The 131st Legislature is in session, and new legislators were sworn in on Wednesday, December 7, 2022. The first half of the session will conclude on June 21, 2023. The second half will begin in 2024.
The League of Women Voters of Maine will focus on National Popular Vote, expanding absentee ballot access, structural reform (like Ranked Choice Voting), racial justice issues, and standing with the Wabanaki Alliance and their right to tribal sovereignty.
Maine Citizens for Clean Elections will work on expanding clean elections to district attorney and sheriff races, passing municipal disclosures, and true source disclosure.
Help, how does a bill become real law? It's a new legislative session here in Maine, which means some of us may need a refresher on how a bill becomes reality. We've got you covered. Click here to read the quick version.
Who's my legislator? Sometimes we forget the names of our elected officials. No shame there. Use the Maine Voter Lookup Service to find all the names and contact information for your people.
Where do our bills go? The bills that the League works on appear before the State and Local Government (SLG) and Veterans and Legal Affairs (VLA) Committees. If you read Under the Dome often, you'll be familiar with the SLG and VLA acronyms. Would you like to see which legislators are on these committees? Check them out here: SLG and VLA.
Where can I see the bills? Legislators’ deadline for submitting bills for the new session was December 30. Those bills will now get drafted into statutory language. Bills are printed in their final form once the language is final. We’re expecting about 2,000 bills to be printed this year. You can see the bills as they are printed here. When you want to look up a bill, you can use this search feature. The League also provides bill tracking on our website, but only for bills specific to our priority areas.
Each session, the Democracy Maine Advocacy Committee helps to draft and identifies pieces of legislation we believe will make the most significant impact on the strength of Maine's democracy.
Throughout the session, our grassroots network advocates for the passage and implementation of this legislation.
Please contact us for more information.