Maine
Shenna Bellows will fight for Maine as governor | Opinion
Stephanie Cotsirilos lived in the Bangor area for 17 years and now lives in Portland.
I never thought I’d draft legislation, but after I witnessed Maine voters being intimidated in 2002, I did. A year after the bill passed, Shenna Bellows met me for lunch to tell me how she and her ACLU colleagues were making sure the new voter protections were followed. At that restaurant table, I recognized something at Shenna’s core: her conviction that, without access to the ballot, we lose all our other rights.
She acts on that truth even when it’s personally risky. Maine and the nation have witnessed her weathering attacks, then returning to Mainers’ needs. Now, when we rely on states as bulwarks against federal aggression, she will be the courageous and compassionate governor we need, in part because she remembers what happened in 2002.
That year, I was a volunteer voter protection attorney in Orono. I watched both familiar
and unidentified persons at the polls challenge, on the spot, UMaine students’ right to cast a ballot. By dinner time, the challenges occurred once every minute. All voting stopped. The voter’s name was announced aloud. Students flushed red and turned on their heels to leave rather than be called out publicly for having done nothing wrong. Poll watchers began documenting each challenge.
Another lawyer showed up to help witness the three Orono polling sites. The Secretary of State’s office was on notice. Finally, I filed a written complaint with an elections warden. Still, the harm was done. That election yielded more challenged Maine ballots than in the prior decades combined.
Having seen what voter suppression looked like, some Orono residents who’d participated in the challenges apologized. At the time, however, Maine law permitted polling-place challenges without evidence, simply by asserting lack of “residency.” Some folks believed that the Maine Constitution prohibits all students from voting where they go to school. But that’s not accurate.
While the Maine Constitution says students aren’t entitled to vote in a municipality solely because they go to school there, Maine statutes clearly state that neither can students be prohibited from voting where they attend school — as long as they meet age, citizenship and residency requirements like anyone else.
So after the election, my town colleagues and I gathered data, researched and drafted the current voter challenge law. It allows a person to exercise her right to challenge someone she believes is unqualified to vote at a polling place — as long as she signs a sworn affidavit that identifies herself as challenger, the person challenged and the reasons and source of information supporting the challenge.
Passing a law is one thing, though. Following it is another. Shenna and her colleagues ensured that the new law was followed, resources like Maine Students Vote have emerged and unjustified polling place confrontations have fallen dramatically.
Fast forward to now. Shenna’s a leader among nationwide secretaries of state with whom she closely collaborates — refusing to give away our private voter information to the federal government and resisting presidential executive orders seeking to illegally federalize elections.
As she’s explained on national media, under the United States Constitution elections are
managed by the states — with adjustments, if proper, to be made by Congress, not the executive. Meanwhile, Shenna’s instituted online voter registration and, in furtherance of civil rights, paused issuance of undercover Maine license plates to ICE in light of its lawless tactics.
Shenna routinely obtains bipartisan support for her work and was elected — three times — to the Legislature from a Trump district because she cares authentically about her neighbors’ needs, like property tax relief, and does something about them.
In short, Shenna champions our ability to govern ourselves, to pursue our values and economic well-being in Maine as we see fit. She knows that all those things — and our democracy — depend on our making choices in the voting booth without fear of intimidation.
Because she’s fought for such foundational freedom all her life, and fights for it now, I’ll
rank Shenna my first choice for governor on June 9.
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Three more women have signed onto a federal lawsuit against the Maine Department of Corrections for allowing transgender prisoners to be housed in facilities that align with their gender identity.
First brought by Katie Mountain in April, the lawsuit now includes Jennifer Albert, Michaela Sargent and Danielle Foster, who say they live in fear at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham because of the department’s policy.
According to the lawsuit, the women have been sexually assaulted, threatened and repeatedly harassed by several transgender prisoners, including Andrea Balcer, who Mountain says caused “extreme physical and psychological distress.”
Balcer is serving a 40-year sentence for the murder of both parents in 2017.
Mountain, who was housed with Balcer when she began serving a 10-month sentence in January, alleges that while bunking together, Balcer subjected her to “graphic sexual stories, trapped her in a bathroom, pushed her against the wall, forcibly kissed her, and made repeated threats of rape and impregnation.”
Sargent describes waking up to Balcer stroking her hair and saying, “if you don’t wake up it’s because I smothered you with a pillow.” She also alleges that Balcer once grabbed her shirt and demanded, “show me your boobs.”
Attorney Cynthia Dill, who represents the plaintiffs, said in a press release that when the women reported the abuse or refused to affirm Balcer’s gender identity, they were met with retaliation by being placed in segregation, being denied hygiene supplies and medication and losing eligibility for early release.
In their lawsuit, the women argue that the policy mandates gender affirmation with “deliberate indifference to the safety, privacy and civil rights of women incarcerated in the State of Maine.” They say “gender identity” first made its way into Maine laws that govern corrections in 2021.
The plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction against the gender identity law and related state correctional policies along with damages.
Jill O’Brien, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Corrections, said in a statement that the department takes residents’ safety concerns very seriously.
“Anytime a resident makes a report of physical or sexual violence or harassment to staff, the Department investigates,” O’Brien said. “If the conduct that occurred rises to the level of a crime, it is referred to the District Attorney for prosecution. If it violates the Department’s disciplinary policy, the residents involved are disciplined.”
O’Brien added that information about specific residents is confidential and information about specific residents is confidential.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
KENNEBUNK (WGME) — A national wildlife refuge in Maine has a new center for its visitors.
At a ribbon cutting in Kennebunk Wednesday, Maine leaders celebrated the grand opening of the Rachel Carson Center for People and Nature.
The new center offers exhibits and programs for the nearly 300,000 visitors that stop by the refuge each year.
The center’s grand opening coincides with the late author Rachel Carson’s birthday.
Carson’s research helped to spur conservation efforts and environmental policy changes in the 1960s, something Congresswoman Chellie Pingree says she’s now fighting for decades later.
“We’ve actually come 180 degrees, we think science is wrong and we shouldn’t believe in it and climate change doesn’t exist,” Pingree said. “We’re battling an anti-science battle, and we have to continue to take it on, but one of the best ways to do that is to bring people right here in touch with nature.”
The refuge in total spans more than 6,000 acres across several cities and towns in southern Maine.
The typical home in Maine’s largest city costs nearly $300,000 more than it would have a decade ago, a new study revealed.
Median home prices in Portland surged from $263,000 to $558,000 over the past 10 years, according to an analysis of nationwide real estate data from Construction Coverage. That’s a 112% spike in the last decade, earning the city the 85th spot among all small U.S. cities ranked by housing price growth.
Meanwhile, the median Maine home cost about $193,000 in 2016 and $407,000 in 2026. That 111% growth makes Maine the state with the third highest real estate price jump over the last decade.
The report reveals that Maine’s housing has not only become unaffordable to most people in the state, but that Mainers are feeling the pressure of rising home prices more than almost every other state while wages have struggled to keep up. Nationwide, home values jumped more than 81% in the last decade.
The report includes data from Zillow, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
While median housing prices across the state rose 110% over the last 10 years, median household income rose by 53%. It shows that many Mainers aren’t able to afford the rising costs.
The Maine Housing Outlook Report, released in January by MaineHousing, noted housing prices outpacing wages as an “ongoing concern.”
“In 2015, the median income in Maine exceeded by 21% what was needed to afford the median home price in the state. In other words, an average earner could afford an average home,” the report stated. “This is no longer the case.”
Only Idaho and New Hampshire have seen housing prices grow more than Maine, according to the analysis.
Idaho saw the highest jump, as median property values rose 137% to surpass $473,000 this year when the same home there would’ve cost just under $200,000 in 2016.
In New Hampshire, median home prices rose more than $270,000 over the last 10 years to $507,000 this year — a 114% spike.
Meanwhile, median household income in Idaho and New Hampshire climbed by 64% and 50%, respectively, during the same period.
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