The Maine Legislature will reconvene for its second regular session on Wednesday, January 7. In December, Gov. Janet Mills let a measure go into law that will prohibit police and sheriffs from assisting with the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts without a court order.
Meanwhile, immigrants’ rights groups are keeping an eye on LD 1259, “An Act to Enhance Public Safety in Maine by Defining the Relationship Between Local and Federal Law Enforcement.”
The Act would prohibit state or local law enforcement agencies from partnering with federal immigration enforcement authorities. These partnerships include 287(g) Task Force agreements, which give local police officers sweeping authority to arrest and detain immigrants without a warrant, and allow them to perform the functions of immigration officers, including investigating, apprehending, and detaining people suspected of being undocumented.
The town of Wells was at one time the only municipality in Maine that had signed and maintained a 287g agreement. Wells later rescinded the agreement after several months of protests by local activists.
Last spring, Rep. Ambureen Rana (D- Bangor) urged the committee to carry over the bill to provide more time for discussions with law enforcement agencies and to study similar bills that have passed in other states.
Funding for programs to prevent homelessness and hunger
As Mainers struggle with skyrocketing costs of essentials such as groceries, housing, groceries, utilities, and other basic necessities, the Legislature plans to consider proposals to prevent hunger and homelessness.
Low-income advocacy groups are urging the Legislature to fund a bill that would restore funding to prevent families from being evicted from their homes. LD 1522, “An Act to Establish the Maine Eviction Prevention Program,” sponsored by Rep. Ambureen Rana (D-Bangor), would provide $25 million for financial support for households facing evictions due to rising rents and economic instability.
The Maine Eviction Prevention Program was established in 2024 as a pilot project administered by the Quality Housing Coalition. Before the program lost its funding, it provided ongoing rental assistance of up to $800 per month for a maximum benefit of $19,200 per household. The money was used to pay landlords when a tenant couldn’t afford to make rent.
The Maine Legislature passed LD 1522 last session but did not provide funding. When the program ended, over 1,000 Maine households risked losing their homes, according to Maine Equal Justice (MEJ). According to the Maine Housing Authority, nearly 850 households with an average annual income of $16,460 were served.
Kathy Kilrain del Rio, Advocacy and Programs Director for MEJ, said her organization will be vigorously lobbying the Legislature to fund the Eviction Prevention Program because so many Mainers are struggling due to the bad economy and impending cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These cuts were made as a result of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law in July. Trump is also proposing to slash billions of dollars in tenant assistance, public housing, and homelessness prevention programs.
“All of those things together are going to put pressure on people and their ability to be able to stay housed,” said del Rio. “And we know that keeping people housed is one of the best ways to help keep them economically stable, so we think the eviction prevention program is one of the more important bills to work on this coming year.”
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Under the Big Beautiful Bill, the federal government plans to cut about $54 million in SNAP funding to Maine if the state is not able to reduce its error rate in the program. Kathy Kilrain del Rio said that MEJ will be supporting state investments in new technology to prevent errors. She added that these errors “aren’t necessarily because the state is doing a bad job administering the program,” but that the state or recipients sometimes make “reasonable errors.” Maine is one of 42 states and the District of Columbia that have SNAP error rates above the 6% threshold that triggers penalties under the Trump administration’s new rules.
The Maine Legislature will also have to deal with an $8 million funding shortfall in the General Assistance program, which provides emergency relief to very low-income people. In last year’s supplemental budget, the Legislature fully funded GA for 2026, but only partially funded it for 2027.
The Legislature will be considering LD 641, “An Act to Support Diversion Efforts to Prevent Homelessness in Maine,” sponsored by Rep. Marc Malon (D-Biddeford), which would double funding for the state’s Housing Problem Solving Program (HPSP). The program provides grants to local agencies to help people at risk of homelessness.
According to the United Way, which receives grants through the program, HPSP helped 663 people avoid homelessness in 2024 at a cost of $1,131 per person, far less than the annual $36,000 per bed that it costs to house an individual in a shelter. Advocates argue that an additional $750,000 could help another thousand Mainers avoid homelessness.
Anti-poverty advocates are supporting LD 415, “An Act to Support Hunger Prevention in Maine,” sponsored by Rep. Annie Graham (D-North Yarmouth), which would provide an additional $1 million a year for ten food banks in the state. According to the Good Shepherd Food Bank, since 2010, the program has helped purchase 28.8 million pounds of fresh Maine produce for households experiencing food insecurity.
About one in eight Mainers face hunger, including one in five children, according to the nonprofit Feeding America. Liberation Farms, a farming program run by the Somali Bantu Community Association (SBCA), distributed $47,000 worth of food through the program to area food pantries in 2024.
Taxing the wealthy to bring in revenue
The Maine Legislature will be considering proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy to make up for budget shortfalls caused by federal funding cuts. LD “1089 An Act to Permanently Fund 55 Percent of the State’s Share of Education by Establishing a Tax on Incomes of More than $1,000,000,” sponsored by Rep. Cheryl Golek (D-Harpswell), would create a surcharge of 4 % on incomes over $1 million in order to increase funding for K-12 education in Maine.
Mills has said emphatically that she opposes raising income taxes, however Kathy del Rio said MEJ supports the bill.
“We want to make sure that we have adequate funding to meet people’s needs because of the federal government’s choices this year. And in order to meet those needs, we should be asking the wealthy and big corporations in our state to pay their fair share,” del Rio said.
Legislature to Consider Bill to Ban Landlords from Discriminating Against People Using Section 8 Vouchers
Civil liberties groups and advocates for low-income people are urging the Maine Legislature to pass LD 847, “An Act to Prohibit Housing Discrimination,” which would strengthen a state law prohibiting landlords from refusing to rent to people on the basis of their sources of income. At the public hearing for LD 847 in March, Rep. Cheryl Golek, the bill’s sponsor, told the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee that the aim of the bill is to prevent landlords from refusing to rent to people who are pay their rent with Housing Choice Vouchers, Social Security Insurance, or veteran’s benefits. Last session, the committee voted to carry over the bill until the 2026 legislative session.
The Maine Human Rights Act currently prohibits landlords from discriminating against recipients of federal, state, and local housing assistance. However, a 2014 Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling weakened the law by allowing discrimination against low-income people who pay rent with Housing Choice Vouchers, commonly known as “Section 8.” Golek said she has had first-hand experience with this kind of discrimination. At one time she was a single parent who relied on Section 8, as well as General Assistance.
“At the time,” Golek said, “ [even though] the Section 8 program paid above most of the rents I looked at … I was often bluntly told, ‘Sorry, we don’t rent to you people…Give me a call when you stop being lazy…I don’t rent to people using my tax dollars.”
Bill to Limiting Mass Collection of Personal Data
Civil liberties groups are supporting legislation that would regulate the collection, use, disclosure, and sale of the personal data of Mainers by large technology companies. LD 1822, “An Act to Enact the Maine Online Data Privacy Act,” sponsored by Rep. Amy Kuhn (D-Falmouth), would limit the information that companies are able to collect and use from customers, as well as when they are allowed to sell that data.
Advocates for the bill argue that the protections are necessary because these large tech companies collect and monetize massive amounts of information about consumers, including what we do at home, where we work, what we buy, our interactions with the legal system, and more.
“Maine has an opportunity to enact a truly robust privacy law, where we strike a balance between innovation and accountability while fostering a safer, more equitable digital ecosystem for generations to come,” said Kuhn in a statement in May.
Kuhn explained, “Not only would this bill limit the collection of an individual’s data, but it would decrease the likelihood of civil rights violations and security risks that have begun to be associated with data privacy overreaches and failures over the years.”
The bill has received broad support, including from the Maine Attorney General’s Office and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
“Robust data minimization is critical at this time – more and more of our data and information is being collected, bought, sold, and processed against consumers’ expectations, without our knowledge, and sometimes to our detriment,” said Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Neil.
“LD 1822 builds on existing state privacy laws already enacted in nineteen states and incorporates essential provisions to provide Mainers with the protections they need to stay safe online,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, a representative from EPIC.
