Action 82 - MAINE legislation – week of March 31 – April 4

This must be “hell week” (1) in the Maine legislature!  Well over 125 bills are up for public hearing, and an almost equal number have work sessions. Some bills are more consequential than others, but even the bills that seem trivial may be important to someone.  All we can hope to do here is present SOME of the bills that have hearings this week.  They are in the table below. Not included are work sessions, which you can observe but not participate in.  We’ve made suggestions about whether the bill should be supported or opposed, but use your own judgment!  We’re quite sure we’ve inadvertently left some important bills out. 

For a complete list of bills with hearings and work sessions this upcoming week, see https://legislature.maine.gov/Calendar/#PHWS. (132nd legislature, 1st session) To see ALL the bills scheduled for the week, change the date in the “Select Start Date” box until you get the dates you are interested in.  This calendar could change, so check back at that website often, especially before making travel plans to testify.  Clicking on the tab labeled “By Sponsor” shows you at a glance what your legislator has been introducing.  It's a useful way to see what their priorities are. 

Once you have determined that a bill title looks interesting, either by checking the table on the next page or by scrolling through bill titles on the website above, here’s what we suggest you do:

1.     Look up the bill by number at https://legislature.maine.gov/legis/bills/search_ps.asp.

2.     Click on the yellow box “Printed LD PDF” to display the bill text.  On the cover page is the committee assignment, presenter, and co-sponsors.  Print the bill if you want to study it and mark it up with comments, in preparation for writing your testimony.  Many of the bills are simple and don’t require printing out.

3.     Using the back arrow, go back to the previous page, and Click on item to the left of the yellow box that says Committee Testimony or Committee Status, which will display the current status of the bill in committee.  This will show you the public hearing date, time, room.  Make a note of it. (There may have been previous public hearings; you want the one that’s upcoming.  But if there was a previous hearing you can read the submitted testimony, which can be quite informative!)

4.     Draft your testimony

5.     Read the submittal instructions on the webpage https://www.mainelegislature.org/testimony/

6.     Based on the submittal instructions, decide if you are going to:

Mail written testimony,

Zoom in on the hearing in Augusta, or

Appear in person in Augusta.

 7.     Finalize your testimony and follow your submittal instructions

 Extra Credit: (1) https://science.howstuffworks.com/navy-seal7.htm#:~:text=The%20fourth%20week%20of%20basic,of%20four%20hours%20of%20sleep.

 Note: on April 1, at 1 PM in State House Room 438 there will be a work session on all those abortion bills heard on March 28.