Photograph by Caitlin Andrews.
In the present day, we proceed a periodic compilation of reporting on the state’s politics main as much as the Nov. 8 elections.
Abortion rights spending approach up
The Monitor’s Caitlin Andrews finds that Deliberate Parenthood New England’s political motion committee has spent what seems to be a report quantity in unbiased expenditures to affect this 12 months’s elections.
Most of it went to help Democrat Janet Mills and oppose Republican challenger Paul LePage, although a few of the cash additionally went to a couple key state legislative races.
Learn Caitlin’s story here.
Democrats are emphasizing the risk to abortion rights this fall within the wake of the US Supreme Court docket determination overturning the Roe v. Wade determination.
Spending by all exterior teams has exploded in current weeks, reaching some $13-million, in line with Maine Public.
In a newsy roundup of the marketing campaign season, Maine Public’s political workforce notes that exterior teams have spent greater than $2 million on state legislative races in Maine this season.
Concern: the protection lawyer scarcity
Monitor reporter Samantha Hogan, who has uncovered systemic shortcomings of authorized illustration for indigent shoppers throughout the state, appears to be like at how LePage and Mills have addressed the issue and the way they may if elected.
Learn Samantha’s story here. And right here’s a fast recap of the state of affairs:
Dozens of protection legal professionals have briefly or altogether stopped accepting new court-appointments to instances, which threatens an precise denial of counsel in some counties. The courts are dealing with a doable multiyear backlog of cases. And up to date pleas for a particular session of the Legislature to approve emergency funding have gone unanswered.
“Neither governor has demonstrated any understanding in any way of the magnitude of the disaster,” James Howaniec, a Lewiston lawyer, informed The Maine Monitor.
Points: housing and immigration
Native housing officers rebuked Republican congressional candidate Bruce Poliquin for a narrative he’s informed on the marketing campaign path claiming {that a} homeless lady informed him she was bumped from a housing listing by undocumented immigrants.
In response to the Bangor Daily News, the Maine Affiliation of Public Housing Authority Administrators issued a press release that didn’t title Poliquin however clearly was geared toward his marketing campaign path story.
“Such misinformation erodes belief within the public housing system on which so many people and households rely for protected, high quality reasonably priced housing, and it can’t be left uncorrected,” learn the assertion, in line with the BDN.
The Border Patrol Union has endorsed Poliquin as a part of a nationwide marketing campaign.
In the meantime, Maine Public’s Steve Mistler offered a take a look at LePage’s shifting rhetoric on immigration.
Ballot outcomes
A brand new ballot put financial points forward of abortion as the highest difficulty amongst Mainers, in line with the Portland Press Herald.
“When Roe was overturned, it form of threw a bunch of issues into flux and abortion form of sucked up the entire power within the room and that gave a number of Democrats some hope,” Mark Brewer, the chair of the political science division on the College of Maine in Orono, informed the Press Herald. “However as soon as we’ve gotten additional away from that, the issues that had been regarding voters earlier than Roe was overturned appears to have pushed their approach again to the highest of the listing.”
Within the race for governor, the ballot put Mills forward of LePage. US Rep. Jared Golden was main Republican challenger Bruce Poliquin.
Discover the ballot by Pan Atlantic Analysis here.
Extra debates forward
From Maine Public: “The WGME/BDN debate will happen Monday, adopted by a Information Middle Maine/Maine State Chamber of Commerce debate on Thursday. The ultimate gubernatorial debate might be hosted by WABI-WAGM on Nov. 3.”
David Dahl is the editor of The Maine Monitor. He will be reached by e mail: david@themainemonitor.org.
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