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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
Well that was different.
On Tuesday, Gov. Janet Mills presented her State of the State address. Traditionally, governors have delivered it live to the Maine Legislature with about an hour of content. Former Gov. Paul LePage bucked that trend back in 2016, instead sending an eight-page written letter to the House and Senate.
Mills decided to do both.
Early in the day, she released an 11-page written update addressed to the Legislature. Then she spent the evening delivering a speech clocking in just under an hour.
Suffice to say there is a lot to unpack.
The proposals which have generated the most headlines thus far deal with firearms. Reactions have been varied.
Some Republicans have called them “gibberish.” The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine has not staked out a position. Some gun control activists have already decided Mills’ proposals do not go far enough.
As always, it’s better to read beyond the headline. And the devil is often hidden somewhere in the details.
Since we do not yet have the details of Gov. Mills’ proposals, we are left to react to the descriptions she offered. It seems as though she has three big ideas.
The first deals with Maine’s “yellow flag” law. It has rightfully received a lot of attention after Robert Card’s shooting spree in Lewiston, followed by the revelation that he was on law enforcement’s radar for months.
Mills proposes to expand the law surrounding police authority to take people into protective custody in certain situations. That seems like a good idea. While the investigatory commission’s work is ongoing, Sagadahoc deputies testified last week they felt they could not compel Card to answer the door at his house when undertaking a check following reports of concerning behavior.
Finding a way forward there — striking a balance between civil liberties and public safety — should be something that the Legislature could design a plan to agree upon.
Her second big proposal is a little more challenging. She suggests increasing criminal liability for those providing firearms to prohibited persons. More specifically, she wants to expand responsibility from those who “knowingly” or “intentionally” provide weapons to those who do so “recklessly.”
She would also upgrade the crime to a felony from a misdemeanor.
This one is a bit more tricky. “Reckless” is a legal term of art that can be fairly broad in the hands of an enterprising prosecutor. And it isn’t hard to think that political considerations could lead an elected district attorney seeking re-election or higher office to stake out a position politically popular with some segment of citizens and stretch the law.
We saw it several years ago in Massachusetts. In the late 1990s, the Commonwealth enacted an assault weapons ban. That was their right. Over many years, it was interpreted one way. Then, in 2016, state Attorney General Maura Healey decided to issue an enforcement notice applying the law differently with no new legislative action.
You may now know her as Gov. Maura Healey.
Finally, Mills’ biggest announcement was a novel approach to background checks. She proposes that they will be required for all “advertised sales.”
Points for creativity. And it has some merit. However, that pesky devil is likely to pop up once legal language is printed.
A sale following a specific Uncle Henry’s ad is fairly straightforward. But what about a memere advertising an estate sale and selling her late husband’s old .22 varmint rifle to the nice neighbor boy who just celebrated his 18th birthday? Would nana be a criminal?
An alternative idea might be setting a limit on the number of firearms sold in a year before someone is deemed a “commercial seller” subject to the background check requirement. Or maybe someone else has another idea.
Whatever the way forward, it is incumbent on Republican legislators to truly engage on the proposals. If Democrats work together, their majority means something is going to pass.
It will be up to Republicans to make it workable for law-abiding Mainers.
