Stacey Abrams, in Maine, urges fight against voter suppression

Stacey Abrams, the Georgia legislator who narrowly lost a controversial gubernatorial race in 2018 to the man who organized the state's voter purge, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, was in Portland last week, speaking at the University of New England on the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

She got into the race after spending years organizing to turn out African-American, Latino, and young voters and boosted their turnout massively. Meanwhile Kemp was engaging in what she describes as voter suppression, a challenge to democracy she urged the audience -- which included Gov. Janet Mills -- to help confront.

Read about it my story for the Portland Press Herald.

Jack DeCoster, Maine's most infamous businessman, gets jail sentence

Austin "Jack" DeCoster, Maine's most infamous businessman, is going to jail for his egg company's role in a 2010 salmonella outbreak that may have sickened as many as 54,000. For many of those who've followed his sordid career, the biggest question is why it took so long.

As I detailed in Tuesday's Portland Press Herald and, in 2011, in Down East and the Portland Phoenix, DeCoster has repeatedly violated all manner of laws and regulations: labor, environmental, workplace safety, public health, immigration, contract, and animal safety. Here's the nut from the Press Herald piece:

"Over the past half-century, Jack DeCoster’s companies have paid millions in fines and damages for everything from faking trucking logs and knowingly hiring illegal immigrants to environmental contamination, animal cruelty, workplace safety problems, and the exploitation of workers, including the alleged rapes of female employees by supervisors and the terrorizing of workers housed in squalid, crowded, cockroach-infested company trailers at his Maine farms."

He's always had enablers, though. As recently as 2011, his local state legislators -- Dale Crafts and Jeff Timberlake -- were trying to pass a law to weaken labor protections on his Maine farms; it almost passed because a number of people gave false legislative testimony in regards to his recent record in the state. (I learned while reporting at the time that there's no penalty for lying to Maine lawmakers, even for attorneys and lawmakers, because nobody does so under oath.)

I'd link to the articles I wrote at the time, but the new owners of Down East and the Phoenix no longer make their archives available online. (And, while on the topic: what happened to the Phoenix archive? Is it damaged? Do the owners care?)

Jack and his son, Peter (who also got three months), have the right to appeal the sentence, but have already plead guilty to charges. Their company is paying almost $7 million in fines for their role in the outbreak.

Summarizing LePage's latest scandal for Politico

Maine Gov. Paul LePage is in the midst of another scandal, this time for his worrisome and sustained interest in the work of a group of conspiracy theorists, at least one of whom likes to joke (?) about executing legislative leaders.

I've summarized the facts over at Politico Magazine.

It's discouraging, but predictable, to watch LePage supporters try to treat this as a garden variety partisan issue. Seriously: you can support your guy and still question some of the things he does. He needs it.

For those of you outside of Maine unfamiliar with the governor, here's a piece I did for Politico in January. And if you really, really want to know the guy, read my two-part ,10,000-word biography from the Portland Phoenix; he's truly a fascinating character, and his rise from truly harrowing childhood circumstances is pretty impressive.

And, in parting, here's the Bangor Daily News' editorial on this latest scandal; it's titled "Stating the obvious...".

Gov. LePage and the Lewiston fires

Maine Gov. Paul LePage's visit to his hometown of Lewiston this week has been receiving critical attention. Nine tenement building burned in three apparently unrelated fires in just eight days, putting some 200 residents out of their homes, two 12-year-olds in jail, and the rest of the city on edge. The governor's estranged brother and his wife are reportedly among those made homeless.

But in his visit Tuesday morning, Gov.. LePage made it clear he had no intention of finding extra resources to help those displaced by the fires, even claiming ignorance about the existence of his six-digit discretionary fund he could use to do so. Asked how it felt to be in his hometown, the governor said only: “It brings back a lot of bad memories." This struck some as callous.Why would the governor -- who was himself homeless at age 11 in the very same area -- not wish to pull out the stops to help?

But his stance isn't surprising. The governor has a complicated relationship with his hometown, his siblings, and the poor, as I revealed last year in the first part of my biography of LePage. Those trying to understand the governor's position this week may find it informative.

Best Portland Author 2012

My thanks to the readers of Maine's Portland Phoenix for kindly naming me Best Author in the paper's Best of 2012 contest.

Other winners included Portland Buy Local (Best Cause), Novare Res (Best bar, beer selection, and patio), and our peerless watch shop, Swiss Time (Best Place To Have A Good Time.)

For local fans of American Nations, The Republic of Pirates, The Lobster Coast, and Ocean's End, I try to keep Best Bookstore 2012 -- Longfellow's -- stocked with signed copies.

The Making of Paul LePage, Part II

The second and final part of my biography of Maine governor Paul LePage is in the new issue of the Portland Phoenix. The first part was last week's cover story.

Part II of "The Making of Paul LePage" traces the governor's life from his college graduation in 1971 to inauguration day 2010. It debunks rumors about his time in Canada, sheds light on the lessons of his business career, and traces how he came to be interested -- and succeed -- in politics.

My thanks again to the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington, D.C. for their support of this project.

And now, here's your photographic moment of zen.

The Making of Paul LePage, Part I

The first installment of my two-part, 10,000-word biography of Maine Governor Paul LePage is the cover story of this week's Portland Phoenix, which hit the streets overnight.

Part I of "The Making of Paul LePage" takes us from his sixth-great grandfather, the First Lord of Rimouski, Quebec, to his 1971 college graduation. Part II, out next week, brings us from Canada to inauguration day, one year ago this week.

My thanks to the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington, D.C. for their support of this project, which has been several months in the making.

[Update, 1/18/2012: Here's a link to Part II.]

Maine: who is behind the regulatory takings bill?

Here in Maine, a special legislative study committee has been at work on recommendations in regards to a proposed bill to compensate landowners if the potential resale value of their property is diminished by regulations. It's a controversial issue on which a fair bit has already been written about in the press and blogosphere.

In this week's Portland Phoenix, I focused on a matter of process: how could it be that the Pierce Atwood takings attorney who wrote the original "takings" bill and is said to be the driving force in the study committee hasn't ever registered as a lobbyist or revealed who she has been hired to represent? And what's up with this 2008 rule change allowing lobbyists to avoid disclosure when serving on commissions, task forces, and study commissions? (Source.)

Read on to find out more.

A few readers have asked what the next step would be in pursuing this matter. The answer: an interested party would ask the state ethics commission to investigate the issue; the body would presumably communicate with Pierce Atwood, evaluate their rationale, and determine if they believed the firm was in compliance. No word as yet as to whether anyone has done so.

LePage, transparency, and public records

Governor Paul LePage has pledged to run the most transparent government in Maine history. But he and his staff sometimes have trouble applying it to themselves, even when a request for information or public records would help the governor.

My piece in the new Portland Phoenix describes some of my recent adventures with the governor's staff in this regard, and their efforts of late to make their actions more difficult to track by reducing or concealing much of the paper trail associated with them.

Portland mayoral race: Following the Money

My home city of Portland, Maine is having its first mayoral election in 88 years, the result of a successful ballot referendum and popular disgust with the city council's handling of a proposed development on the Maine State Pier. Fifteen candidates are on the ranked-choice ballot, making it especially difficult for voters to become educated about the would-be mayors.

As regular readers know, I'm a big proponent of following the money in politics, but under current law, mayoral candidates didn't have to file campaign finance disclosures until last Friday evening -- just eleven days before voters go to the polls. (An effort to change this law for future elections has been stalled in Augusta.) Media coverage of the content of those reports has, to date, been focused merely on how much money each candidate raised, rather than from whom these resources came.

My piece in the new Portland Phoenix delves into the leading candidates' donor pools, identifying interest clusters, putting faces to some of the faceless Limited Liability Companies that donated to some candidates, and even ensuring the disclosure of the contributors to a Political Action Committee that thought it wouldn't be revealing such until months after the election. Curious how Ethan Strimling raised such a staggering sum of money? (Hint: Bob Baldacci) Want to know who Jed Rathband's secret admirers are? Curious who backs Nick Mavodones and Michael Brennan? Read on for answers.

One positive development to report: Until recently, my website was the only place you could find electronic copies of Portland campaign finance disclosures. as the city was unwilling or unable to post them itself. That's now changed. Not only is the City Clerk's office posting new returns online within days of them being filed, they've also posted all previous ones back to 2005. (Unfortunately, cities across Maine destroyed older campaign reports on the faulty advice of a mid-level bureaucrat at the Maine State Archives, a story I broke in 2009, which resulted in the the relevant law being changed.) Score another point for transparency.

Finally, if you haven't already, check out the detailed results of the Down East/MPRC poll on the mayoral race. Don't miss the projected round-by-round elimination section in the back. Will be interesting to see how accurate it proves to be.

Koch Bros. fund enviro lecture series in Down East Maine

I was intrigued to receive an invite over the weekend to the University of Maine Machias' inaugural Koch Speaker on Environmentalism and Freedom, October 6. It's part of a new lecture series sponsored by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the philanthropy of the conservative billionaire of the same name, who has been the subject of considerable scrutiny of late.

How did this arrangement come to pass? I explored this for this short piece in the new Portland Phoenix.

With space and time constraints, I left the bigger question open for unaddressed: is it appropriate for a public university to have a lecture series funded by a controversial and politically-engaged organization? If not, why not? If so, where does one draw the line, bearing in mind the academic ideal of being open to a diversity of opinion? Is, say, the John Birch Society an appropriate donor? How about the Church of Scientology? Is it ok, so long as local academics -- not foundation officials -- choose who to invite? Share your thoughts if you have any.

A side note: I requested the grant contract for the series from UMM -- a public university whose documents are public records -- just to be sure there were no unusual strings attached (as there were in the foundation's much larger grant to Florida State University.) Will update here after I read it.

[Update: 9/22/2011: I received the grant documents and associated correspondence from UMM, which handled my request promptly and professionally. They confirm the information imparted to me in interviews and reported in the story.

Correspondence also shows that Dr. Reisman was entirely open with his colleagues about his associations with the Kochs. He sent a May 2011 email to the entire UMM faculty informing them of his "growing relationship with the Charles G. Koch Foundation" and an upcoming trip to a Koch industries forum in Witchia on "management philosophy," for which he would receive (from the foundation) travel expenses and an honorarium.

In terms of transparency, Reisman and UMM both deserve gold stars.

The speaker series was originally to be entitled "Sustainability and the Road to Serfdom: Can Environmentalism and Freedom Co-Exist?," and was scheduled for last spring. It March, however, Reisman decided to postpone the program, largely because Gov. LePage's regulatory reform initiative had "heated up" Maine's environmental policy world. Reisman also decided the series should berecast with "a broader and perhaps less threatening topic." and the Koch foundation concurred.]

Maine's new ALEC co-chair: the gov's favorite lobbyist

The American Legislative Exchange Council is one of the most powerful -- and secretive -- lobbying entities in the country, a channel for corporations to literally write state laws for willing or naive legislators without anyone being any the wiser.

Or at least that was the case until last month, when many of their confidential members-only documents were leaked to the world wide wonderland. Journalists are just starting to dig into the model bills, donor lists, and rolls of participating legislators posted at ALECexposed.org by the Center for Media and Democracy.

But, as I report in tomorrow's Portland Phoenix, a fresh leak has added a new twist for Mainers. It shows that the new state co-chair for Maine is none other than Ann Robinson, the Preti Flaherty superlobbyist and gubernatorial advisor who has been at the center of several stories I've covered this year, including "LePage's Secret Puppeteers" and "The LePage Files."

And for you political insiders out there, here, as a blog-only DVD extra, are the relevant pages from the leaked source document (the agenda of ALEC's August meeting in New Orleans.) [PDF]

[Update, 9/8/11, 14:00 EST: Maine Democrats put out this press release, pressuring the governor's office to disclose ALEC ties.]

[Update, 9/10/11: For those curious who else has participated in ALEC, Dirigo Blue recently reminded its readers that House Majority Leader Andre Cushing (R-Hampden) was at their annual meeting in New Orleans.]

Maine: LePage to nominate favorite lobbyist to MPBN board

Maine Gov. Paul LePage is no fan of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, which operates Maine's only statewide network of television and radio stations. On the campaign trail he expressed a desire -- on MPBN cameras -- to punch the network's State House correspondent. In office he tried to zero out state funding for the broadcaster.

Now he has his first chance to nominate someone to MPBN's governing board. As I report in the new Portland Phoenix, his first choice is none other than Ann Robinson, the corporate lobbyist who already serves as a trusted advisor and a member of the panel he uses to find judicial nominees.

As readers of this blog well know, Robinson has also overseen the compilation of the governor's regulatory reform agenda -- past and future -- including the cutting-and-pasting of language from industry and corporate memos into the proposals LePage submitted to legislators. That she does this while remaining the registered lobbyist of many interested parties apparently doesn't trouble the governor, whose press secretary has failed to respond to requests for comment on this point.

Robinson isn't alone. Another Preti attorney, Carlisle McLean, serves as LePage's natural resources advisor. Pierce Atwood corporate lobbyist Patricia Aho currently heads the Department of Environmental Protection. But at least McLean and Aho had to give up their day jobs.

[Update, 9/13/11: As expected, LePage has indeed nominated Robinson to the MPBN board. A full list of his board and commission nominations can be downloaded here. [pdf]

The LePage Files, Volume I

Maine Governor Paul LePage's regulatory reform agenda was created by lifting entire passages from memos received by favored lobbyists and industry groups, confidential administration dossiers reveal, suggesting he and his staff made little attempt to shape policies themselves.

The dossiers, obtained via a Freedom of Access Act request, also indicate some of the governor's priorities going forward, including measures targeting striking workers and Maine's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Who wanted to weaken air quality standards? Who inserted language to reduce all environmental laws to the weaker federal standards? Who wants the same done with civil rights and restaurant tip sharing laws? These answers and many more are in my cover story in this week's Portland Phoenix.

I requested the documents back in March, after the governor's then-communications director, Dan Demeritt, refused to answer questions about the origins of controversial elements of the governor's infamous "Phase I" regulatory reform agenda, much of which was subsequently rejected by the Republican-controlled legislature. They provide a detailed look into how LePage formulates policy and whom he sees himself as representing, issues I've written about in two previous Phoenix stories, "LePage's Secret Bankers" and "LePage's Secret Puppeteers."

Also today, take note of the blistering accusations leveled against LePage by his commissioner for marine resources, who resigned after allegedly being ordered to please discrete interests in the industry. Among the serious charges is that LePage refused to help groundfishermen because they are concentrated in Portland, a city that is "against me," and proposed creating another port somewhere else in the state. (Maine media watchers will not be surprised to learn the Sun Journal's Steve Mistler broke this story as well.)

[Update, 7/21/2011, 1358: Maine's Majority -- seeing a thematic link between these two stories -- has put out this press release charging "LePage must answer" for his cozy relationships at his Dover-Foxcroft "capital for a day" event.]

Maine: How the GOP rammed through a massive health insurance overhaul

The new Portland Phoenix has my cover story on how Maine Republicans railroaded a massive overhaul of our health insurance regime through the State House, and the political fallout that's followed. The majority party sometimes slams a bill through the system faster than anyone can digest it, but rarely do these bills involve such genuine life-and-death issues as those affected by LD1333.

The Phoenix cover artists even created this insurance lobbyist/devil figure to illustrate the piece. Hyperbolic, perhaps, but you have to admit it's eye-catching.

For the policy wonks out there, I did take the time to photograph the testimony submitted for the original April 27 hearing, back when this was but a four-page bill. The points raised for and against the loosening of restrictions on charging higher premiums based on a customer's location, gender, age, or health status, may still be valid in regards to those components of the new law. You can find it here as a 37-megabyte PDF. (Why the legislature hasn't ordered that all committee testimony be scanned and posted online is beyond me.)

Vermont also overhauled their health insurance system last month. The difference: they're going to a single payer model. Will be interesting to see which approach results in the best outcomes for these respective state's people.

Maine Yankee nuclear waste - an update

For those who followed my stories on the storage of high level nuclear waste at the former Maine Yankee nuclear power plant site in Wiscasset, I've got an update in this week's Portland Phoenix.

While reporting this story for Down East, I noticed that the monthly nuclear safety reports issued by the state nuclear safety inspector had stopped being posted back in September 2010. Now some of those reports have posted at the state's website but, as this week's news brief notes, there are some items that call into question the utility of issuing these reports at all.

Jack DeCoster, Maine legislators, and faulty testimony

As I reported a few weeks ago in the Portland Phoenix, the infamous egg magnate Austin "Jack" DeCoster has some friends in the Maine state legislature, which has been considering a law to help out his companies. That initiative may get voted on as early as today.

I have a magazine piece about all this in the forthcoming issue of Down East, but readers won't see that until after the legislature votes on L.D. 1207, an act that will free Mr. DeCoster's companies from the worry that their workers might one day unionize. The Down East article sheds light on the question many have about Mr. DeCoster: how does he keep getting away with it? [Update: 5/24/2011: the Down East story is now online.] But there are a couple timely details to report straightaway.

First, when members of the legislature's Labor Committee met to consider the bill, they received a remarkable amount of erroneous testimony. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Dale Crafts (R-Lisbon), a labor attorney hired by the company to "investigate" its own record, and two company officials told the legislators that the company had had a clean record in Maine for ten to fifteen years, and suggested, stated, or implied that no significant problems had been turned up by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (or OSHA).

A few minutes on Google reveals this not to be the case. In reality, DeCoster's Maine operations have been fined by OSHA multiple times over the past decade for serious and repeat violations of workplace safety and other issues. These include $344,210 in June 2002 for a range of serious workplace safety infractions; $108,500 in August 2004 for "willful, repeat and/or serious violations"; and $150,000 in August 2008 for a "disregard for basic, commonsense safety procedures and employee protections [that] is as astonishing as it is unacceptable."

This, of course, leaves aside far more serious transgressions by Mr. DeCoster's companies in other states, including responsibility for a salmonella outbreak that sickened over 1900 people and triggered the recall of more than half a billion eggs. It also ignores fines for animal cruelty and law suits by neighbors over the past decade here in Maine.

I gather that it's not illegal to give false testimony before the legislature, which means legislators ought to spend a few minutes on the Internet checking out what they've been told.

[Update, 5/23/2011: As a result of this report, Sen. Rector says he is withdrawing his support for the bill.]

Maine: what happened to nuclear waste site reports?

With the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, Americans have suddenly been reawakened to the dangers presented by nuclear power accidents. Here in Maine, those questions inevitably revolve around the spent fuel stored at the site of the former Maine Yankee nuclear power plant.

As I report in the Portland Phoenix, those wishing to consult the most comprehensive documentary source -- the monthly reports submitted to the legislature by the state's nuclear safety officer -- have been out of luck. So what happened? The answer herein.

And on Japan, I recommend this dispatch from the gates of the stricken plant from my friend Dan Howden of The Independent.

Mother Jones picks up "LePage's Secret Puppeteers"

My recent Portland Phoenix story "LePage's Secret Puppeteers" -- on how Maine Governor Paul LePage outsourced the creation of his regulatory reform package to lobbyists for outside corporations -- has been picked up by Mother Jones, which has been doing a lot of hard-hitting reporting on the national Tea Party movement.

The piece has also made its way into the Lewiston Sun Journal, the Kennebec Journal, and the Portland Press Herald, though the latter paper swiped the article's findings without noting where they came from.

Funny enough, Mike Tipping's column in the Kennebec Journal elicited a letter from one of the sources in my article, Geoff Herman of the Maine Municipal Association. Tipping had noted -- accurately -- that Herman had "denied" the MMA had requested that a repeal of the state's culvert rule (designed to protect trout and other fish) be included in the governor's reform list, as LePage's spokesman, Dan Demeritt claimed. Herman took issue with that characterization, saying "there was no duplicity in the way the culvert issue made its way to the table" -- though since he wasn't involved, he can't know for sure -- and that he told me he presumed the issue made it onto the agenda by member municipal officials -- just as I reported in my piece.

But from there, Herman stopped making sense. "I didn't "deny" anything. There was nothing to deny," he wrote. "Even if the municipal association had expressly made the request, that also would have been a grass-roots process."

Two things: First, I called Herman specifically to confirm if Mr. Demeritt's assertion that MMA had requested the culvert rule change was correct. It was not. That's called a denial

Second, neither my article nor Tipping's suggested the MMA's participation -- had there been any -- would have been inappropriate. Rather, the piece provides evidence suggesting certain rules changes were instead made at the behest of outside corporate interests.

With Mr. Demeritt and Mr. Herman's stories at odds with one another, it's still unclear who really requested that the culvert rule be put on the agenda.

WERU interview: LePage's secret puppeteers

I was a guest on WERU's News Report Thursday, talking about the issues raised in my Portland Phoenix article, "LePage's Secret Puppeteers."

The segment is now online at their website, if you want to check it out.

I posted several updates on the governor's controversial regulatory reform package last week. Since then, the Maine Chamber of Commerce has distanced itself from the more controversial measures, suggesting the governor may be running short of political support to push them through. MPBN also carried this report on the governor's decision to scale-back his wish list for the time being.