AUGUSTA, Maine — The highest-profile item in Gov. Janet Mills’ spending plan may be in danger due to skepticism from legislative Democrats at a sensitive time for the governor’s political future.
Relief checks of $300 that would go to an estimated 725,000 Mainers were a highlight of Mills’ final State of the State speech in January. Her proposal is now in the hands of the Legislature’s budget committee, which finished hearings last month and is whittling down a final proposal.
Mills has generally gotten her way in budget battles during eight years of full Democratic control of Augusta. But lawmakers in her party are divided on this new round of relief checks, which are being considered after the governor trailed in two consecutive polls in a U.S. Senate primary against insurgent candidate Graham Platner.
“I don’t think the Legislature should ever be in a position where we’re seen as buying votes, giving out checks in an election year,” Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Orono, who works for the progressive Maine People’s Alliance that has endorsed Platner, said. “I think there are some very specific needs we might address.”
That skepticism from Mills’ left mirrors cynicism from Republicans about the timing of the checks. Several of the minority party’s members walked out of the governor’s defiant January address, which invoked her opposition to President Donald Trump. Clips from that speech quickly appeared in a round of ads for her campaign.
Platner’s campaign has drawn momentum from progressives’ frustration with the governor. Mills has typically had a restraining effect on her party, resisting calls to increase taxes on high earners, opposing sweeping tribal sovereignty and vetoing priority bills for unions, including an attempt at binding arbitration for public workers.
The relief checks would be paid for with roughly $218 million from Maine’s rainy day fund, which sits at a statutory maximum of $1 billion. She pitched it as one of the major ways the state could address high costs, which 75% of Mainers said was a top issue in a poll released last week by Pan Atlantic Research and also hangs over national politics.
“I think it’s more necessary than ever before,” Mills said Thursday in Houlton.
Affordability has been a watchword among legislative Democrats as well. They have launched a “Lower Costs, Stronger Communities” legislative agenda targeted at health care and other policy areas. Republicans have rolled their eyes at this focus, noting housing and energy prices have soared during Democratic control.
Spokespeople for Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, did not respond to a request for comment on the relief check proposal. Fecteau is pushing several proposals aimed at affordability, including one seeking to buffer the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to food assistance programs.
The liberal Maine Women’s Lobby is pushing lawmakers to fill federal funding gaps, including family planning money that made it into Mills’ budget, noted Destie Hohman Sprague, the group’s executive director. Her group would rather have surplus money go to programs that can operate into the future, such as the new paid leave regime it championed.
“I would love to see rainy day funds building out lasting infrastructure that we can then support for the long term,” Hohman Sprague said.
Mills wants to send the $300 payments to single income tax filers making up to $75,000 and couples making $150,000 or less. Rep. Marc Malon, D-Biddeford, said he doesn’t begrudge the idea of direct relief but would be open to more targeted aid for Mainers.
“I’m not jumping up and down about the idea, but I’m not pooh-poohing it, either,” he said.
Key spending decisions will ultimately be made by the appropriations committee. Malon said he will let the process play out. Rep. Tiffany Roberts, D-South Berwick, said she has not heard much from constituents on the checks, unlike during negotiations around direct relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The checks have their supporters, however. Rep. Cassie Julia, D-Waterville, said her support for them is informed by her experience as a single mother facing heavy everyday costs.
“Not only is there a direct benefit to families, but there’s no faster way to economically stimulate Maine than dumping $200 million into our economy,” she said.