Through Maine Equal Justice's consumer rights work, we advocate for laws that ensure fairness in the financial marketplace and protections for low-income consumers. We also participate in court cases impacting Maine consumers and we work to make utilities more affordable for low-income Maine households. We are proud to have contributed to Maine having some of the strongest consumer laws in the country.
Our legal services team helps low-income people in Maine navigate the social safety net to figure out how they are going to pay this month's bills, afford a visit to the doctor, or figure out how to put food on the table. We work every day with Mainers who are surviving on the edge financially. Just one high-cost loan could be devastating to our clients and that is because these loans are rarely paid off, and often turn into multiple, repeat loans with escalating fees and interest. When people living in poverty have to pay extra-high rates of interest, they go without meeting their basic needs. The financial pressure from these rates subject the people we work with to even greater risk of hunger and homelessness.
This year, we worked with partners in the Maine Consumer Rights Network (MCRN), a network of individuals and organizations that coordinate efforts to advance and protect the interests of consumers in Maine, to pass bills at the legislature protecting Mainers from harmful practices that hold people back from finding an apartment and from advancing their education. We helped to defeat a bill that would have increased out-of-state lenders’ ability to make small dollar loans to borrowers in Maine at well over 100% annual percentage rates. We advocated with state agencies for more financial assistance for people struggling to pay heating and electric bills and to expand access to existing utilities assistance programs.
Courts uphold 2019 Maine consumer rights law
We are also celebrating a major victory in court this year. In 2019 Maine Equal Justice helped to pass an economic abuse statute to protect people who had been financially exploited due to domestic violence and sexual assault. Part of this law prevented debts that resulted from this type of financial exploitation from being reported on the victim’s credit report. The Credit Reporting Agencies challenged this part of the law in court, arguing that the State of Maine lacked the authority to pass this type of law because it was not permitted by laws passed by the federal government. In January, the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this argument and ruled that Maine did have the authority to pass this type of consumer protection. This decision has the potential to change how other states will pass legislation to protect a consumer’s credit report.
LD 913, An Act To Enact the Maine Data Collection Protection Act, is now law!
The Maine Courts are transitioning to an online record system. In states that have had online court records for years, many landlords look at the existence of an eviction record as evidence of wrongdoing, regardless of the basis or legal outcome. This creates unfair barriers to housing, and the experience of other states with rampant tenant blacklists shows us that the problem will grow quickly and exponentially when Maine’s court records become available online.
Andrea Bopp Stark, of the National Consumer Law Center said this in her testimony in support of this bill:
"In many states, housing court records are easily accessible online, making it hard for tenants to ever escape a past eviction case — even an eviction case that was dismissed or resolved in favor of the tenant." Read NCLC's full testimony here.
With LD 913, we worked with Rep. Tavis Hasenfus to eliminate this practice by protecting tenants by limiting access to electronically stored judicial records in eviction and small claims cases. Due to opposition, an amended version passed. The final bill limits a landlord’s ability to access electronically stored records in cases where the tenant was not found to have done anything wrong. More specifically, the bill only applies to cases that have been dismissed or entered in favor of a tenant, where a judgment is reached by agreement of the parties, or for judgments that are over three years old. Despite the amendments, we still celebrate the passage of this bill, as it will still protect some tenants from unfair screening by landlords.
LD 1838, An Act To Improve Student Access to Postsecondary School Transcripts and Diplomas, is also now law!
Maine Equal Justice has worked for years to increase access to post-secondary education and training for adults with low income and to reduce the many barriers they face that prevent them from successfully completing their education. That is why we supported LD 1838 this year, which was sponsored by Sen. Eloise Vitelli and championed by our friends at the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP).
It’s a common practice for universities and colleges in Maine to withhold the transcripts and diplomas of students who have outstanding balances. As a result, students are unable to finish their education or bring credits they’ve earned and paid for to another school. Without a diploma, students face greater obstacles in the job market and difficulty paying off debts, which they must do to receive their diploma. Our legal services team have observed that this issue, among others, leaves people feeling like higher education is no longer a viable option for them. This is truly unfortunate because not only do higher levels of education correlate with income, but post-secondary education increases one’s likelihood of being employed at all.
LD 1838 sought to eliminate the practice of postsecondary schools using the release of transcripts or diplomas as a tool for collecting debts from students. This bill was also amended and while the final version doesn’t fully eliminate the practice, progress was made. The final version of the bill requires colleges and universities to release transcripts and diplomas upon request for students at four-year programs who owe less than $2,500, or those at two-year programs who owe less than $500. For those with outstanding balances above those thresholds, they would have to commit to entering a repayment plan with their schools before receiving their transcripts (but would not have to first make an actual payment).
LD 1982, An Act To Protect Consumers' Privacy by Giving Them Greater Control of Their Data and To Establish Consumer Protections Regarding Small Dollar Loans, was defeated!
In 2021 Maine Equal Justice helped pass a law that made sure that Maine Interest Rate Caps applied to Payday lenders. This year some of the national payday lenders worked to remove these protections so that Payday lenders could exceed the interest rate caps included in Maine Law. Thanks to the work of Maine Equal Justice, other community and national partners and some dedicated legislators, Maine Equal Justice was able to defeat this bill and make sure that Maine consumers were protected by our state’s interest rate caps.
Maine Equal Justice focuses its work on many of the issues that affect people’s daily lives – access to adequate health care, housing, transportation and childcare; food and income security; and higher education and training. Maine Equal Justice is a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization. Our EIN is 04-3346273. 