Legislative Advocacy

In 2006 , the Brookings Institution and GrowSmart Maine provided Maine with an ambitious “Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity in Maine,” titled ‘Charting Maine’s Future.’ Under the Action Plan, Maine would “cut to invest.” By streamlining and modernizing government and exporting some taxes to out-of-state visitors, our state could free up money for new initiatives that would grow our innovation economy, reduce taxes, and protect our quality places.

Governor Baldacci and the 123rd Maine Legislature took significant steps to implement the Action Plan during 2007 and 2008 (click here to read more about last year's legislative accomplishments). During the shorter legislative session of 2008, we focused on a few key goals and continued to build coalitions to implement the rest of the Brookings report's recommendations.

Protect & Enhance Maine's Quality Places

The Governor's Council on Maine's Quality of Place, which Governor Baldacci convened in response to "Charting Maine's Future," released its final report and recommendations in December 2007. The Council's recommendations agree with and reinforce the Brookings report's findings that Maine's quality of place is a powerful economic asset that deserves additional investment from the state.

In the coming year GrowSmart Maine will work with the council and other partners on strategies and ideas to implement these recommendations to protect and enhance Maine's quality places. For more information or to get involved in our efforts this spring and summer, contact us.

Revitalize and redevelop Maine's towns and cities

Two major initiatives are being considered this session which will remove barriers to redevelopment of our towns and cities and create a major incentive to revitalize historic downtowns all over the state.

One of our key successes this session was the passage of LD 262, an expansion of the historic preservation tax credit. This effort is critical to drive revitalization and economic development in our historic downtowns, Main Streets and villages. This bill was also a top priority of the newly-formed Coalition to Revitalize Maine's Towns and Cities , a statewide group of businesses and organizations that GrowSmart Maine convened over the past summer.

Legislators also agreed to adopt a statewide building code with statewide enforcement. This will help towns adopt Maine’s model building codes and harmonize the conflicts between various codes. The long term impact of this program will be to simplify development in town centers and attract new investment into our communities.

Another bill introduced by Rep Hinck will help level the playing field for historic schools: LD 2082 would revise the state's school construction funding criteria to make better use of existing neighborhood schools instead of constructing new buildings elsewhere.

Investing in Maine's innovation economy

LD 1215, a bill that would create a "fund of funds" venture capital investment program, is a critical next step in our efforts to support the innovation economy and entrepreneurs in Maine.  This bill will help provide critical venture capital, without using state funds, to help good ideas reach the commercialization stage. 

The “fund of funds” idea has been pioneered in Utah, with significant success for that state’s innovation industries. The Fund of Funds would invest a certain amount of state money in venture capital efforts that specialize in growing Maine businesses: investors, not bureaucrats or politicians, would direct capital to its most effective use. The investors would then repay the state, including a share of returns on the investments. The average annual return on venture capital investments for the past decade has been 17.9%, so the Fund may also be able to help relieve budget pressures.

The Business, Research, and Economic Development Committee supported this concept unanimously and it earned passage in the Legislature, only to be pocket-vetoed by Governor Baldacci after the conclusion of the session.

Streamlining government and reducing taxes

‘Charting Maine’s Future’ advised that Maine could find tremenous savings just by streamlining redundant bureaucracies in state government, at little to no expense to state services. Towards this end, the report's Action Plan recommended an independent “Maine Government Efficiency Commission” to propose cuts, after 18 months of working closely with the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) and other experts. This idea is meeting some resistance, but the concept has growing grassroots support.

We proposed a bill this session to create the independent government efficiency commission, but that bill was blocked by the Legislative Council.  A similar proposal was unanimously endorsed by the Legislature's newly-formed Prosperity Committee, but that proposal has not yet moved in the House or Senate. 

In the meantime, immediate cuts are already happening through the budget cuts sweeping through every department. However, GrowSmart Maine continues to argue that a long term strategy to structure government in a way that provides the best services in the most efficient way can not be accomplished in the midst of annual budget crises.  Future work will focus on laying out a detailed plan to get Maine to the middle third of rural states' tax burden, with benchmarks to meet every two years. Stay tuned as we explore strategies for moving forward.

Thanks for all of your support and participation this year. The response from Maine people, businesses, organizations and communities around the state has been phenomenal.  Please stay tuned as we continue to work together toward a prosperous future for all of us.