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| 📷 Former President Donald Trump visits the Treworgy Family Orchards in Levant on Oct. 25, 2020. (AP photo by Alex Brandon) |
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🔇 Republicans "SHOULD VOTE NO" on a Maine senator's electoral reform bill, the ex-president says.
◉ The pronouncement from former President Donald Trump came after the Democratic-led House approved a Wednesday bill aiming to shore up archaic language and other vulnerabilities that Trump tried to exploit after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
◉ This measure is more sweeping than the version expected to have the best chance to pass, led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. It has drawn more than 10 Republican sponsors, meaning it should have enough support to get through the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, is expected to back it, Politico reported this week.
◉ Trump called Collins "wacky" in January when she began to publicly push for such a measure. While he still has a major hold on his party, the bill looks to be headed toward passage in the upper chamber with senators in far different positions than the Republicans trying to win back the House.
🎣 A dam owner pressures the governor again on a new campaign issue.
◉ The owner of the Shawmut Dam in Fairfield argued in a Thursday filing that an enhanced fish-passage plan it sent to federal regulators is further evidence that the state should sign off on a key water-quality permit for the dam by mid-October.
◉ The Mills administration has been locked in a war with the dam owner, which is a subsidiary of the global investment giant Brookfield Asset Management, since it proposed removing this dam and three others last year. That plan is now off the table, but the state declined to approve a new permit for the Fairfield dam in July, citing changes being made in a federal proceeding.
◉ Things are ramping up in the home stretch of Mills' reelection campaign. LePage called a news conference last week to hammer her on the dam's vital link to the Skowhegan paper mill and the local chamber of commerce released an economic impact study on the dams this week.
🚔 A party-bending police endorsement features in a new congressional ad.
◉ Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine's 2nd District, is continuing to play to the middle of the electorate with a new ad released Friday that features members of the Maine Lodge Fraternal Order of Police discussing the group's endorsement.
◉ It was split between LePage and Golden this year, leading former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, Golden's Republican challenger, to say the group "had the wool pulled over their eyes." Members did not like that quote. |
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What we're reading
💻 The Mills administration stood by an online lesson featuring a video calling terms including Trump's slogan an example of "covert racism" after Republicans used it in their campaign to replace her.
⛪ Cheverus High School in Portland was the only religious school to apply for a state tuition reimbursement program after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision against Maine, the Associated Press reported.
🐭 Maine's life sciences industry is the fastest-growing one in the state, spurred along by the pandemic.
⛔ Three dining halls and a residence hall were closed as a result of a steep enrollment decline at the University of Maine in Orono. |
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