The wind industry needed help overcoming hurdles by Gov. Paul LePage and turned to friend and supporter Justin Alfond, the president of the Maine Senate.
An examination of campaign records and fundraising techniques shows how Maine statehouse politicians have found creative ways ways to skirt the spirit of laws meant to limit the influence of special interests.
Seeking to reduce the instances of Mainers getting lead poisoning due to careless renovations, a lawmaker introduced a proposal to require EPA training and certification in lead-safe removal methods for contractors working on older buildings.
Saying he wanted to stop a practice that was “the closest thing to getting directly paid” by lobbyists, Rep. Louis Luchini introduced a bill to bar legislators from paying themselves, businesses they run and family members from political action committees they control.
When senior reporter Naomi Schalit began her nine months of research for our series on Maine’s single parents in poverty, one of her first stops was Isabel Sawhill’s office at the Brookings Institution. You’ll find many quotes from Sawhill in Schalit’s five-part series; here is the complete interview transcript.
I have been a reporter for 34 years and this was the hardest story I have ever written. People didn’t want to talk to me. They didn’t want to give me “fodder for woman-blaming.”
A nine-month investigation reveals that the inability to lower the poverty rate in Maine is due in part to a change in the makeup of the state’s families.