2017-04-16 Update
2017-04-16
Legislative
Update
Introduction
-
As more and more legislation moves from the
committees to the House floor, more and more issues begin to
evolve.
House Calendars
Thursday, April 13,
2017
Bill Text can be found
using this link called Directory of Bills
Directory
of Bills
Link to Bill Status
Bill
Status
Events
Calendars
This week in the House -
Two issues this week predominated
discussion.
First, the issue of the RealID focused lots and lots of
attention on the state’s need to answer the question about what we mean
by privacy. Compliance with the federal RealID law is certainly
easy, but I heard very good arguments about the role of state’s and
federal rights and responsibilities. Eventually, I voted against the
adoption of the RealID law because I feel strongly that it compromised
some core Fourth Amendment rights.
Second, single use plastic bags
took center stage on Thursday. The legislation allowed each town or
municipality to set its own laws regarding single use plastic bags - and
everyone thinks of grocery store shopping bags as an example. I must
confess my antipathy to plastic bags of all types, though I’ll freely
admit I use them. I worry about the sandwich I bring every day being
stored in a plastic bag which will not decay for a century. The
sandwich is gone in a few hours, and the bag hags around till long after I
am dead. I guess you know how I voted on that bill.
Incidentally, I was so taken with the testimony
on LD 57 given by Representative Ralph Tucker, that I created a separate
web page for it; it was a classic piece of "down home" writing.
Thanks Representative Tucker!
In the Education
Committee
The Education Committee is moving ahead,
with interests in furthering early childhood education. We have had
several bills which seek to find ways to make pre-K instruction more
common for Maine residents. I do support these bills as the
investment in children always pays off. In fact, I think the
“return on investment” of early childhood education far outweighs the
cost of remediation later.
I did receive almost 120 letters
regarding a law to allow guns being carried on schools grounds in cars
while picking up a child. The number of emails was almost astounding
- even if they were largely “robot” emails. Clearly being
able to pick up a child at school while having a gun in the car is an
important concern for Maine residents. That’s
understandable.
Reflections
On another level, this week saw
the work session for LD 760, a bill I introduced to promote safety and
county fairs concerning petting zoos. The bill mandated that the owners of
county fairs establish signage and appropriate facilities for washing
hands after petting animals potentially containing e-coli bacteria.
The committee decided to write a letter to the responsible
agency to inform petting zoo owners that this was a desirable
practice.
Process is sometimes agonizingly
slow.
______________
Alternatively, this
was the first weekend we could really get out into the garden. What
a joy to see crocus, and the oriental poppies begin to grow.
As
always, feel free to write to me and let me know your
thoughts.
