Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Tuesday announced the order of the five ballot questions that Maine voters will consider this fall.
Question 1 proposes a $5,000 cap on contributions to political action committees that make so-called “independent expenditures” to support or oppose candidates in Maine. The ballot measure is regarded as a potential federal test case on limits to campaign contributions.
The next three questions are all general obligation bond measures put forward by the Maine Legislature.
Question 2 proposes $25 million in borrowing for research, development and commercialization for both private and public institutions in the life sciences, biomedical technology, environmental and renewable energy technology, information technology, advanced technologies for forestry and agriculture, aquaculture and marine technology, composites and advanced materials and precision manufacturing.
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Question 3 proposes $10 million in borrowing “to restore historic buildings owned by governmental and nonprofit organizations” with an obligation that the receive match at least 25% of the funds.
Question 4, which is a first for Maine, proposes $30 million in state borrowing to design, build and maintain trails for outdoor recreation and “active transportation.” The trails could be for non-motorized or motorized recreation.
The fifth and final ballot measure ask voters whether they want to replace Maine’s current state flag with a version featuring a pine tree and a blue star. The so-called Pine Tree flag was Maine’s official state flag for less than a decade at the beginning of the 20th Century but was replaced in 1909 by the blue flag displaying the state seal.
The pine tree flag has become extremely popular in Maine in recent years. But with so many variations out there, the secretary of state’s office solicited design proposals from the public featuring a pine tree and a blue, five-pointed star against a buff background. More than 300 entries were received and Bellows plans to announce a finalist in August before her office publishes a voter guide ahead of the referendum.
“We’re 98 days away from election day,” Bellows said during an event where the order of the ballot questions was established. “Get ready, check your voter registration, register to vote now, don’t wait and get ready to vote in November.”
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Opponents of electing the president by popular vote, rather than through the Electoral College, had been collecting signatures to block a new state law that would add Maine to the National Popular Vote interstate compact. But the campaign did not submit petition signatures in time to qualify for the November ballot.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Libertarian National Convention at the Washington Hilton in Washington, May 24, 2024. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on the ballot in Maine this November.
The secretary of state’s office confirmed this week that Kennedy – son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy – had gathered approximately 4,800 signatures from registered voters.
“We’re proud that Mainers’ voices are being heard,” the campaign’s Maine state director James Donahue said in a statement. “We collected signatures from nearly all of our 500 municipalities, highlighting the enormous support for Kennedy in Maine.”
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The campaign said it has now collected enough signatures to appear in the ballot in 34 states.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and prominent anti-vaccine activist, initially challenged President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary but then dropped out after it was clear he had little traction there.
Although he’s seen as a longshot, Kennedy could still impact the race in some states. Whether he will siphon off support from Republican Donald Trump or the Democratic nominee – likely Vice President Kamala Harris – is still unclear.
A poll of Maine voters released last week by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed Kennedy with 4% support, compared to 48% who favored Harris and 40% who said they backed Trump.
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I’ve been glad to see recent coverage of the extreme Project 2025, the blueprint members of the far right created to run the country if former President Trump is re-elected. I’ve seen little discussion of Project 2025’s plans for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), so I read the HUD chapter in this “Mandate for Leadership,” written by Trump’s HUD Secretary, Ben Carson (Chapter 15).
I believe the proposed “reforms” in Project 2025 will worsen the housing and homelessness crisis in Maine.
Among other things, Carson proposes to: 1) Divert funding from construction of new affordable rental housing to single-family homeownership; 2) Prioritize rental assistance for married heads of households; 3) Limit how long people can receive rental assistance; 3) Create work requirements for housing assistance; 4) Preference use of shorter term mortgages (less than 20 years) to speed up wealth-building (limiting buyers’ affordability); and 5) Prohibit undocumented people from receiving housing assistance (even when married to a U.S. citizen).
Everyone who works with HUD would agree it needs reform. But there’s also no doubt these Project 2025 policies would hurt those who need housing assistance the most. In one footnote (p. 515), Carson acknowledges that “Housing supply does remain a problem in the U.S., but constructing more units at the low end of the market will not solve the problem.”
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His solution is to turn the private sector loose on the problem, conveniently ignoring that it’s the market’s utter failure to supply decent, livable housing at the low end of the market that led to Congress creating housing programs to address the issue. Carson’s “trickle down housing” will only reward the already affluent.
Carson believes that when it comes to affordable housing, “… American homeowners and citizens know best what is in the interest of their neighborhoods and communities.” I’m a strong advocate for community involvement, but the reality is that existing homeowners’ misperceptions that affordable housing will reduce their property values leads them to reject such projects. Their goal is to increase their home values, which they believe are enhanced by limiting development and restricting it to high-cost homes.
Carson wants to promote homeownership as a pathway to wealth building, and generations Americans have, in fact, benefited from this. But the windfall profits many of us will enjoy from the sale of our homes are the barrier to entry for the next generation of homebuyers. In Maine, the median sale price of a home recently topped $400,000. Promotion of housing as an investment through tax incentives such as the mortgage interest tax deduction (MID) disproportionately benefits the most affluent homeowners (who are predominantly white. The MID is one of the largest federal expenditures for housing assistance and it skews the single family-market in favor of those who need the assistance the least.
As young people struggle to afford their first homes or apartments, and homelessness is steadily increasing, the MID also subsidizes the purchase of vacation homes, including those purchased in other countries. Carson doesn’t address this.
Nowhere does Carson suggest that HUD should promote use of shared equity ownership models, such as low-income housing cooperatives or community land trusts. That’s a shame. Shared equity models benefit lower-income households by reducing the cost of entry, holding down their housing costs over the long term and giving them much greater control over their living situations than renting in the private market. Currently, public subsidies used to make home purchase more affordable end up in those fortunate homebuyers’ pockets when the short-term affordability requirements end. Because they are permanently attached to the housing, shared equity models are a far thriftier use of public subsidies.
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We should reject Project 2025 by voting against Trump in the November election. Maine, and the country, can’t afford either Carson’s proposed housing policies or the threat the overall plan poses to our democracy.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filed enough signatures to appear on Maine’s presidential ballot this November.
The Maine Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Monday evening that Kennedy — an environmental attorney and well-known anti-vaccination activist — had gathered more than 4,800 signatures from registered voters. As an independent, Kennedy had until Aug. 1 to file between 4,000 and 5,000 signatures in order to qualify for the fall ballot.
Kennedy is running as an independent after dropping an initial bidto challenge President Biden in the Democratic primary. According to his campaign, Kennedy has collected enough signatures for ballot access in 34 states and has qualified in more than a dozen. And while his campaign is widely viewed as a longshot, election observers say his presence on ballots across the country could impact the race.
“We’re proud that Mainers’ voices are being heard,” Kennedy campaign Maine state director James Donahue said in a statement. “We collected signatures from nearly all of our 500 municipalities, highlighting the enormous support for Kennedy in Maine.”
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Kennedy is part of an American political dynasty, as the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. But RFK Jr. is arguably best known for leading one of the nation’s largest and most vocal anti-vaccination organizations, Children’s Health Defense.
Public health groups and vaccination advocates have accused Kennedy of spreading misinformation on vaccine safety, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. His controversial views could make help him to pick up support among vaccine skeptics and Republican or libertarian voters.
Kennedy was polling 4% in a recent survey of Maine voters, which was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center after Biden’s withdrawal from the race. The poll showed 48% of respondents said they would vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris while 40% supported former Republican President Donald Trump.
