The Maine People’s Alliance’s 2019 legislative scorecard launched online Tuesday, with 38 legislators earning perfect scores for advancing progressive values with votes they made during the first session of the 129th legislature. In an email announcing the scorecard’s launch, MPA co-director Amy Halsted said it is a “chance to make clear how our state lawmakers voted on some…
The Maine Senate unanimously passed a syringe exchange bill Monday that would provide critical harm reduction services to over 10,000 Mainers with substance use disorder. Sponsored by Sen. Linda Sanborn (D-Gorham), LD 1689 establishes public funding for a network of hypodermic needle exchange sites that could also offer testing for diseases often transmitted by needles,…
Health care and legal advocates enthusiastically supported a bill to require Maine’s Commissioner of Corrections to establish a substance use disorder treatment program in Maine correctional facilities at a public hearing on Friday, a change they say will help curb the number of lives lost to the opioid crisis. Although sponsor Sen. Linda Sanborn (D-Cumberland)…
In 2017, University of Southern Maine student Emma Donnelly approached her school’s administration with a proposal to put emergency contraception in campus vending machines, as students have done in California and Massachusetts. Donnelly, a member of Huskies for Reproductive Health, a campus chapter of the Maine Planned Parenthood Action Fund, was interested in making sure…