Congressional earmarks are back -- Here are Maine's House member's short lists

After a ten year hiatus, the US House is restoring earmarks, the member-directed spending requests that were eliminated after a series of corruption scandals. The change -- which includes a variety of guardrails to make corruption far more difficult -- received bipartisan endorsement in the chamber.

Each member of the House can request ten earmarks, though only a fraction are likely to receive funding in the final cut months from now. But here are the 20 projects the two Democrats in my state, Maine, chose, via the Portland Press Herald. (That's Rep. Chellie Pingree and Rep. Jared Golden for those who don't follow our state as closely as all peoples of the world should.)

I wrote earlier on the earmarks process and how Pingree would have an outsized influence, due to her chairmanship of a Appropriations subcommittee.

Maine's redistricting hits a constitutional Catch-22

As you've probably heard, the pandemic (and the Trump administration) delayed the 2020 US Census, upon which states must redraw their congressional and legislative districts to account for relative population changes over the past decade. 

Here's the problem I wrote about in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram. The Census Bureau won't be able to provide the requisite data until late August. In Maine the state constitution requires these maps be completed in June AND that they be based on said data.

What happens next? Nobody really seems to know, though there's a consensus that the state's highest court will somehow solve it. Details in the story.

Also, I've been neglecting the blog of late because my newly revamped website has had a soft launch and, in theory, will be hosting this blog. The latter is still a work in progress, but you can check out the site here.

What's up with Jared Golden, the most successful Democrat in Trumpland?

Maine's second district U.S. Representative, Jared Golden, has been causing a lot of heartburn among fellow Democrats of late. He was the only member of the party not to vote for both the articles of impeachment against President Trump in December 2019, one of two to vote against enhanced background checks and the George Floyd police reform bill, and the sole dissenter on the recent Covid relief bill, which polling shows has overwhelming public support, including from a majority of Republicans. Add to that his opposition to reappointing Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker and his refusal to endorse Democratic nominee Sara Gideon in her ill-fated race against Sen. Susan Collins last year and a lot of them are unhappy.

Except Golden -- a Marine veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq who studied politics at Bates and worked as a Homeland Security committee staffer for Collins -- has done things few other Democrats can. In 2018 became the first person to defeat an incumbent in his district in 102 years, taking out a two-term Republican who sat on the campaign fund-generating banking committee. Last year he got over 30,000 Trump voters to back his reelection, helping him win a district by 6.3 percent that went for Trump by 7.4. His margin of victory is the highest of any House Democrat in a Trump district.

But what's his governing philosophy? Why does he vote the way he does? Does it work for his constituents? What's it mean for any future bid for statewide office? I sat down the Golden -- who is notoriously inaccessible to the press -- for two hours to answer those questions in this Maine Sunday Telegram profile, which also appeared in his hometown Sun Journal. Hope you find it useful.

Penobscot elder Donna Loring on the future of Maine-tribal relations

Donna Loring has for decades been a major figure in Maine-tribal relations: legislator, tribal council member, aide to two governors, author and public intellectual. Now, fresh off her time as tribal relations advisor to Governor Janet Mills, the Penobscot elder took time to speak with me about her take on the future of the fraught relationship and the prospects for a negotiated reform of the Maine Settlement Act, which restricted Maine tribe's sovereignty.

You can read all about it in this article over at the Maine Sunday Telegram.

For more background on the tribes and the Settlement Act, start here, read about Mills's pardoning of the Passamaquoddy tribe's late attorney Donald Gellers -- driven from the county in a state-directed conspiracy -- and the backstory for understanding the tribes' predicament in "Unsettled," a 32-part series I wrote for the Press Herald a few years back.

Impeachment: Maine's delegation, save Collins, demands Trump's immediate removal

Three of Maine's four Congressional representatives are now on record demanding Trump's immediate removal from office for his role in the insurrection and terrorist attacks against Congress and the U.S. Capitol last week.

Senator Angus King (I) weighed in today in a statement blasting Trump as a danger to the republic and calling out the 147 members of Congress's "sedition caucus" who, hours after the deadly attack, voted to, in effect, end democracy by overturning a democratic election lost by the president. Details in this Press Herald story from a few hours ago.

Senator Susan Collins, New England's only remaining Republican Congressional representative, has said she will not be commenting on impeachment because of her role as a "juror" in the Senate trial that will follow.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME01) was ahead of the rest of the delegation, calling for Trump's removal almost immediately after the attack and co-sponsoring a House resolution to investigate the sedition caucus and consider removal via the 14th Amendment. Details in this Press Herald story.

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME02) didn't reveal his position until last night, but when he did it was a direct and unequivocal condemnation of the president. (Golden just won a second term in a district that went for Trump by 7 points.)

[Update, 1/13/21: Pingree and Golden voted for impeachment this afternoon. Trump became the first president in history to be impeached twice with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in a 232-197 vote.]

Post-coup attempt, Sen. King and Rep. Pingree support Trump removal via 25th Amendment

A day after President Trump incited a mob to attack the Capitol in Washington, triggering five deaths and the evacuation of the building, half of Maine's Congressional delegation -- that's Senator King and Rep. Pingree -- supports the president's removal. Rep. Golden is taking a considered approach and Sen. Collins office isn't saying what her position is.

Details in my dispatch this evening in the Portland Press Herald.

Also today, because one major ongoing crisis is not enough, an update on the pandemic crisis here in Maine: record Covid-19 hospitalizations this week in the state, including all-time highs at MaineMed, SMHC Medical Center, and York Hospital.

[Update, 1/8/20: As 25th Amendment looks unlikely, attention turned today to impeachment, which appears to be inevitable in the House. But three of Maine's four Congressional representatives aren't -- or aren't yet -- saying where they stand. Details in this evening's Press Herald dispatch.]

Talking American Nations and the 2020 election with Denmark's Zetland Magasin

The world is watching as the U.S. staggers towards the highest stakes election since the 1870s Tuesday, and some reporters have been drawn to American Nations, American Character, Union and even The Lobster Coast for an explanation as to what is going on. Two stories came out yesterday.

Denmark's Zetland Magasin has this longform feature on American Nations and how it explains what's going on in this country. I enjoyed speaking with editor Jakob Moll and seeing my work rendered in Danish, the language of an eighth of my ancestors. Ny Holland! Det dybe sud! Great stuff.

Friday's Le Monde carried this feature on the disunited States, with a nice name drop (in excellent company) for my latest book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood. There are some scenes that take place in Paris, so perhaps a few readers there will discover the book.

On Monday, CBC-New Brunswick broadcast their story on Maine's second district, the topic of this post here at World Wide Woodard.

Talking the Two Maines, Maine-2, and the 2020 election with CBC-New Brunswick

Not surprisingly, the outside world is paying a great deal of attention to our pending election. An additional data point: I did interviews back-to-back Monday with journalists in Denmark and Canada about separate aspects of the cultural and political context for 2020.

The first of those interviews, with CBC-New Brunswick, is included in today's radio/text/television story on Maine's Second District, its politics, its differences with the First District, and its potentially decisive role in Tuesday's vote, as there's a scenario (however unlikely) under which its single electoral vote breaks a 269-269 Electoral College tie. Add in the race between Senator Susan Collins and his Democratic rival, former Maine House speaker Sarah Gideon, and there's a lot at stake.

Also, in a scene out of Cold War Berlin or Vienna, reporter, Jacques Poitras also interviews an American voter live across the closed border on the bridge connecting tiny Forest City, Maine (Population: 5) and Forest City, New Brunswick. It's fitting as Poitras is also the author of Imaginary Line: Life on an Unfinished Border, about our federations' shared frontier.

"Putin's Favorite Congressman" moves to Maine

Dana Rohrabacher is a surfing enthusiast, cannabis activist, and former Reagan speechwriter who once joined muhajadeeen to attack Russian targets and Afghanistan and arm wrestled a visiting bureaucrat named Vladimir Putin in a DC bar while representing Orange County, California for 15 terms in Congress. In recent years -- to the consternation of some of his fellow Cold Warriors -- he emerged as the most vociferous defender and apologist for Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, a friend of British populist Nigel Farage, and a visitor to Julian Assange.

But after losing reelection in 2018, he declared he would be moving to Maine. Now, as I reported last week in the Maine Sunday Telegram, he's here, having moved his family to York full-time. He doesn't appear to be engaging in cannabis politics here in Maine -- where the newly legalized recreational marijuana industry is just getting going -- but he is backing a mentee of his, Republican 2nd District Congressional hopeful Eric Brakey, who I caught up with for the story.

I first became aware of Rohrabacher in 2015, when I was back in Hungary writing this POLITICO story on Orban.

Talking about the Don Gellers pardon with NPR

Late last fall my plane touched down at National Airport in Washington, I turned on my phone and there was an interview request from a reporter at NPR interested in the Don Gellers pardon story. I was able to drop by NPR headquarters and record an interview in person with Erin Slomski-Pritz, an NPR Storylab intern who, it turned out, was a Salt Institute for Documentary Studies graduate who had done her project on Dwayne Tomah's work to protect Passamaquoddy culture. She'd read about the Gellers case -- a state-sponsored conspiracy directed by the attorney general's office in the late 1960s to rid Maine of the tribe's all-too effective attorney -- and the pardon hearing.

This morning her piece ran on NPR's Morning Edition. Take a listen or enjoy the transcript.

Gellers received the first posthumous pardon in the state's history last week. His story was exposed in our 31-part Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled" in 2014, which concluded just months before he died.

The Israeli news agency JTA also took up the story today, with photo by my Press Herald colleague Greg Rec (via Getty Images.)

Maine's governor wants the state carbon-neutral by 2045. What will that take?

At the United Nations, Governor Janet Mills pledged to make Maine carbon-neutral by 2045, tasking the new Maine Climate Council to come up with a plan to do so via an executive order.

So what does being "carbon neutral" mean, and what would Maine likely have to do to achieve such a status -- something no other state and only one foreign country has thus far achieved? I explored this in the current edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram, which published last Sunday.

In short: Bhutan, the only country that's already carbon-neutral, is 71% forested and has about 50 people per square mile. Maine is 90% forested and has just over 40 per square mile -- a carbon sink with not that many people and a huge structural advantage right out of the starting block. It's still going to require massive changes in how energy is produced and the types of vehicles and heating devices we use to consume it. Details in the story.

Maine launches its Climate Council, charged with slashing emissions

Last Thursday I covered the opening launch event of the Maine Climate Council, the 39-member body charged with coming up with detailed plans to slash Maine's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 (a requirement set in statute) and to make the state carbon-neutral by 2045.

The event, keynoted by Governor Janet Mills and former US Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy, was attended by what became a standing room only crowd of more than 200, most of them movers and shakers of one sort or another: department commissioners, top officials at agencies, non-profits and municipalities, legislators and business leaders. The emphasis was on taking real, concrete action, rather than talking about it.

Details in the story. Hope you enjoy.

For background on the governor's commitments to make the state carbon-neutral -- made at her speech before the United Nations General Assembly last week -- start here.

Maine's governor in effect represents US at UN Climate Conference

This week, as the Trump administration has become mired in impeachment proceedings, I've been knee deep in climate coverage for the Portland Press Herald, much of it the result of Maine Governor Janet Mills being invited to speak before the UN Climate Action Summit in New York.

Mills, who took office in January, was the only official from the US among the 93 people invited to speak before the General Assembly at Monday's summit. She was also the first sitting Maine governor to address the body.

Here's what she said to the world there. (Please follow Maine's lead.)

Here's what she did the following day. (Meeting lots of foreign officials who now know they'd best spend their time speaking to state and city leaders, rather than the US federal government.)

Last week, I wrote updated about how climate change is affecting the Gulf of Maine and how Maine is finally responding after years of inaction under former governor Paul LePage, a volatile Trump-Tea Party-wing Republican.

Tomorrow's story is also on climate change, which makes six in a row. There may be a pattern here.

Covering Climate Now and the Gulf of Maine

Ahead of United Nations Climate Summit in New York next week, more than 170 news outlets have signed on to Covering Climate Now, an effort organized by the Columbia Journalism Review, The Guardian, and The Nation to have reporters release local, national, and global climate stories in a singe week. This week in fact.

The Portland Press Herald signed on to the effort, and the first two stories -- by yours truly -- appeared in yesterday's Maine Sunday Telegram and today's Press Herald.

The first is on the unfolding climate crisis in the Gulf of Maine, the second fastest warming part of the world's oceans, a phenomenon scientists have linked to the rapid meltdown of the Arctic region and Greenland ice sheets, with have altered the qualities of the currents that feed the Gulf. This is essentially an update on what has been learned or experienced since our six-part series on the issue, "Mayday," appeared in 2015. (It got some additional national attention after being named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.)

The second -- in today's paper -- is on the policy response. After years of inaction under Republican Gov. Paul LePage and his partisan allies in the legislature, Maine is now moving aggressively to make up for lost time, under a new governor and Democratic-controlled legislature. Congress, however, is still stalled. Details within.

My Press Herald colleagues continue the series this week, starting tomorrow with a story on woodlot owners and carbon sinks.

Trump's "judge whisperer" buys Maine mansion, hosts fundraiser for Susan Collins

In this past week's Maine Sunday Telegram, I have the story of how Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society and the man credited with pre-selecting Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and other conservative justices for the Supreme Court, bought a mansion on Maine's Mount Desert Island and held a fundraiser for Senator Susan Collins.

It features C. Boyden Grey (who co-hosted the Collins fundraiser Aug. 8 and serves on the Federalist Society board) and the Knights of Malta (a Catholic order that has many of the attributes of a sovereign state, including 108 embassies, postage stamps, passports, coins and a seat at the United Nations) and even the W.R. Grace company (the one featured in the book and movie "A Civil Action.")

How Gov. LePage spent his final year in office

Maine's erstwhile governor, Paul LePage, often tried to keep his travels secret, even taxpayer-funded trips, like his stays at the Trump International Hotel in Washington or his trade mission to Montenegro last summer, which wasn't disclosed to Maine's media until after it was underway.

So as soon as he left office, I requested his entire calendar for 2018 via a public records request. It took four months to get it -- and two more months to secure supporting materials on some of the trips -- so it's only now, a half year into a new administration that the public can learn what previous governors would have told them ahead of time.

A summary of what the documents revealed appeared in yesterday's Portland Press Herald, and is available online here.

For more on how shortcomings with Maine's public records laws allow public officials to thwart transparency, consider this piece from January.

Maine tribes could get power to try non-Indians accused of domestic violence

Maine's tribes have been excluded from provisions of the 2013 Violence Against Women Act that allow tribal courts to try non-Indians accused of domestic violence on reservations, but that may be changing.

The Penobscot Nation court was blocked from participation when the state of Maine -- and then-attorney general Janet Mills -- argued VAWA did not apply to Maine tribes under its interpretation of the 1980 laws that settled the tribes' claim to more than half of Maine's territory. As I report in today's Portland Press Herald, the US House has just passed a revised version of the act with language introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME01) that would explicitly include the Maine tribes.

For background and the bill's prospects in the Senate, please read the story.

For deeper background, settled into the 29-part series "Unsettled" on the land claims, the Passamaquoddy, and the fraught state-tribal relationship.

Maine poised to finally respond to Gulf of Maine climate threats

With Gov. Paul LePage gone and Democrats in complete control of state government, Maine appears poised to finally confront climate change threats to the state, including the implement of key recommendations of a bipartisan ocean acidification commission that wrapped up its work back in 2014.

I report on these developments in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram.

The Gulf of Maine is the second fastest warming part of the world's oceans, with far-ranging implications for Maine fisheries, the economy, and the ecosystem -- all this the subject of my 2015 Press Herald series "Mayday," which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize that year. Since then, Maine lawmakers have failed to respond, Congress and the Trump administration have refused to act, and the Gulf has continued to experience near-record temperatures.

For further background on the crises facing the world's oceans, consider my first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, which took me from Antarctica to Micronesia, with Belize, Newfoundland, Louisiana and the Black Sea in between.

[Update, 3/15/19: Promising developments for ocean acidification bill at federal level as well.]

Maine: public records withheld by LePage may soon see light of day

Maine has a notoriously weak public records law, one lacking in meaningful enforcement provisions. The result: bad actors in state government are able to defy the intent of the law and never turn over records. The Maine Warden Service provided one infamous example of sustained stonewalling a few years back, and the system demonstrated it was impotent to compel compliance. Governor Paul LePage provided another, failing to turn over the receipts for his emolument clause-relevant stay (or stays) at Donald Trump's Washington DC hotel.

But with the change of administrations, Mainers may finally see some of the results of some long suppressed requests under Maine's Freedom of Access Act. In Monday's Portland Press Herald I report on the hows and whys of this, and talk to experts about the shortcomings of Maine's FOAA and how it might be rectified.

Last week I reported on another public records problem: many older ones have likely been lost as information technology staffers purged servers.

[Update, 3/15/19: The documents were finally released to my intrepid Press Herald colleagues Kevin Miller and Scott Thistle, who reported on their content here.

Maine's Ranked Choice Voting experiment likely to boost efforts elsewhere

This month, Maine became the first state in the nation to hold its federal elections via Ranked Choice Voting, an instant runoff system intended to remove the "spoiler problem" from elections and theoretically, encourage comity and moderation in political candidates. In the state's Second U.S. House District the system was activated after none of the four candidates had a majority of first round votes, and voters made Democrat Jared Golden the winner in their second choices.

Defeated incumbent Bruce Poliquin has declared victory, nonetheless, and is challenging the whole process in federal court on (what experts say are spurious) constitutional grounds, but from a technical perspective the vote went off without a hitch. So what does that mean for the prosoects for Ranked Choice Voting in other states? I talked to a bunch of national experts to answer that question, and you can read what the head to say in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram (or online here.)

This spring, I laid out the whole saga of Maine's effort to adopt ranked choice voting for Politico Magazine, and then, for the Telegram, asked how a theoretically neutral electoral reform intended to reduce partisanship and polarization has become mired in polarization and partisanship, with Maine voters and legislators sharply split on party lines.