The Good, Bad, and Ugly of 2nd Session Bill Requests

The Legislative Council has released the list of bill titles under consideration for the Maine Legislature’s 2026 legislative session, and on October 23, the Council met for an initial bill screening. The full list of results is available here. 

The Legislative Council is made up of 10 members of legislative leadership. For a bill request to be admitted into the Legislature’s Second Session, a bill request must receive an affirmative vote of six members of the Council. The 10-member panel is currently comprised of six Democrats and four Republicans, allowing the majority party to approve any bills it wants and reject any bills submitted by their counterparts.

Some bills show real promise while others attempt to establish new taxes, unnecessarily regulate innovation, or directly worsen Maine’s education system. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of the bill requests submitted by lawmakers for consideration in the Second Session. 

The Good

At long last, a few proposals aim to make Maine more affordable, accountable, and free:

• LR 2740: Reestablish Property Tax Levy Limits for Large Towns: This would reestablish the property tax levying limits, a policy that used to create reasonable guardrails for the growth in local government size and corresponding property taxes.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2653: Limit Eligibility Under Municipal General Assistance: Municipal general assistance in certain cities has become a major cost driver for the state, and the number of people on these programs is heavily centralized in a few cities. This bill would create more fairness between various municipalities in Maine, as the state continues to finance Portland’s generous General Assistance program.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2750: Authorize Nuclear Power Generation: Nuclear is one of the only reliable, dispatchable, green energies on the market, and since Maine’s emissions reduction goals are still state law, this is the most effective way to pursue them, considering the current presidential administration is unwilling to subsidize our state’s irrational pursuit of overbuilding offshore wind and solar power.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2669: Protect Commercial Property Owners from Vacancy Fines: These sorts of vacancy fines are being pursued in Portland already and are being considered in other parts of the state, as well. Property owners already don’t want their commercial properties to be vacant, and Maine policymakers have been trying to blame business owners for Maine’s poor economy rather than take responsibility for overburdening it themselves.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2919: Regarding Scholarship Granting Organizations: This would be a landmark bill for education freedom, potentially allowing businesses and individuals to fund scholarships for students through tax credits, empowering parents to choose the best schools and educational materials for their children. This would essentially have zero direct cost to Maine, as this simply enrolls Maine in a preexisting federal scholarship tax exemption program, rather than affecting state taxes. This would provide substantial support to Maine students. If it fails to pass, Mainers will likely donate to out-of-state organizations to take advantage of the tax credit there, causing money to leave the state and Maine students to be robbed of educational scholarships.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. This decision will be appealed at a future meeting of the Legislative Council.

Transparency reforms like LR 2794 (school budget ballot disclosures) and LR 2821 (county budget voter approval) would also strengthen fiscal accountability. Unfortunately, both of these requests also failed by 4-6 votes. 

The Bad

Too many proposals reflect the Legislature’s growing appetite for micromanagement and control:

• LR 2697: Triple the Homestead Property Tax Exemption: It is completely understandable to want to shield longtime maine residents from the radically rising cost of living in the state, but the solution to this is to fix the housing problem, rather than shifting costs of property taxes from one household to the next.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 1-9 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2787: An Act to Allow a Municipality to Adopt a Model Ordinance That Prohibits the Possession of Firearms in Municipal Buildings Where Municipal Public Proceedings Take Place: This bill restricts Mainers’ Second Amendment rights guaranteed in the federal and state constitutions. 25 MRSA §2011 explicitly preempts local firearm regulation, because Maine lawmakers have historically avoided creating this kind of local legal patchwork on core rights like firearms.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2603: Medical Debt “Protection”: This proposal would prohibit health care providers and debt collectors from placing liens on property or garnishing wages to recover unpaid medical bills. In practice, it would shift costs across the entire healthcare and credit systems, raising prices and borrowing costs for everyone else.
  • This bill request was approved by a 7-3 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2668: Cap on Property Assessments: This proposal would cap annual increases in municipal property value assessments, promising relief from rising valuations. But the valuations themselves are attempting to assess objective property values, and top-down mandates won’t actually change the value of properties or stop market inflation; they will just hide the problem that Maine lawmakers are failing to fix.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 4-6 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2725: Mandatory GPS Tracking for Repeat Speeders: This proposal would require drivers with speeding violations to install GPS-based tracking devices in their vehicles so that law enforcement can monitor compliance. This proposal would likely fly in the face of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court explicitly restricted long-term location tracking, requiring strict judicial oversight, in the 2018 case Carpenter v United States. Even if this complied with Carpenter requirements, judicial oversight would be a nightmare for Maine’s already overtaxed state judicial system.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 0-10 vote of the Legislative Council. 

The Ugliest

The worst proposals go beyond bad economics; they actively threaten liberty, innovation, and opportunity. The worst bill request is unquestionably LR 2761.

LR 2761: An Act to Limit the Number of Campuses or Buildings a Charter School May Have

This is the ugliest proposed bill of the session. It would arbitrarily restrict successful charter schools from expanding to new campuses or serving more students. Instead of celebrating their success, legislators seem intent on punishing it.

According to Accountability Gap: Applying Charter Standards to Maine’s Public Schools from Maine Policy Institute, the median charter school spends more than $10,000 less per pupil than the median traditional public school. Despite receiving far less funding, charters perform as well or better in core subjects like English Language Arts and Science.

The data are even more striking when it comes to efficiency: noncharter schools spend almost twice as much per successful student in Science. Creating a successful science student costs approximately $35,000 at the median charter school, while it costs over $68,000 at the median traditional public school. Charter schools also serve higher shares of low-income and special education students (6% more Maine charter students require special education services compared to traditional public schools, according to MPI research), yet charters still deliver comparable or superior outcomes. That’s efficiency, innovation, and fairness all in one, while saving Mainers money and making more successful students. 

LR 2761 would slam the brakes on that success, cementing a system where the school, not the student, comes first. Mainers are increasingly worried about the state of our education system, and this bill would make it worse, not better.

Fortunately, Rep. Michael Brennan, the bill’s sponsor, withdrew this proposal from consideration in advance of the Legislative Council’s October meeting. The bill will not be considered in the Legislature’s Second Session. 

Other “Ugly” Bills

A growing slate of punitive taxes reveals the same mindset:

• LR 2648: State Property Tax on Second Homes: This proposal punishes investment and violates Maine’s tradition of tax uniformity while growing Maine’s already massive property tax burden.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 1-9 vote of the Legislative Council 
• LR 2917: Net Investment Income Tax: Maine should support in-state investment rather than tax it. Lawmakers seem to understand that taxes generally discourage activity when it comes to things sin taxes, but fail to apply that lesson when it comes to investment.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 2-8 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2768: Ban on Credit Cards for Sports Wagering: This would hurt not only Mainers and their freedom to bet on sports, but also potentially hurt our Native American tribes, who currently partner with sports gambling apps to provide these services throughout the state.
  • This bill request was approved by a 6-4 vote of the Legislative Council. 
• LR 2927: Mandatory Radon Testing for New Buildings: While public health is important, Maine is already one of the states with the most burdensome radon policies, and establishing yet another test and yet another set of costs on new construction will further burden our economy and housing market.
  • This bill request was rejected by a 3-7 vote of the Legislative Council. 

The Bottom Line

The next session, and the Legislative Council’s actions, reveal whether Maine lawmakers trust the people or only their own bureaucracy.

While some bill requests – many of which were rejected – would have made Maine more prosperous and free, others would stifle growth, punish success, and lock families into failing systems. The choice couldn’t be more simple: empower Mainers, not government.