Maine’s Welcome Home nickname should be Welcome Woke, say some Republicans in the New England state.
Last week alone, Maine’s Democratic lawmakers shot down a parental consent bill over the use of alternative gender pronouns in school, passed one of the largest tax hikes in Maine’s history, and one of the most liberal late-term abortion bills in the country.
Under it, abortion would be legal in Maine at any time up to birth if deemed necessary by a doctor.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills also signed into a law that decriminalizes prostitution, and Maine Democrats have recently pushed back against renewed efforts by state Republicans to institute voter ID registration.
Maine is only one of 15 states that do not require photo ID at the polls. Last November, GOPers like State Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) told The Epoch Times that they believe the state’s large population of seasonal property owners, especially those from Massachusetts and New York, are voting in Maine’s general elections.
State Democrats also recently proposed designating Maine a sanctuary state for out-of-state minors seeking “gender-affirming care.”
“We are basically turning Maine into the ultimate elite playground and one-stop mecca for liberalism,” Tiffany Kreck, co-founder of Health Choice Maine and a member of the advisory board for Parents’ Choice Maine told The Epoch Times.
“Come to Maine and have your choice of children, women or men, do what you want with them, drop your teenager off for a late-term abortion or sex change, and then go home.”
In borrowing another of Maine’s slogans—“The Way Life Should Be,” Ms. Kreck asks, “The way life should be—for who?”
Republican Sen. John Libby told The Epoch Times that while he is admittedly a moderate Republican, he even can’t get over how extremely Left Maine is becoming.
In referencing yet a third nickname of Maine, Mr. Libby in part believes that Maine’s status as “Vacationland” has drawn year-rounders with deep pockets looking for a permanent vacation.
Mr. Libby himself admits that he reaped the benefits when he put his house on the market and sold it at four times what he paid for it just four years ago.
Maine’s most recent list of liberal measures comes amid a protest staged on June 28 by illegal immigrants from Africa demanding better housing and provisions.
The group, which state immigration advocates classify as asylum seekers, claimed 270 of them are sharing one shower, running out of hot water, being provided expired food, and that they are also short on cookware.
The protests took place in Portland, Maine, which codified itself as a sanctuary state in 2017 for illegal immigrants. Last year alone, the congested waterfront city of 68,000 took in 400 immigrants and housed them in area hotels. This year, 1,000 more arrived.
The city recently admitted it was bursting at the seams and has started sending illegal immigrants to more rural parts of the state where housing shortages for residents already exist.
“The City of Portland cannot tackle this problem alone,” the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition (MIRC) wrote in support of the protest.
In the meantime, a growing number of Mainers continue to endure severe housing shortages and homelessness problems.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Homeless Assessment Report, Maine’s homeless rate doubled between 2019 and 2022, while real estate costs increased by 30 percent.
As the Mills administration moved to garner more funding for immigrants, Cullen Ryan, the executive director of Community Housing in Maine, recently reported that the state is facing a shortage of more than 20,000 affordable housing units for its own residents.
In response to the African protests, a group showed up across the street with a large banner that stated, “Protect White Communities.”
A recent video showing police showing up and pointing guns at the group has drawn thousands of comments on social media about both the immigrant protests, with most expressing disgust about the Africans demanding better welfare benefits in a state where its own residents face homeless rates higher than the national average.
“How far are we going to let this go? We’ve given them everything we have to the point where Portland taxes are poised to go up 10 percent if the state doesn’t bail us out and it’s still not enough. It will never be enough,” posted one Maine resident.
Amid the protests, Maine’s House passed a bill to provide health care coverage to illegal immigrants. However, the Senate defeated the bill days later.
Mr. Libby, whose district includes Portland, said that he does at times feel like “he’s in Portland, Oregon, instead of Portland, Maine.”
Ms. Kreck, who is also a founder of Health Choice Maine, said while Maine has long been a diverse amalgamation of hunting, lobstering, tourism, logging, and other blue-collar trades, it was “wholesome” with a throwback allure that is now being lost to radicalism.
“People were attracted to Maine because it was old-fashioned, and time seemed to stand still here,” she said, “now that they are here, they are ruining that.”
Ms. Kreck, whose group advocates against the state’s string of vaccine mandates, took special exception to Mills appearing at a press conference promoting her late-term abortion bill in front of several women holding signs that said, “My Body My Vote.”
“Since we know Mills doesn’t believe in my body, my vote when it comes to vaccines, we know she doesn’t believe in choice,” she said. “We need to start fighting for ourselves or we are going to lose the state that we once knew and loved.”
As part of her strict COVID-vaccine mandate, Mills ordered that no religious exemptions from the vaccine be granted to both state and healthcare workers.
The order has led to multiple lawsuits and has been fingered by groups like Ms. Kreck’s as senseless, given the state’s critical shortage of EMTs and ambulance drivers.
Democrats say that Mainers are aware of a need for more diversity.
According to the World Population Review, the state has one of the lowest minority populations per capita in the country, with its population being 92.69 percent white.
West Virginia, Wyoming, and Vermont have the largest white population per capita.
In 2020, Rob Synder—founder of the Island Institute based out of the seafront community of Rockland—wrote: “The Island Institute expresses our deep sorrow for the people of color in Maine and around the country who are being persecuted and killed every day.
“We believe that black lives matter and we are committed to doing our part to further the conversation along the Maine coast.”
In a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll, 67 percent of Mainers support the late-term abortion bill.
And as reported earlier this month by The Maine Wire, it also has the financial backing of the state’s electric company Central Maine Power, Hannaford’s, one of the largest grocery store chains in New England, and LL Bean, a retail icon to outdoor adventurers.
In introducing the abortion bill, Ms. Mills said she was inspired by the story of Dana Pierce, who has spoken publicly about her baby being diagnosed with a rare and fatal genetic disorder in the final trimester of her pregnancy.
Ms. Pierce said she had to fly to Colorado to terminate the pregnancy because she was too far along, at 32 weeks, to get an abortion under Maine law.
