Maine mass killer showed a series of dangerous mental illness symptoms

Investigative report: Why did no one even try to implement Maine's Yellow Flag law, to help prevent the mass killer from murdering 18 innocent people in Lewiston, Maine on October 25, 2023? 

How Maine can start fixing its gun laws echo editorial opinion published in the Boston Globe:

Last week’s Lewiston bloodbath is fast becoming a national case study in how one state’s porous system about firearms regulation made it far too easy for a gunman to kill 18 people.
By The Editorial Board November 3, 2023

As details about last week’s massacre of 18 innocent people in Lewiston, Maine, continue to trickle out, one fact stands out with piercing clarity: Just how many people believed the shooter was in deteriorating mental health and a potential danger to himself or others.

And one other: The shooter, Robert Card, was a skilled marksman who owned numerous guns, among them powerful assault weapons.

The Lewiston bloodbath is fast becoming a national case study in how one state’s porous system of firearms regulation — the most lax in the Northeast — made it far too easy for a demonstrably threatening man to bring an assault weapon into a restaurant and bowling alley to kill 18 fellow citizens.

Maine Governor Janet T. Mills announced Wednesday she will form an independent commission to investigate “what more could have been done to prevent this tragedy from occurring.” 

Meanwhile, strengthening Maine’s gun laws — and in particular, enacting a so-called red flag law allowing authorities to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed threats to themselves or others — should be the first order of business for the Maine Legislature when it returns to business early next year.

In May, Card’s teenage son and former wife told a deputy in the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Department that the shooter was hearing voices and had recently picked up 10 to 15 guns that had been stored with his brother. Card’s brother told the same deputy that Card seemed angry and paranoid. Several people in Card’s Army Reserve unit also told the deputy that they were concerned about his mental health and wanted him to get care.

In July, Card got into fights with fellow reservists because he thought they were insulting him, prompting unit commanders to have Card involuntarily committed to a mental health hospital in New York. After that commitment, the Army told Card’s commander that he should not have a weapon, handle ammunition, or participate in live-fire activity while on duty. 

That order does not appear to have prevented Card from purchasing or possessing guns as a civilian, the Globe reported.

In September, Card’s Army Reserve commanders requested a “wellness check” from the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Department after Card punched a fellow reservist who had warned him “he was going to get into trouble talking about shooting up places and people.” That fellow reservist also sent texts to a training supervisor warning that Card “has guns and is going to shoot up the drill center at Saco and other places.” The reservist urged the Reserve to change a base passcode so that Card could not get access to firearms.

Sheriff’s deputies did visit Card’s home twice, but he did not answer the door. And that, apparently, was that. But what is uniquely galling here is that the sheriff’s department or other law enforcement officials could have done more, even under Maine’s weak gun laws.

Indeed, Card seems a textbook example for using the state’s yellow flag law, under which officials could have taken him into custody, sought a mental health determination about his threatening nature, and had a judge order the temporary confiscation of his firearms. Why those authorities chose not to use that law — did they even know it exists? — should be part of the commission’s review of this case.

But beyond the halting response to the brightly flashing warning signs about Card, this massacre underscores the need for Maine to enact stronger measures, starting with a red flag law. Those laws, which have been passed in 21 states plus the District of Columbia, allow law enforcement agencies, and sometimes others including relatives, prosecutors, and health care providers, to petition courts to have firearms temporarily confiscated from people deemed by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others.

The laws require fewer steps than Maine’s yellow flag law and have been found by researchers to prevent both suicides and mass shootings, according to studies compiled by the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Lisa Geller, the senior advisor for implementation at the center, said the yellow flag law is not only ineffective for addressing imminent risks but also doesn’t address the fact that many potentially violent people do not have diagnosable mental health problems. “We argue it should be based on risk factors for violent behavior, not mental health diagnoses,” she told the Globe editorial board.

There are many other important gun safety measures that Maine needs, none of which would seriously limit the ability of law-abiding, qualified people to purchase or possess firearms. Those include universal background checks, limits on the size of magazines, waiting periods for purchasing weapons, and a ban on assault weapons, the military-style firearms designed for swift and efficient mass killing.

Under Maine’s legislative rules, the Democratic-controlled Legislature next year cannot take up bills that were disposed of during their session earlier this year, a category that includes some of the above measures.

But Governor Janet Mills, also a Democrat, can introduce any legislation she chooses, and she absolutely should exercise that power come the new year to propose major gun safety measures, including a red flag law. She has opposed many of these measures in the past, but post-Lewiston, she has said that she is “not taking anything off the table.”

“I believe action is needed — what that action will be must be the product of a broad discussion among a diverse group of voices,” the governor said this week. “The people of Maine deserve this.”

Supporters of gun rights in the Maine Legislature — and there are many of them — would do well to listen to the governor and to heed the change of heart shown by Representative Jared Golden, who announced his support for an assault weapon ban after the massacre in Lewiston, his hometown. The facts on the ground demand as much. The families of the victims are owed much more.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.

Abortion marathon debate in Augusta Maine where two thousand plus people showed up to give testimony

Echo report published in the Portland Press Herald in Maine by Penelope Overton

AUGUSTA, Maine — A public hearing on proposals to expand access to abortion in Maine continued through the night and did not end until after 7 a.m. Tuesday – 19 hours after it started.

Hundreds of Maine people signed up to testify in person as a crowd of more than 2,000 people packed the State House complex Monday to support or oppose a slate of bills that would increase abortion access in Maine, including Gov. Janet Mills’ proposal to legalize abortion later in pregnancy if deemed necessary by a licensed doctor.

The in-person testimony began at noon Monday and continued through the evening and into the night. Then the people who waited to testify online got their turn. The hearing was not only extremely long, it also was intensely emotional.

Zoe Reich of Portland urged lawmakers to endorse Mills’ bill to expand abortion access so nobody else would have to do what she had been forced to do: spend thousands to fly halfway across the country to get an abortion after a later-in-pregnancy scan revealed heartbreaking fetal abnormalities.

“I was denied critical abortion care when I needed it because of a cruel and arbitrary time line set by politicians, not doctors,” Reich said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Abortion is health care. All Mainers should have the freedom to get the health care they need, when they need it, right here at home.”

Opponents said Mills’ bill is too radical and vague. They urged lawmakers to stick with Maine’s current abortion law, which limits abortion beyond the 24-week window, which is about when a fetus becomes viable outside the womb, to situations when the life or health of the mother is at risk.

“As a historically pro-bodily autonomy voter, the pushing of the window is appalling to me,” said Lauren Knebel of Cape Elizabeth. “If this bill passes, where would the line then be drawn on when this procedure becomes murder? Why is a week to a month before birth not murder, but a week or a month after is?”

More than 700 people signed up to provide face-to-face testimony on Mills’ bill: about 65 in favor and about 650 in opposition. 

More queued to deliver online testimony. Capitol police said 2,200 people passed through the State House metal detector on Monday.

Mills’ bill is the most high-profile of five abortion bills heard Monday. Other bills proposed to eliminate abortion insurance co-payments, ban local preemption of state abortion laws, protect providers who treat patients from states with abortion bans, and require abortion care to continue after hospital mergers.

A hearing on a bill to enshrine the right to bodily autonomy in the Maine Constitution was postponed.

While most bills are allowed just 10 co-sponsors, Mills’ proposal, L.D. 1619, has a whopping 75 House co-sponsors and 20 Senate co-sponsors, all Democrats or independents, which combine to represent a simple majority of both chambers. That is enough to assure passage if all co-sponsors remain steadfast.


Michaela Gladu, of Orrington, was one of hundreds of people who testified at the State House on Monday against Gov. Janet Mills’ proposal to make Maine’s abortion law one of the least restrictive in the nation. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

The bill was presented by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, who spoke Monday of Maine lawmakers’ need to meet the challenges posed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which is unfairly hurting people of color, the poor, and those living in rural areas.

“Faced with this stark reality, Maine leaders have an obligation to meet this moment and do all we can to protect the rights, freedoms, health and safety of Mainers,” she said. “This legislation is compassionate. It is bound by science and best medical practices, and it recognizes abortion as health care.”

Testy Exchanges:  Speaker Talbot Ross bristled when Republican members of the Judiciary Committee asked her to define exactly when a licensed physician might deem abortion to be necessary, the post-viability threshold laid out in Mills’ bill. They asked if such broad discretion opened the door to last-minute abortion on demand.

Talbot Ross called some questions out of order, refusing to answer, and dubbed others inflammatory.

“It is impossible to legislate for all instances in which someone might need access to abortion later in pregnancy,” Talbot Ross said. “States that have tried have failed and instead caused greater harm. This is why the language in L.D. 1619 is clear. It puts medical decisions in the hands of doctors and patients.”

She repeatedly told lawmakers: “We, as legislators, should not be making these decisions.”

The proceeding, which was expected to last until late in the night, was mostly an orderly affair, however. Some people who testified did so through tears. Others quoted religious verses or shared heartbreaking stories of their own abortions.

Lawmakers tussled over the order of speakers (all in favor of the bill spoke first, followed by opponents), the number of questions committee members got (only one), and the amount of time people could speak (cut from 3 minutes to 2 as a nod to the sheer number of people who signed up).

Then at 10 p.m., the Democratic heads of the committee told the crowd of 500 or so opponents still waiting in the State House to testify that they would now only have a minute to deliver face-to-face testimony. Some had been waiting to speak since 7:30 a.m.

All of the bill’s 65 or so supporters got two minutes each to address the committee.

Committee co-chair Senator Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, apologized for the change, but she said the committee would be there for another 16 hours if all remaining opponents had two minutes to speak – four hours after the Legislative session reconvenes at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Outside the hearings, anti-abortion advocates watched the proceedings on televisions spread around the State House, taking breaks to hold rallies and prayer circles and make coffee runs. 

Those advocating for increased abortion access held a news conference with Mills in her cabinet room.

“You will hear today that this bill is ‘abortion on demand’ or ‘abortion up until birth,’ ” Mills said. “These claims are not true. The truth is that no doctor is performing abortions up until the moment of birth and no pregnant women are just waking up suddenly and asking for them.”

Mills cited statistics that show nearly all Maine abortions – 92 percent – occur during the first trimester.

“You will also hear today that this bill is ‘extreme,’ ‘gruesome,’ ‘depraved,’ ‘barbaric,’ or even ‘evil,’ ” Mills said. “What is extreme is forcing a woman to give birth to a child who is going to immediately die. What is extreme is forcing a woman to leave her state to seek care.”

Augusta State House anti-abortion rally in the Hall of Flags

Hundreds of abortion opponents listen to Dr. Thomas Page, an OB/GYN at Central Maine Medical Center, during a rally on the second floor of the State House in Augusta on Monday, when legislators heard testimony on a number of bills that would expand access to abortion. 

The Judiciary Committee will next hold a work session on the merits of the proposal, but unless one of the co-sponsors changes their mind, that will all be a formality. The best shot for Republicans to stop it will be in the House, where Mills will need all co-sponsors and Ross to tip the scale her way.

The seven House Democrats who didn’t co-sponsor: Mana Abdi, of Lewiston; William Bridgeo, of Augusta; Michel LaJoie, of Lewiston; Anne Perry, of Calais; Joseph Perry, of Bangor; Ronald Russell, of Bucksport; and Bruce White, of Waterville.

Mills has said she was inspired to propose her legislation by the story of a Maine woman, Dana Peirce of Falmouth, who had to fly to Colorado to end her 32-week pregnancy after a scan revealed a rare, painful and fatal genetic mutation.

Peirce told lawmakers on Monday that her sad situation was made much worse by Maine’s current law.

“You have an opportunity to make sure no other Maine families have to go through what mine did,” she told committee members through tears. “Abortion for any reason is a deeply personal decision, one that should be left to pregnant people and their medical team.”

The bill does not include any specific conditions or limitations but leaves the decision up to the patient and physician about what circumstances would make abortion necessary. It removes criminal penalties for doctors performing later-in-pregnancy abortions.

Opponents argue that Mills’ bill is too broad and could legalize later-in-pregnancy abortions that do not involve fetal anomalies. Stories such as Peirce’s are heartbreaking, they say, but could be addressed by expanding the post-viability exemption list.

“This abortion bill is so extreme,” said Natalie Salavarria of Kenduskeag, a registered nurse who worked for 30 years in a neonatal intensive care unit. “We have made great advancements in the care of prematurely born babies and I have personally witnessed the birth, growth and development of countless babies, some as young in their development as 25 weeks of gestation. The miracle of life is not something that can be ignored, nor should it be in man’s hand to snuff it out.”

A Question Of Health Care:  But Connie Adler of Bath, a recently retired 30-year veteran of women’s medicine, told lawmakers that they would be smart to stay out of this discussion altogether and leave it to medical doctors to sort out. Best medical practices change fast, she said – it’s hard for doctors to keep up, much less the Legislature.

“Patients and providers often have difficult conversations and make plans based on numerous biological and ethical variables,” Adler said. “Government does not interfere when that discussion is about cancer treatment, hospice care, surgery and it should not interfere in reproductive health care.”

As for abortion of viable fetuses on demand just before birth – a scenario that Republicans raised during questions repeatedly – Adler said doctors would no sooner abort a healthy viable fetus for no reason than they would cut off a patient’s foot for no reason.

Shannon Carr of Bristol, a certified OBGYN who provides later-in-pregnancy abortion care outside of Maine, said some of the small number of women who get post-viability abortions do so for reasons not related to fetal abnormalities, including domestic violence, regulatory barriers or poor mental health.

“In the very uncommon event that someone presents later in pregnancy for an abortion, I’m asking that you please try to understand that something has gone terribly wrong,” Carr said. “Something tragic has happened to the baby, something life-changing has happened in the pregnant person’s life.”

Brittany Lee of Berwick said she would have killed herself if forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy while dealing with trauma from repeated rapes during her military service. 

She was 22 weeks pregnant – too late to get an abortion in South Carolina, where she and her husband were stationed.

“In the end, we found one in Georgia,” Lee told lawmakers. “We had to pack up our van with the children and the dogs, drive hundreds of miles, and find a pet-friendly hotel where we could stay overnight. … My abortion was the best and most compassionate health care I have ever received.”

The Maine Medical Association tried to reassure skeptical Republicans that doctors wouldn’t perform an unnecessary abortion even though Mills’ bill would remove specific criminal penalties for doing so out of fear that they would be sanctioned or stripped of their medical license by the Maine Medical Board.

Opponents accuse Mills of reneging on her campaign pledge to leave the state abortion law alone.

After introducing the bill, Mills pushed back at critics and called it a rational, compassionate proposal that would help people like Peirce and not open any abortion floodgates. She said she didn’t break any promises – that voters knew they were electing an ardent abortion defender.

The number of people seeking abortions after the first trimester is small. In 2021, the most recent year data is available, 94% of the 1,905 abortions conducted in Maine were done within the first trimester of pregnancy, or up to 14 weeks. The remaining 107 occurred before 20 weeks.

Abortion-rights advocates note the chilling effect of Maine’s existing viability restrictions. The state law allows abortions for any reason through about 24 weeks, but doctors won’t do them after 20 weeks out of fear that imprecise gestational dating could lead to prosecution.

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year, which essentially made abortion a state-controlled issue, about half of the U.S. states enacted or began discussing abortion bans. 

In Maine, which has a strong abortion law, the issue helped Mills win a second term in November.

A new American citizen story in Portland Maine

PORTLAND and AUGUSTA, Maine- Four years ago, Mahmood Omar became the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s first Muslim and first Kurdish employee when he took a part-time position at the front desk. 

Mahmood Omar, new American citizen with Maine Governor Janet Mills in the Augusta state house.

His personal story of service, perseverance and resilience, as well as his kindness and positive energy, made a huge impact at the JCA.

He now works full-time as our HIAS* Employment Services Specialist, helping refugees navigate the path to careers and self-sufficiency. On Friday October 28th, he became a Naturalized U.S. Citizen. Congratulations, Mahmood!

*HIAS is a Jewish American nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees.

"Roe Roe Roe Your Vote" : Vote Blue in 2022

Governor Janet Mills is running for re-election and former Republican Governor Paul LePage is challenging her successful leadership. For sure, LePage is "out of his political league" when he stumbles while trying to answer questions about his position on abortion.

Echo report published in The Washington Post by Amy B. Wang:

During his two terms as Maine governor, Republican Paul LePage attended antiabortion rallies, argued that “we should not have abortion” and said in 2018, that if the Supreme Court were to make a case for overturning Roe v. Wade, “let’s do it.”

But on a gubernatorial debate stage Tuesday night, in Lewiston, Maine, LePage was much more circumspect about his views on reproductive rights, struggling to respond directly when asked what he would do if the Maine legislature introduced additional restrictions to abortion in the state. Multiple times, he avoided answering questions directly, protesting that it was a hypothetical issue or that he did not understand the question.

LePage misused donated funds meant to protect families from domestic violence


LePage’s awkward performance, during the debate, highlights the position many antiabortion Republicans are in, four months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that for nearly a half-century guaranteed the right to an abortion in the United States. The decision has galvanized Democratic voters — and put some GOP candidates on the defensive — in a midterm election cycle that would typically favor the party not in power.

On Tuesday night, a moderator first asked whether Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) would support removing the “viability” restriction in Maine’s current abortion law, which allows abortion until the point “when the life of the fetus may be continued indefinitely outside the womb by natural or artificial life support.” After that, an abortion may be performed only when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

Mills, who has served as Maine’s governor since 2019, said she had no plans to change the state law, which she said reflected Roe v. Wade.

“I believe a woman’s right to choose is just that: It’s a woman’s right, not a politician’s and most certainly not Mr. LePage’s or anybody sitting in public office,” Mills said. “As long as I’m governor, the right to reproductive health care will never be considered dispensable. My veto pen will stand in the way of any effort to undermine, roll back or outright eliminate the right to safe and legal abortion in Maine.”

“I have never wavered in that position, never equivocated, never flip-flopped,” she added pointedly.

As the moderator began asking LePage the same question, he jumped in on his own.

“I served eight years as the governor of Maine. Never once did I attempt, ever, to do — even talk about the abortion bill, because I believe in — the bill that’s in place right now is a good bill,” said LePage, who was governor of Maine from 2011 to 2019. “I believe in protecting the mother’s life for rape … and incest. I also believe in the viability.”

The moderator pointed out that the question had actually been different. What would he do as governor if the state legislature were to bring a bill to him that added additional restrictions, such as reducing the viability period to 15 weeks or requiring parental consent before a minor could receive an abortion?
“I support the current law as it is,” LePage said.

“And if they brought those bills to you, you would not sign them?” the moderator asked.

“That is correct,” LePage said.

Mills interrupted: “Well, would you let it go into law without your signature?” she asked.

“I don’t know …” Le Page started.

(Yeah! Good  catch for Janet!  #RoeRoeRoeYourVote!)

“That’s the alternative,” Mills said. “You know that. You were governor. You know what the options are. Would you allow it to go into law without your signature?”

A visibly flustered LePage dropped his pen on the ground and then leaned over to pick it up as he shot back at Mills: “Would you allow a baby to take a breath? Would you allow the baby to take a breath …”

Mills paused and repeated her questions more slowly. “Would you let a restrictive law go into effect without your signature? Would you block a restriction on abortion?”

“Would I block? Or would-?” LePage said. “This is what I would do. The law that’s in place right now, I have the same exact place you have. And I would honor the law as it is. You’re talking about a hypothetical.”

“Oh, we’re not,” Mills replied, smiling and shaking her head.

“If you’re saying, we’re gonna take the restriction away, making it illegal for the viability?” LePage continued. “No, I would not sign that. I would veto that. The viability is in law now.”

After a brief pause, the moderator pointed out that LePage still had not answered the question. Would he veto additional restrictions that came to him? LePage asked for examples. The moderator provided them once again.

“If you’re talking about would I veto a bill that would change the viability, I would go to the medical professionals to tell me,” LePage said, shrugging. “I don’t know what you mean by 15 weeks or 28 weeks. Because I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure I understand the question.”

“I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular,” LePage joked after throwing his endorsement behind tRrump. (Can Mr. LePage spell "delusional"?)

Then, there was another pause.

“I understand the question,” Mills said flatly. “I would not let such law become effective. My veto can and will stand in the way of any restrictions on the right to abortion.”

“When you say restriction — I’m, I’m trying to understand the question,” LePage said.

A different moderator asked the question one last time.

“So, Governor LePage, if the legislature came to you and said we want to change Maine’s law, and instead of viability which currently stands at 28 weeks, now Maine’s law is going to say no abortions after 15 weeks — would you veto that?” she asked.

“Yes,” LePage said at last.

Abortion is a key issue in many races this November, with polls showing that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade remains unpopular. While Republicans generally have praised the ruling overturning Roe, many have preferred not to focus on the issue ahead of the midterms. But avoiding the topic became more difficult for GOP candidates after Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a bill last month that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy nationwide.

The debate was held at Lewiston Maine's Franco Center and was hosted by Maine Public, the Portland Press Herald and the Lewiston Sun Journal.

Maine anti-vaxxers continue to challenge vaccine public health benefits

Federal judge rejects challenge to Maine's vaccine mandate

Echo report by Christian Wade in The Center Square/Maine

(The Center Square) – A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit challenging Governor Janet Mills’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Maine's health-care workers that had been criticized as government overreach.

The lawsuit, filed a year ago by the Florida-based Liberty Council, alleged that the vaccine requirement violates state and federal law by requiring vaccinations for health-care workers without allowing a religious exemption for those who object.

The legal challenge was filed on behalf of several medical workers who have religious objections to the vaccines and were either fired or told they can't be employed by state-funded health care groups because they refuse to get jabbed.

But U.S. District Court Judge Levy rejected the plaintifs' claims of religious discrimination, saying the requirement "aligns with the state’s interest in protecting public health and, more specifically, medically vulnerable individuals from illness and infectious diseases."

“Reducing the number of unvaccinated healthcare workers at designated healthcare facilities in Maine is rationally related to the government’s interests in limiting the spread of COVID-19, safeguarding Maine’s healthcare capacity, and protecting the lives and health of Maine people,” Levy wrote in the 36-page ruling.

In a statement, Liberty Council vowed to appeal the ruling saying it thinks Levy erred in his decision to reject claims of religious discrimination against health-care workers.

"No one should be faced with this unconscionable choice, especially the health care heroes who have served admirably for the entire duration of COVID-19," Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said. "These health care workers have already suffered irreparable harm by being forced to choose between their jobs and their sincerely held religious beliefs."

Under Mills' executive order, which went into effect last October, health-care workers in the state were required to be fully vaccinated against the virus. The requirement includes health-care workers in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, firefighters, emergency medical service organizations and dental workers.

Only medical exemptions were allowed, not religious or philosophical.

Mills has said the rules are needed to prevent further COVID-19 outbreaks. When she first announced the policy, the state was battling a resurgence of the virus that had contributed to a rise in new infections and hospitalizations.

The vaccine mandate was backed by the Maine Medical Association, the Maine Hospital Association and several other health care groups, which say it will improve public health.

But the Liberty Counsel argues that religious objections to the vaccines must be allowed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment.

"Many people hold sincere religious beliefs against taking any vaccines, or taking those derived from aborted fetal cell lines, or taking those sold by companies that profit from the sale of vaccines and other products derived from abortion," the group said.

The federal judge's decision to toss out the Maine lawsuit follows the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection earlier this year of (the scientific evidence-based) President Joe Biden's proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal health care workers and a similar mandate for large companies. 

Maine was not one of the states that joined those (other wrong-minded) legal challenges.

A challenging biography about a life of achievements - Generations of Maine pride and success

Excellent biographic jornalism by Barbara A. Walsh published in the non profit publication The Maine Monitor:

Mission Statement:  To deliver fearless, independent, citizen-supported, nonpartisan journalism that informs Mainers about the issues impacting our state and inspires them to take action. Through investigative and in-depth stories, we engage readers to participate and connect to create a better Maine.

"Wake” by painter Jamie Wyeth hangs on the wall of the Blaine House in Augusta on June 10. Maine Gov. Janet Mills says the painting has given her peace and courage on some exhausting evenings during the pandemic. Photo by Yoon S. Byun.

Janet Mills weighed the life-changing decision.

A month before her 15th birthday, Janet, her parents and two of her siblings traveled in the family station wagon from their Farmington, Maine, home to the A. I. duPont Institute for Crippled Children in Wilmington, Delaware.

Janet had scoliosis, a severe spine curvature.

On that Nov. 12 day in 1962, the doctor at the nationally renowned hospital explained that without surgery, Janet’s condition would worsen and her spine would continue to curve. If she opted for treatment, surgeons would perform two operations and insert a steel rod in her back. Janet would spend nine months in bed, immobile and wrapped in a body cast.

“She wept a little bit,” remembered her brother, Paul Mills, a lawyer in Farmington. “It was an unsettling crisis to deal with at her age. None of us were sure what she was going to do.”

Janet talked the emotional decision over with her parents. Then she met twice more with the doctor – alone.

The 14-year-old weighed the pros and cons, analyzed the medical information and chose to have the surgery.

Nearly 60 years after her life-changing surgery, Maine’s first female governor faced extraordinary pressure and decisions as a pandemic ravaged the world.

Some Maine residents and business owners have railed against the 72-year-old Democrat, accusing her of destroying the economy with the state’s emergency shutdown in late March and the restrictions that stretch through August and beyond.

Republican legislators attempted to impeach her.

Donald Trump and former Republican Gov. Paul LePage called Mills a ‘dictator,’ bent on ruining the state’s economy.

Mills has also received thousands of emails and hundreds of cards from Maine residents of all ages thanking her for keeping them safe.

“I think she has done an exceptional job under about the toughest set of circumstances any governor could be handed,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who was Maine’s governor from 1995-2003. “The governors of Florida, Texas and Arizona took the opposite tact. They didn’t impose strict shutdown rules. They reopened too soon … and now the price is being paid in deaths, and in an increase in cases and in zero beds in the Houston hospital system.”

As COVID-19 resurges globally, the United States has reported more than 160,000 deaths and nearly 5 million infections. While the virus spikes in South and Southwestern states, Maine, as of early August, had the third-lowest rate of COVID-19 cases per capita after Hawaii and Vermont.

Still, some citizens blame Mills for opening the state too early to tourists from states with high infection rates.

Despite the criticism, the governor remains steadfast in her decisions.

“From day one, I told my people there’s going to be Monday morning quarterbacking,” Mills said. “There are going to be people judging us in hindsight with critical and sometimes cruel comments.

“But that’s OK. I can take that. But what I couldn’t take is losing more human lives to this virus. I have done everything I could to save lives.”

“Her courageous decision parallels what you see today,” said Paul Mills of his older sister. “She was always remarkable under pressure.”

Nearly 60 years after her life-changing surgery, Maine’s first female governor faced extraordinary pressure and decisions as a pandemic ravaged the world.

Some Maine residents and business owners have railed against the 72-year-old Democrat, accusing her of destroying the economy with the state’s emergency shutdown in late March and the restrictions that stretch through August and beyond.

Republican legislators attempted to impeach her.

Donald Trump and former Republican Gov. Paul LePage called Mills a ‘dictator,’ bent on ruining the state’s economy.

Mills has also received thousands of emails and hundreds of cards from Maine residents of all ages thanking her for keeping them safe.

“I think she has done an exceptional job under about the toughest set of circumstances any governor could be handed,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who was Maine’s governor from 1995-2003. “The governors of Florida, Texas and Arizona took the opposite tact. They didn’t impose strict shutdown rules. They reopened too soon … and now the price is being paid in deaths, and in an increase in cases and in zero beds in the Houston hospital system.”

As COVID-19 resurges globally, the United States has reported more than 160,000 deaths and nearly 5 million infections. While the virus spikes in South and Southwestern states, Maine, as of early August, had the third-lowest rate of COVID-19 cases per capita after Hawaii and Vermont.

Still, some citizens blame Mills for opening the state too early to tourists from states with high infection rates.

Despite the criticism, the governor remains steadfast in her decisions.

Since the first patient in Maine tested presumptively positive for COVID-19 on March 12, Mills has issued nearly 60 executive orders to mitigate the spread of the virus and contain its impact on Maine.

On March 15, she declared a state of emergency, a status she has renewed each month through August to enable Maine to access federal emergency funding.

Mainers, young and old, felt the first disruptions to daily life when the governor recommended suspending in-classroom public education, postponing non-urgent medical procedures and canceling events with 50 or more people in mid-March.

The following weeks were marked by increasing restrictions and skyrocketing unemployment claims. Mills shut down the state’s bars and restaurants, allowing only take-out, delivery and drive-thru. She also urged non-essential businesses like hair salons, movie theaters, gyms and shopping malls to close.

On March 24, as virus infections spiked to 118, Mills took a harder line, mandating that all non-essential businesses shutter their doors and limiting large grocery or hardware stores to 100 or less customers at a time.

By the month’s end, the virus nearly tripled to 303 cases and claimed the lives of five Mainers. Citing the public health threat, Mills joined 32 other governors in issuing a stay-at-home order. The mandate prohibited Maine residents and visitors from everything but work-related travel, grocery shopping, medical care or socially distanced outdoor activities. Mills also ordered that schools suspend in-classroom instruction.

As visitors from pandemic hot spots like New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey fled to Maine, messages flashed on the Maine Turnpike electronic billboards, warning travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days.

To deter travel, Mills also shut down hotels, inns, short-term rentals and all public and private camping facilities.

“For those people who come to Maine,” Mills said “my message is clear: You should not think you can escape the virus by coming here. And while you are here you are obviously subject to the laws, orders and protocols of the state of Maine. Our health facilities may soon be crowded and overwhelmed. If you get sick or are sick, treatment may be scarce or even unavailable to you.”

“From day one, I told my people there’s going to be Monday morning quarterbacking,” Mills said. “There are going to be people judging us in hindsight with critical and sometimes cruel comments.

“But that’s OK. I can take that. But what I couldn’t take is losing more human lives to this virus. I have done everything I could to save lives.”

While visitors from pandemic hot spots like New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey fled to Maine, messages flashed on the Maine Turnpike electronic billboards, warning travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days.

To deter travel, Mills also shut down hotels, inns, short-term rentals and all public and private camping facilities.

“For those people who come to Maine,” Mills said “my message is clear: You should not think you can escape the virus by coming here. And while you are here, you are obviously subject to the laws, orders and protocols of the state of Maine. Our health facilities may soon be crowded and overwhelmed. If you get sick or are sick, treatment may be scarce or even unavailable to you.”

Since the first patient in Maine tested presumptively positive for COVID-19 on March 12, Mills has issued nearly 60 executive orders to mitigate the spread of the virus and contain its impact on Maine.

On March 15, she declared a state of emergency, a status she has renewed each month through August to enable Maine to access federal emergency funding.

Mainers, young and old, felt the first disruptions to daily life when the governor recommended suspending in-classroom public education, postponing non-urgent medical procedures and canceling events with 50 or more people in mid-March.

The following weeks were marked by increasing restrictions and skyrocketing unemployment claims. Mills shut down the state’s bars and restaurants, allowing only take-out, delivery and drive-thru. She also urged non-essential businesses like hair salons, movie theaters, gyms and shopping malls to close.

On March 24, as virus infections spiked to 118, Mills took a harder line, mandating that all non-essential businesses shutter their doors and limiting large grocery or hardware stores to 100 or less customers at a time.

By the month’s end, the virus nearly tripled to 303 cases and claimed the lives of five Mainers. Citing the public health threat, Mills joined 32 other governors in issuing a stay-at-home order. The mandate prohibited Maine residents and visitors from everything but work-related travel, grocery shopping, medical care or socially distanced outdoor activities. Mills also ordered that schools suspend in-classroom instruction.

In late April, after the Maine CDC reported the state’s 20th death, the state’s Republicans criticized Mills for crippling Maine’s economy with overzealous restrictions.

Mills, said state senate candidate Matt Leonard, has “gone full totalitarian.”

As indoor dining continued to be prohibited, some restaurant owners pushed back.

Rick Savage, the owner of Sunday River Brewing Co., appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News.

Fed up with Mills’ mandates and restrictions, Savage told Carlson he planned on reopening his Bethel restaurant May 1, daring the state to stop him.

“We’ve been closed for six weeks now,” said Savage. “It’s time to open back up.”

Carlson noted that Maine had one of the nation’s lowest virus infection rates with 1,095 infections and 53 deaths. “One in seven Mainers is unemployed, thanks to Janet Mills,” said Carlson, who called Mills “the most incompetent, dictatorial, self-involved governor that I’ve seen in a long time.”

Before the show concluded, the brew pub owner added, “I would love to share Janet Mills’ cell phone number with everyone so they can give her a call directly.”

With a grin, Savage divulged Mills’ phone number to millions of viewers.

Undaunted, Mills changed her phone number and continued with her four-stage pandemic plan, easing restrictions in June and July, allowing most businesses to reopen with safety precautions.

Concerned about tourists spreading the virus, Mills also ordered businesses in coastal communities and the state’s most populous cities to ensure that their customers and employees wear masks.

Maine, Mills said, has “to continue prioritizing public health.”

The June wind was brisk and cold as Gov. Mills and her security guard exited the quiet and near-empty State House.

Mills cleared the Blaine House security gate and greeted visitors.

When asked, “How was your day?” the governor grimaced.

“Don’t ask,” she replied. “It’s always an interesting day.”

Mills glanced at her iPhone, which had been bombarded 24/7 for three months with texts, emails and calls from staff, the state pandemic task force, advisors, cabinet members, fellow governors, lawmakers, family and friends.

“Hasn’t been a great day for a while,” she said. “For three months my staff, everyone has been working non-stop. Working holidays.”

Mills shrugged and swung her arms in the air, shaking off the stress.

“God, look at those!” she said marveling at the vivid white and purple irises growing on the Blaine House grounds.

An old wooden rope swing hung from a nearby maple tree that towered over the governor.

“That,” Mills said smiling, “is my one contribution to the grounds.”

At times during the lockdown, Mills ventured into the night and swung from the century-old maple tree.

“I like it,” she said of the old-fashioned swing. “It makes me feel like a kid again.”

Surrounded by a backdrop of birdsong and commuter traffic, Mills settled onto a patio couch behind the Blaine House. Dark circles framed her eyes, a testament to months of worrisome nights, waking to read her phone, to jot down notes, ideas, thoughts on everything from procuring more personal protective equipment and coronavirus-testing kits, to stabilizing the economy and saving lives.

“It’s a pretty bizarre thing when you think about it,” Mills said, her voice rising with emotion. “Nobody runs for governor thinking, ‘one day I will issue a proclamation issuing a state of emergency.’ Nobody runs for governor thinking, ‘I’ll issue a proclamation telling everybody to stay home.’

“But,” she added with a sigh, “it was so necessary, and I think we were successful in keeping the numbers low compared to other states.”

Mills, like thousands of others in Maine, isolated herself in late March and April, in the Blaine House.

The 1833 mansion, where Maine’s governors have lived for the past century, was suddenly too quiet, too still. No more tours, no more parties, luncheons, public events. No celebrations to commemorate Maine’s bicentennial birthday.

“It’s like living in a bubble, kind of cloistered…” Mills explained. “It took a lot of getting used to when you’re on a heavy schedule of working in the office all day and going to press events outside the office, and going to this and that and the other thing.

“And all of a sudden, boom, there’s no more of that. It’s a different thing, different world, but it’s been that way for everybody.”

Alone in the sprawling, two-story building, Mills and her security guards formed new routines.

“So, my security guy and I, whoever’s on, we’ve been cooking and cleaning and doing dishes. Doing our laundry, ironing.”

“We didn’t do much weeding, didn’t have time for that,” Mills joked. “It’s a hard place to take care of.”

She also practiced her piano-playing skills (which she says aren’t very good) and her ‘bank shots’ on the Blaine House’s billiard table.

Among the solitude, Mills has grown to appreciate the expansive Blaine House gardens and nearby Capitol Park, where she sometimes walks.

“For a while I was coming out here in the morning, feeding the birds,” Mills said, gazing at a robin on the nearby fence. “Birds are good. Right now they’re the only people I can talk to.”

“Bird Woman of the Blaine House,” she added, snorting a laugh. “That’s pretty bad.”

In between the lighthearted moments, there have been many sleepless nights, and ample anguish over lives lost to COVID-19 and decisions made to shut down schools, restaurants, hotels, gyms, beaches, campsites and retail stores. Mills often found solace gazing at one of her favorite paintings loaned to the home.

Titled “Wake” and painted by Jamie Wyeth, the image captures a gull in flight over a turbulent sea. The bird is bold, vivid and powerful; its wings stretched wide, beak open, eyes dark. Hung in the hallway just outside an intimate dining room, the gull greeted Mills whenever she walked in the Blaine House back door. The image stirred strong emotions in Mills, a longtime Wyeth admirer.

“It comforts me,” Mills explained. “It gives me courage.”

Though she spent a lot of time alone, distanced from staff and family in late March and April, Mills said she was never lonely.

“I don’t mind being alone,” she said. “My husband passed away 5 1/2 years ago. So I don’t have a spouse. And the kids are grown up.

“I married a widower with five daughters,” Mills added, laughing. “Now, that prepared me for a lot of conflict and controversy.”

Long before she embraced five new daughters, Janet Trafton Mills faced more than her share of conflict and controversy. She learned early on from her father, Sumner Peter Mills Jr., that challenges must be met with courage and conviction. A World War II veteran, prominent lawyer, Republican legislator and Maine’s U.S. Attorney for 16 years, Mills investigated the corrupt and the elite. He held himself to high standards and expected the same of his five children.

Mills also had a reputation for helping the underdog and those in need. He volunteered his children to help the elderly and handicapped. They mowed lawns and shoveled snow for people unable to do so themselves.

“He prioritized integrity and character-building,” said Mills. “When I was 5 years old, I had a paper route. I had to work. And at night I had to keep a journal, even though I couldn’t even write very well. But (my parents) wanted us to keep memories and work hard.”

Mills’ mother, Katherine Louise Coffin, was the daughter of an Aroostook County potato farmer. She taught English, Latin and public speaking to thousands of students in northern and western Maine.

Katherine also taught her own five children how to write and speak, clearly and concisely. Fond of literature and poetry, she assigned her sons and daughters extra homework outside of school.

“My mother emphasized with all of us the need to communicate clearly and intelligently,” Mills said.

Katherine also worried about her shy eldest daughter.

Years later, as Janet pursued public service, her mother would marvel at her once-timid daughter’s exemplary public speaking skills.

In December 1962, five days before Christmas, the family station wagon pulled up to the Mills’ home in Farmington. Janet’s father and a few other men carefully carried the teenager from the back of the car and placed her in a hospital bed set up in the middle of the living room.

Janet had spent six weeks alone in the Wilmington hospital undergoing two operations. Due to hospital rules, visits from family were restricted.

“There were kids from all over the world there,” said Mills’ younger sister, Dora Anne Mills. “She saw some pretty frightening and horrific conditions in children. Children who were suffering a lot more than herself.”

Back at home, immobile and in a body cast, Janet relied on her parents for all her needs. Despite her condition, she kept up with her schoolwork. The once-shy girl also developed a sense of humor as an antidote to her confinement.

Located on a downtown college campus in Farmington, the Mills home was rarely quiet.

Friends, neighborhood children, prominent lawyers and politicians like U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith often stopped by.

“Here Janet was in the middle of the living room with all these people coming back and forth,” said Dora, Maine’s former CDC chief and now MaineHealth’s chief health improvement officer.

“This is when you are 15 gaining some independence, and here she was thrust into a body cast in a hospital bed, where she was 100 percent dependent on everyone else.”

The experience affected Janet deeply, her sister said.

“She grew this resilience and strength to get through it all,” said Dora. “The suffering she witnessed with other children at the hospital, it made her heart very soft, but it also made her very tough.”

Once her spine healed and her cast was removed, Janet returned to school in the fall of 1963, graduating from Farmington High in 1965. She later enrolled at Colby College, where, Dora explained, Janet sought to “make up for lost time.”

“She had,” Dora added, “a few rebellious years.”

In 1965, Colby College with its dorm mothers, curfews and dress codes was not a good fit for a young woman striving to gain independence. The Waterville campus was also too close to home.

“My parents were both alums,” Dora said. “They showed up every weekend for football games to check on her, and it drove her crazy.”

Janet, who also was not fond of her parents showing up at frat parties, had a few memorable moments at the college.

“Story goes that she was climbing in a dorm wing window at night after curfew and the fire alarm went off, and everyone had to evacuate,” Dora said. “Janet was halfway in the window and the dorm mother was scolding her.”

Several months later, just before Christmas, Janet broached the subject of dropping out with her parents.

“At the time, taking a break was not as widely accepted as it is today,” said Janet’s brother, Paul. “There was a sense of foreboding that this was the point of no return on the part of my mother …That she wouldn’t go anywhere in her professional life.”

Despite her mother’s misgivings, Janet headed to San Francisco in January 1967, just after her 19th birthday.

“There was a transformation there,” said Janet’s older brother, Peter Mills, the Maine Turnpike Authority executive director. “I think a declaration of independence from her family, not hostility, but just wanting to be on her own. Not dependent on anyone.”

While in California, Janet worked, took classes at San Francisco State and thrived during the ‘Summer of Love,’ when nearly 100,000 young people converged in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood to protest the Vietnam War and the government. During the country’s unrest over the war and civil rights, Janet surprised her longtime Republican family and became a Democrat.

That fall she returned to Boston and graduated from UMass Boston with a Bachelor of Arts in French in 1970. Accepted to the University of Maine School of Law, Janet decided instead to intern at a Washington, D.C. law firm, working as a secretary and paralegal.

While she excelled at her job, she struggled in her personal relationship.

“She was with a guy, they lived together,” recalled Dora. “He was very abusive. Back then no one talked about that stuff. He was also an alcoholic and a couple times he threatened her quite a bit, held a gun to her head. She realized she was going to die if she didn’t leave.”

Janet left the apartment without her belongings and headed home to pursue a law degree.

Years later when Janet was hired as Maine’s first female prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, few of her colleagues knew she had endured domestic violence. Memories of the abusive relationship fueled Janet’s passion for helping women and children trapped in violent homes.

“She spent quite a few years,” recalled Dora, “as a prosecutor working on domestic violence issues.”

Long before clashing with LePage and Trump in her roles as state attorney general, then governor, Mills became Maine’s first female district attorney in 1980.

At age 32, she was the first woman in New England and one of the first women appointed nationally to such a position.

Leading a DA’s office in a male-dominated criminal justice system 40 years ago had its challenges, Mills said.

“Reporters would ask me, ‘What is it like to be a woman DA?’ And I’d say, ‘I dunno. What it’s like to be a male DA?’ I just know I have a job to do, and I think I know how to do it.”

At the time Gov. Joseph Brennan appointed Mills to the interim position, there were several men interested in the vacancy. When Mills announced her appointment in the DA office, a male colleague hollered down the hall: “Well, I guess if I had a set of ovaries, I would have gotten the job.”

Mills offered a silent reply.

“OK sucker, that’s the way you feel, I’ll prove you wrong.”

Mills recalled the moment in a voice laced with emotion.

“You can’t react and respond to people who just, who sink to name-calling.”

Three months later, Mills ran for the DA seat and won. She served as western Maine’s top prosecutor until 1994.

Decades later, she marked more milestones. In 2009, she served as the state’s first female attorney general. In January 2019, Mills became Maine’s first female governor.

The state’s 75th governor has also earned the unwanted precedent of leading Maine during its first novel coronavirus pandemic.

Birds swooped in nearby trees and the late afternoon sky filled with clouds as Mills reflected on the extraordinary events wrought by the pandemic.

In December 2019, Mills and her newly appointed Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director, Dr. Nirav Shah, monitored the virus as it spread from Wuhan, China, to other countries. They also began preparing for when the virus struck Maine.

“What we realized early on is that although a lot of the response to COVID-19 would invariably involve public health issues, public health doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” Shah said. “We realized how expansive and far-reaching the response needed to be, and that’s when (the governor) made the decision to literally bring everyone to the table.”

On March 2, Mills convened a coronavirus response team headed by Dr. Shah that included commissioners of every cabinet position, from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, to Public Safety, Education, Corrections and Labor.

When Shah informed Mills of Maine’s first COVID-19 case in Androscoggin County on March 12, her response was comforting.

“It was even keel, level-headed, a ‘We’ve got this,’ ” Shah remembered. “As opposed to, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do now?’ ”

“That’s the kind of boss you want to have,” Shah added. “It means they’re going to be unflappable, no matter what.”

As the virus began to spread throughout Maine, Mills issued a March 24 stay-at-home order and mandated that non-essential businesses close.

Mills, Shah and several members of the task force and the governor’s staff began working 18- and 20-hour days. Mills stayed up past midnight, sleeping a few hours, often waking to read emails and write down thoughts and notes for the next day’s meetings.

“Those first few weeks, I thought I just don’t know how we are going to handle working 18 and 20 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Jeremy Kennedy, Mills’ chief of staff. “There was just not enough time and no road map for all these decisions.”

Shah, who began directing Maine’s CDC in June 2019, marveled at how Mills led the daily task force Zoom meetings.

“The first thing she wants to know is, ‘What are the facts?’ ” Shah said. “‘What does the science and the data say?’ ”

In a national climate, where several politicians have ignored, derided and called CDC directors ‘fear mongers,’ Mills is an outlier, Shah said.

“You’ve got health directors across the country,” Shah said, “being fired left and right for saying the things I do.”

Mills, Shah said, also assimilates vast amounts of information from multiple viewpoints, balancing ethical and economic issues before making a decision.

“In a pandemic situation,” Shah explained, “where you are dealing with lots of uncertainty, that clarity of thought and clarity of decision-making is critical.”

The sense of humor Mills developed as a young girl confined in a body cast has also bolstered the task force after long, emotionally exhausting days.

“When times are tough and dark, your team cues their emotions based on what the leader is doing,” Shah said. “I’m not suggesting she is flippant or minimizing things, but if the leader is morose or despondent, that basically tells the team that it’s time to pack up and go home.”

Many of Mills’ critics would prefer that she ‘pack up and go home,’ including LePage, who clashed with Mills when she served as attorney general from 2013-18.

During the president’s June 5 visit to Maine, LePage joined Trump in a roundtable discussion concerning Maine’s struggling lobster industry. The conversation quickly veered toward the pandemic, and LePage criticized Mills for harming Maine’s tourism economy with her restrictions.

The state, LePage told Trump, was “still tied up pretty tight because we have a governor who is not reopening very fast.”

“You have a governor that doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Trump replied. “And she’s like a dictator.”

“How could she do a thing like this, she’s gonna destroy your state,” Trump continued. “I’m not a fan. I’m not a fan.”

Less than a week later, Mills shook her head at the memory of Trump’s visit and his derogatory statements.

In early June when Trump visited, violence and unrest simmered in Maine and throughout the country.

“On top of everything else we were dealing with, you know, Black Lives Matter, protests in the streets, pandemic, recession, unemployment and then, the president decides to visit.”

“I had to face the ice storm in 1998,” said King. “Two-thirds of the people of Maine lost electricity. It was in the middle of winter and a very dangerous moment, but limited in time over two, three weeks. (The pandemic) has dragged on for months and has required her to make intensely unpopular decisions.”

The president, King said, put Mills and every other governor in the country in a precarious position.

The country would have suffered fewer deaths and infections during the pandemic, King added, if Trump “had treated it as a health issue and concentrated his efforts on solving the health problems, instead of trying to at first minimize it and now essentially ignore it.”

The “president’s essential absence of leadership,” King said, forced governors to make extraordinary and difficult decisions.

“He early on punted the responsibility to the governors,” King said. “And that put the governors in a terrible position because they didn’t have the tools that (the president) had to deal with the problem, in terms of testing, infrastructure, funding.”

Though it is easy to measure the virus’ impact on Maine’s economic hardship and its unemployment rate (6.6 percent in June, down from 10.4 percent in April), the benefits of Mills’ decisions, King said, are ‘invisible.’

“The number of lives saved is hard to measure, that’s why her decisions are so courageous,” said King. “It would have been much easier to buckle and say, ‘Open hotels on June 1 or Memorial Day and open bars.’ But then we would be having people die.”

Still, King noted, the restrictions on Maine’s tourism industry, which makes the bulk of its money during the summer, has been especially hard. Over the next three years, the state expects a $1.4 billion shortfall in lost sales from the hospitality industry and income tax revenue as Maine recovers from the recession.

“It’s a terrible problem,” the senator added. “But I still think (Mills) did the right thing.

“Politicians always talk about making the tough decisions, but most of them don’t. She did.”

Her tone thick with sarcasm, Mills added, “It made my week.”
Four days before the president’s arrival, Mills and the country’s 49 other governors joined the weekly White House conference call with Vice President Mike Pence and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Typically, Mills said, Pence and Fauci offer updates on the pandemic, PPE and testing supplies.

“And all of sudden,” Mills recalled, “the president came on the call and he was very angry, very loud, and it was a rambling disjointed rant.

“It was very disturbing. And we learned later he had been on the phone with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin before that.”

Mills urged the Trump not to come to Maine to visit Guilford’s Puritan Medical Products, one of the country’s biggest producers of COVID-19 testing swabs.

Mills told Trump his visit could create “unrest” across the state. Trump scoffed at the governor’s attempt to dissuade him.

“He took it as a double-dare, I guess,” Mills said laughing.

Neither Mills, Maine’s 2nd District Democratic U.S. Congressman Jared Golden nor the Democratic mayor of Bangor, where Air Force One landed, were invited to greet the president.

Soon after Air Force One lifted off the runway to return to Washington, Mills penned a statement addressing the president’s remarks.

“What Maine people heard today was more of the same incendiary rhetoric and insults he uses to try to divide us and to stoke tension and fear. What Maine people heard today was largely devoid of fact and absent of reality … I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness. That’s what I heard today.”

Seated on her patio couch, Mills fell silent recalling the stressful visit.

“It was political theater,” she said, shaking her head.

And Trump calling her a dictator?

Mills repeated the word in a whisper and laughed.

“Well, you know, sticks and stones.”

A book by American historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin rests on Mills’ bed table.

Called “Leadership: In Turbulent Times,” it chronicles the decisions, actions, thoughts and character of four American presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson – who led the country during national crises.

“I pick that up and read chapters about people in leadership positions who faced a lot more dramatic emergencies, a lot more serious times than these,” Mills said. “It puts things in perspective.”

Mills also sought advice from former Maine governors the day she issued the order to close all non-essential businesses and mandated that citizens stay home. All of the leaders shared a similar piece of advice: “Tell the people the truth, even if it’s ambiguous, even if there are gray areas. Tell the people the truth and they will trust you.

“Do not,” they warned, “ever lie to them.”

One of Mills’ first calls was to Sen. King, who governed Maine during one of its most challenging winters.

“I had to face the ice storm in 1998,” said King. “Two-thirds of the people of Maine lost electricity. It was in the middle of winter and a very dangerous moment, but limited in time over two, three weeks. (The pandemic) has dragged on for months and has required her to make intensely unpopular decisions.”

The president, King said, put Mills and every other governor in the country in a precarious position.

The country would have suffered fewer deaths and infections during the pandemic, King added, if Trump “had treated it as a health issue and concentrated his efforts on solving the health problems, instead of trying to at first minimize it and now essentially ignore it.”

The “president’s essential absence of leadership,” King said, forced governors to make extraordinary and difficult decisions.

“He early on punted the responsibility to the governors,” King said. “And that put the governors in a terrible position because they didn’t have the tools that (the president) had to deal with the problem, in terms of testing, infrastructure, funding.”

Though it is easy to measure the virus’ impact on Maine’s economic hardship and its unemployment rate (6.6 percent in June, down from 10.4 percent in April), the benefits of Mills’ decisions, King said, are ‘invisible.’

“The number of lives saved is hard to measure, that’s why her decisions are so courageous,” said King. “It would have been much easier to buckle and say, ‘Open hotels on June 1 or Memorial Day and open bars.’ But then we would be having people die.”

Still, King noted, the restrictions on Maine’s tourism industry, which makes the bulk of its money during the summer, has been especially hard. Over the next three years, the state expects a $1.4 billion shortfall in lost sales from the hospitality industry and income tax revenue as Maine recovers from the recession.

“It’s a terrible problem,” the senator added. “But I still think (Mills) did the right thing.

“Politicians always talk about making the tough decisions, but most of them don’t. She did.”

Senator Collins is paying the political cost for not standing up to Donald Trump

Maine Writer: Although Senator Collins is spending a lot of money by speaking directly to voters in her re-election political ads, these messages are not improving her public opinion poll numbers. None of her ads claim she is a Republican candidate running for re-election.  Instead, they claim that she is independent (with a lower case "i"). Her positive messages do not explain how her right wing partisan behavior would change, if she were to be re-elected.  I've known Senator Collins to be a nice person, but her politics have become stridently partisan over the years, in spite of Maine's moderately Democratic political demographics.

https://www.suitupmaine.org/case-against-collins/

Meanwhile, the Bangor Daily News reported that Senator Collins Democratic challenger Sara Gideon leapfroged Susan Collins in fundraising ahead of 2020 US Senate race.

Echo article published in The Hill by John Bowden and the Bangor Daily News by Jessica Piper.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) has seen a dip in her approval rating statewide, according to a new poll.

The Maine senator continues to be a top target for Democrats in the fall.  A survey released Monday by the Bangor Daily News found that just 37 percent of voters in the state approve of the job she has done as senator, compared with 52 percent who said they disapproved.

That represents a drop of 5 percentage points for Collins's approval rating since a previous BDN/Critical Insights poll in the fall, when Collins was supported by 42 percent of voters in the state. 

Her approval rating had hovered around that level for much of 2019, rising only one point between the firm's polls in the spring and fall.

Other political figures in the state fared better than Collins in the poll: Gov. Janet Mills (D) saw her approval rating rise from 47 points last fall to 60 points in the latest BDN/Critical Insights poll, while Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) remained popular with the support of 59 percent of voters.

Maine residents now overwhelmingly expect the economy to worsen in the months ahead, according to the survey, with 57 percent of voters saying they expect the economy to be in worse shape next year, up from 32 percent in the fall.

The BDN/Critical Insights poll surveyed 596 registered voters in Maine. Further polling information was not immediately available, and Critical Insights pollsters did not immediately return a request for comment.