an early American court decision on how wide a… Read More
In statements made during his confirmation hearing and since, Secretary of State Colin Powell has made it clear that the Bush administration intends to distance itself from the frustrating Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, to buy some time for a fresh start in the Middle East. Those statements are supported… Read More
Bangor City Councilor Nichi Farnham got it right in her final point at the final meeting of the city’s Special Committee on Heroin Addiction last week. Critics may pick away endlessly at the conditions agreed to in the establishment of a methadone treatment facility here, she said, but… Read More
The measure used in a new Maine tax study to decide whether a tax is progressive or regressive is called the Suits Index. A tax is considered progressive if the wealthy pay at a higher rate than the poor and regressive if the reverse is true. The Suits… Read More
Maine’s state and local tax burden is either the highest in the country, or it is at the national average. Its tax system is either commendably progressive or painfully regressive. The tax burden is high because the level of taxation is outrageous, or because income levels here are… Read More
With the Softwood Lumber Agreement between the United States and Canada set to expire at the end of March, Congress is again looking for ways to settle a decades-long dispute over whether provincial governments in Canada subsidize the lumber industry there by providing low stumpage fees. This issue,… Read More
This is tax week for President Bush, a final push of campaign-style events aimed at average Americans that will culminate Wednesday with a reunion of the “tax families” who joined him at election rallies. Call it hokey, but it’s working – the $1.6 trillion tax cut plan he… Read More
An independent report released last week said sloppy election night coverage by all television networks amounted to “a collective drag race on the crowded highway of democracy, recklessly endangering the electoral process, the political life of the country and their own credibility.” The report, conducted by three esteemed… Read More
The fact that none of the recent citizen-initiative petitions gathered the required number of signatures in time for January deadline is all the more reason to take seriously the current legislative proposals to make gathering signatures tougher. The lack of a specific issue – forestry, education, taxation –… Read More
Rep. John Michael admits his obscene and intimidating tirade against two senators in the halls of the State House was “inexcusable.” The time-consuming tangle the House Ethics Committee is making of the Auburn independent’s boorish outburst is inexplicable. All eyewitness accounts of the confrontation last… Read More
Maine children, more than one national group has concluded, have it great. The state regularly is listed among desirable places to live and in 1999 was called by the Children’s Rights Council the very best place to raise a child. The annual Maine Kids Count data book, released… Read More
The final report the Task Force on the Maine Learning Technology Endowment presented to the Legislature this week is a practical refinement of the proposal Gov. King announced just 11 months ago to equip all students from the seventh grade through high school with laptop computers. Almost as… Read More
The unsatisfying end to Pan Am Flight 103 trial Wednesday – one conviction, one acquittal, one government probably involved never prosecuted – has some U.S. leaders wondering whether a justice system is the proper means to settle acts of terrorism. It is a fair question, but considering the… Read More
Having been steered by the state in the last few years to use Medicaid for reimbursement as often as possible, providers of services to the mentally ill and mentally retarded, substance abusers and the elderly are understandably concerned about the King administration policy change that slows Medicaid growth… Read More
Bill Clinton shocked and dismayed his friends with his last-minute actions as he left office. The same actions – walking off with $190,000 worth of furniture and other gifts and pardoning scoundrels who had done him favors – delighted his enemies. They saw fresh proof that they had… Read More
Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection is expected tomorrow to decide whether FPLE, owner of the Wyman Station power plant in Yarmouth, can make re-quired reductions in the amount of nitrogen oxides the plant emits through a combination of on-site cuts and a trade for reductions elsewhere. It sounds… Read More
Maine can be proud of its two senators. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have carried forward their state’s tradition of strong independent-mindedness. They have brought credit to Maine in the spirit of Margaret Chase Smith, Edmund S. Muskie and George J. Mitchell. Sens. Snowe and… Read More
As the movement to ban the sale of mercury thermometers in Maine and throughout the nation gains momentum, it is worth noting that this is not merely a story of how obsolete and harmful products from time to time get shoved from the marketplace by new, safer versions. Read More
Winter is the favorite culprit for the unusually low physical fitness levels among children in Maine. And while not all northern states join Maine at the bottom of national fitness measures, the effects of cold weather are obvious to anyone looking now at the playing fields, playgrounds and… Read More
Business groups are using a new study by the National Academy of Sciences as proof that the ergonomics rules approved by the Clinton administration in November should be overturned. However, science didn’t choose a side in this case, but revealed, as it so often does, that the question… Read More
Gov. Angus King offered a 5 percent increase in General Purpose Aid to Education, a reasonable start for a debate on funding, but not the end of it. Some lawmakers are trying to agree early to that figure as a minimum funding level. But any legislators who think… Read More
In his State of the State address Tuesday, Gov. King acknowledged with commendable candor that Maine is a poor state; more precisely, a hard-working poor state. Further, it was clear that the governor recognizes that Maine’s most pressing problems – such as high tax burden, lagging college attainment… Read More
President Bush followed through on one of his central campaign promises this week by making education reform the first major initiative of his administration. He got a good start on a second by demonstrating a certain degree of skill as a unifier. The proposals presented… Read More
Next time one of those bitter storms comes barreling in from Newfoundland and Greenland, people are sure to call it a “nor’easter.” Television weatherpersons do it. Radio announcers do it. And even (gasp!) newspaper reporters do it. Nor’easter is wrong. Nor’west is fine, but not… Read More
You may be signing a contract without knowing it when you buy a computer program, a home appliance or a new car. The companies that make those things are trying to protect their rights to software that is embedded in the computer program or washing machine or automobile,… Read More
At the conclusion of his sixth year in office, Gov. Angus King has offered enough state-of-the-state addresses to skip the enthusiastic vision statements, inspiring words, aphorisms and discussions about how children are our future, etc. He provided them Tuesday anyway, maybe because he thought Maine needed some encouraging… Read More
The first bill on the Legislature’s docket is an old one – it tries to improve Maine’s funding formula by removing local income as an influence on state funding. Whether lawmakers address this issue by eliminating income outright, as proposed by LD 1, or by finding another method… Read More
The festivities surrounding the inauguration of President George W. Bush also marked the 10th anniversary of the event that defined the presidency of his father, the launching of the air campaign that began the 1991 Gulf War. The coincidence, barely noted here as a historical footnote, was widely… Read More
A 25 percent discount for prescription drugs for 225,000 Mainers without insurance is a significant step forward in this state’s attempt to help all residents obtain affordable health care. Human Services Commissioner Kevin Concannon and his staff deserve credit for putting together the federal Medicaid waiver needed to… Read More
The Senate Judiciary Committee last week heard the pros and cons of the most contentious of the nominations for the Bush Cabinet, that of John Ashcroft for attorney general. How should a senator vote, in order to exercise properly his or her constitutional duty to advise and consent?… Read More
A parting gift from the Clinton administration leaves the new residents of the White House with an interesting problem. As a new study from the General Accounting Office reports, the federal government has lost too many employees over the last decade, or at least not enough employees are… Read More
No one would plop 30 pounds of stones on the top of a car before driving around town or on the highway. Besides what those stones could do to the car’s paint job, it’s too dangerous for other drivers and police might consider the behavior more than a… Read More
In the chronic conflict over how to manage the use of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Maine can blunder through another legislative session with the same sets of opponents offering the same anecdotes and arguments for their version of reality. Or it can get serious about this issue by… Read More
An exercise-minded reader from Bangor sends the following: “A glorious, mild Sunday morning, the snow lay shining, the sky clear and we had no housework that couldn’t be ignored. Spouse and offspring roused along with self and off to alma mater in Orono for… Read More
The going has been so good the last eight years that the current slower rate of economic growth seems like a recession. In January 1993 there were about 50 Web sites worldwide, now the number is beyond counting. The Dow was 3,200 back then, today it flirts with… Read More
The nomination of Gale Norton, former attorney general of Colorado, to secretary of the interior caused predictable resistance from environmental groups a couple of weeks ago. Those groups promised to stop the confirmation process entirely or at least make her Senate hearing, scheduled for today, as damaging as… Read More
Maine Public Radio’s new slogan, “The radio you listen to,” raises two questions. One, of course, is about grammar and the placement of prepositions. The other is about meaning and whether this radio listens back. Following the Maine Public Broadcasting board of trustees meeting here… Read More
You may recall two years ago Gov. Angus King, noting that Maine’s highway budget fell short by some $56 million and noting further that a gas tax, paid partly by tourists and free of interest payments, was a far less expensive way to raise revenue than to issue… Read More
Forty years ago tonight, the nation’s 34th president closed out his two terms in office with a farewell address so pointed, yet so full of wistful optimism, that even his harshest critics the next morning must have scratched their heads and pondered, “Was that really Ike on the… Read More
For the last 28 years, members of Central Maine Power’s Public Safety Team have provided information to schoolchildren about staying safe around electricity. They have given the presentation approximately 7,000 times and must have wondered over the years whether they had a positive effect. Then, last month, they… Read More
It has been less than a year since Gov. Angus King proposed giving laptop computers to all Maine seventh-graders. Though initially opposed by every just about lawmaker whose grandpa didn’t have a laptop when he was a kid, the governor’s deft negotiating kept the bold idea alive. In… Read More