The 2022 legislative session is underway! These are Maine Equal Justice’s top legislative priorities as of January 2022, but as the legislative session moves forward, we may add more bills that meet our goals of increasing economic security, opportunity, and equity to this list.

Good bills are on the table in Augusta, and they can succeed if we all support them. Stay involved! Sign up to take action.

Health Care: 

LD 718 - An Act To Improve the Health of Maine Residents By Closing Coverage Gaps in MaineCare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Sponsor: Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross)
Staff contact: Alex Carter acarter@mejp.org and Kathy Kilrain del Rio kkilraindelrio@mejp.org

Maine is a stronger, healthier, and more resilient state when everyone has health care, including our family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers who are immigrants. With bipartisan support, last year the legislature and Gov. Mills closed gaps in health coverage for people under 21 and pregnant people. Passing LD 718 would ensure that all Maine residents with low incomes have access to MaineCare regardless of their immigration status. This bill would be a huge step toward a health care system that works for all of us.

Addressing Racial Inequity:

LD 1626 - An Act Implementing the Recommendations of the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act (Sponsor: Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross)
Staff contact: Joby Thoyalil jthoyalil@mejp.org 

The Wabanaki Alliance and allies are working to pass historic legislation that would fix Maine state law by recognizing tribal sovereignty and establishing a government-to-government relationship between the State of Maine and each tribal nation. State law currently relegates the tribes as subsidiaries to the state, similar to that of cities and towns, despite the fact that they are sovereign nations. Based on consensus recommendations from a bipartisan task force of legislators and tribal representatives formed by the Maine Legislature, LD 1626 deals with this and other long-standing issues with a land claims act passed in 1980 that governs the relationship between the state and the tribes in Maine.

LD 1610 - An Act To Promote Equity in Policy Making by Enhancing the State's Ability To Collect, Analyze and Apply Data (Sponsor: Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross)
Staff contact: Joby Thoyalil jthoyalil@mejp.org 

Last year, Maine took a significant step in the fight against systemic racism by passing LD 2, giving legislators the ability to request racial impact statements on legislation. These statements about a bill’s potential impact on racial disparities will only be effective if Maine gathers more and better data about the demographics of our state’s diverse communities. We need this data to take a more honest and complete look at how racial and economic disparities are working to change the availability of opportunities and resources. With more complete data, the legislature can produce high-quality racial impact statements and policymakers can create better solutions that recognize the needs of different demographics.  

Reducing Child Poverty:

LD 1748 - An Act Regarding the So-called Leveraging Investments so Families Can Thrive Report Produced by the Department of Health and Human Services (Sponsor: Sen. Ned Claxton) Staff contact: Ann Danforth adanforth@mejp.org  

A social safety net should provide real opportunities for parents to build a secure future for their kids, dignifying all families with enough support to choose the right path to reach their full potential. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and its work program, ASPIRE, have not always helped families meet their needs or their goals, but they could. LD 1748 will help Maine take necessary steps to improve these vital programs to ensure it is truly helping families obtain and retain employment that sustains their families and expand education and training opportunities to address Maine’s workforce needs.  

Consumer Rights: 

LD 913 An Act To Enact the Maine Data Collection Protection Act (Sponsor: Rep. Tavis Hasenfus) Staff contact: Joby Thoyalil jthoyalil@mejp.org 

Finding an affordable place to live has become extremely difficult in Maine, and the pandemic has only made it harder. When tenants receive an eviction notice, it can ruin their rental history and make it hard to move to another apartment. This includes tenants with “no-cause” evictions, meaning they did not violate any rules or miss any payments and were evicted solely because their landlord chose to evict them. If left alone, newly-instituted online court records could become an indiscriminate “tenant screening” tool, widely-used by landlords who deny applicants simply because their name appears on a court filing, without understanding the context or outcome of the case. LD 913’s simple data protections will ensure that online court records don’t unfairly prevent Mainers who were evicted for “no-cause” from finding housing.

Housing:  

LR 2299 An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Commission To Increase Housing Opportunities in Maine by Studying Zoning and Land Use Restrictions (Speaker Ryan Fecteau) and LD 1673 An Act To Create a Comprehensive Permit Process for the Construction of Affordable Housing (Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross) Staff contact: Deborah Ibonwa dibonwa@mejp.org

Zoning laws shape our communities and our lives, because where we live makes a big difference in how we live. Zoning controls the amount and kind of housing that can be built in cities and towns all across the state. This influences who has access to good schools and parks, who gets to live in safe and healthy places, and who can be close to good job opportunities. Each of these bills seeks to make changes to Maine’s zoning laws to enable the creation of more affordable housing statewide and make our communities more equitable.

LD 473 An Act To Create the Maine Rental Assistance Program (Sponsor Rep. Victoria Morales) Staff contact: Deborah Ibonwa dibonwa@mejp.org 

Even before the pandemic, thousands of Maine households faced eviction, foreclosure, or homelessness, even people who had secured federal housing vouchers but could not find safe and affordable places to live. The pandemic has made this problem tragically worse. LD 473 would provide financial help for up to 1,000 Maine households and establish a network of housing counselors across the state to help people find and keep stable housing. These housing counselors will also ensure Maine doesn’t leave essential federal housing funds on the table when so many Mainers can’t afford rent. 

Civil Legal Aid Funding:

LD 1326 -  An Act To Provide Funding for the Maine Civil Legal Services Fund (Sponsor: Rep. Barbara Cardone) Staff contact: Robyn Merrill rmerrill@mejp.org 

Civil legal aid provides access to legal help for people to protect their livelihoods, their health, and their families when they cannot afford it on their own. LD 1326 would increase the state’s investment in civil legal aid by establishing a General Fund appropriation to the Maine Civil Legal Services Fund for the first time. Investing more in civil legal aid will move Maine closer to fulfilling the promise of equal justice for ALL, result in an influx of millions of dollars into Maine’s economy bringing tangible cost savings to our state and putting money back into our local economy, and make the court system work better and more efficiently. Improved funding would move Maine toward reaching the National Justice Index standard of 10 legal aid lawyers per 10,000 low income people by 2031.