Augusta Confidential: Chapter 5
State Rep. Laurel Libby and her mom sue the Speaker of the House and more.
Obstruction, Overreach and Outrage
by Reese Calloway, undercover lawmaker
When the Maine Legislature reconvened this week, the far-right factotum wasted no time unveiling their latest series of regressive proposals, each more detrimental than the last. Their legislative agenda reads like a manifesto of backwardness, intended to erode the progress we've fought so hard to achieve.
Not satisfied with undermining democracy alone, Senate Republicans promptly took hostages: namely essential healthcare funding and crucial forestry protections. After initially signaling agreement, they shamelessly reneged on a bipartisan supplemental budget designed to cover a shortfall in MaineCare and protect our forests from an imminent spruce budworm catastrophe. Republicans like Aroostook County’s Sen. Sue Bernard (whose absenteeism we’ll discuss later) were content to gamble with both public health and Maine’s economic stability in order to score petty political points as part of the far-right contingent's commitment to sabotage that threatens the whole state.
Republicans are spinning the Dems current use of the “supplemental budget” process as an elaborate Democratic conspiracy designed to obscure spending. That lie conveniently ignores decades of bipartisan and GOP usage. The supplemental budget is a structured and sensible approach to the process, which ensures funding for core governmental services like schools, public safety and healthcare remains uninterrupted to avoid the reckless shutdown tactics Republicans have repeatedly flirted with over the years.
Another Round of Fredette Fuckery
A quick refresher on Rep. Ken Fredette, who has conveniently unremembered his previous legislative history. A relic of the misbegotten Governor Paul LePage era, Fredette had made a name for himself as a staunch opponent of Medicaid expansion and an obsequious ally of now-FloridaMan LePage’s most extreme fiscal policies.
These days, the representative from the Penobscot County town of Newport clutches his pearls while feigning outrage over the revival of the Part A and B supplemental budget approach. Spare us the theatrics, Ken-Boy. The only sneaky thing here is the GOP’s manufactured confusion and selective historical amnesia.
Amnesia like forgetting Fredette was a seated member in 2017 and an active budget antagonist the last time Maine shut down under fiscal duress. Last week, on the mic during a heated meeting of the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, Fredette facetiously accused Dems of abuse of power and attempting to shut down the government in a classic case of projection. He’s trying hard to avoid responsibility and manipulate those around him, all while attempting to maintain a positive image as a functioning lawmaker.
The Part A and B budget method isn't new or secretive: it's a straightforward, well-established budgeting mechanism that Maine lawmakers employed routinely throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Has Fredette conveniently forgotten the decades of the legislature approving budgets using this exact structure? Or is his newfound shock purely performative?
My bet is on the latter.
And while this may sound crazy, will someone please bring the Honorable John Martin back? The Earl of Eagle Lake may have been the reason we have term limits, but there are very few with his institutional knowledge. And his budgetary comprehension would’ve shut down this session’s rampant showboating and caterwauling by the GOP.
AWOL When It Mattered Most
Where was the aforementioned Sen. Sue Bernard during the critical appropriations meeting on Friday? After voting against the supplemental budget the previous day, Bernard didn't bother to show up for work the next morning. Even though she didn’t make the long drive back home to Aroostook County.
You’d think the lead Republican on the powerful Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee would prioritize fulfilling her basic duty of attending important meetings.
Nope. Bernard was nowhere to be found when it mattered most. Engaging in responsible governance, apparently, was less appealing to her than dodging accountability to voters.
What sort of leadership is that? It’s one thing to push a disastrous, anti-worker, anti-education GOP agenda. It’s another, though, to blow off big meetings when her constituents desperately need state funding for schools, infrastructure and economic development.
Sadly, the County was left unrepresented at the most critical moment. The people who elected Bernard deserve better than a legislator who ghosts them when the chips are down and the stakes are the highest.
Let’s talk about Bernard’s background. Before getting elected, she spent years in the public eye as a local news anchor. After that, while working as the spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland at the height of an on-going sex abuse scandal, she had to straight-face dissemble and bear false witness on behalf of her boss the Bishop.
So she’s had a career built on being polished, presentable and able to read a teleprompter confidently.
The problem? The Senate doesn’t run on scripted soundbites. Bernard is embarrassingly out of her depth when it comes to understanding policy, making tough decisions and standing up for her constituents. There’s a void of legislative substance, a vacancy of meaningful contributions, and, let’s be real, any kind of actual personality that suggests independent thought all points north of her shoulders.
She’s just another Republican vacuous talking head, pretending to be a fiscal leader but actually more concerned with optics than doing the work required as a lawmaker. The people of Aroostook County deserve a champion who will show up, fight for them and understand the consequences of a state budget. Instead, they got a warm body to hold the seat, to vote obstructionist when ordered and skip town whenever the numbers are on the line.
War on Educational Funding
Speaking of misguided theatrics, enter Rep. Amy Arata. During committee Friday, Arata bizarrely insisted it was “inappropriate” to cover community college tuition already promised to students this year.
Wonder exactly which part offended her delicate sensibilities: providing young Mainers with an actual path out of economic struggle or the audacity of honoring financial promises to students who’ve planned their futures around them?
Maybe Arata didn’t read the memo. Affordable education isn't a political stunt: it’s a lifeline. Yet there she stands, inexplicably defiant, grandstanding on the side of empty gestures and broken promises.
Again, this isn’t leadership. It’s stubbornly tone-deaf-and-blind buffoonery, disconnected from the kitchen-table realities Maine families face every single day. Theatrics might play well at GOP rallies and on Facebook, but they don’t pay tuition bills, build stronger communities or help Mainers thrive in these tough times.
Seems like Arata’s brief and utterly forgettable tenure last year as assistant minority leader taught her nothing. Or perhaps her 15 minutes in the back office (under the tutelage of master fabulist Billy Bob Faulkingham) taught her how to stage performative moral outrage over common sense solutions. Either way, Arata’s insistence on undermining community college tuition education funding isn’t merely misguided. It’s astonishingly clueless and actively monkey-wrenches the futures of many Maine students.
Another No-Show Leader
A perfect case study in Republican incompetence and entitlement is Senator Trey Stewart. The Senate Minority Leader, supposedly the most powerful Republican in Maine’s upper chamber, didn’t bother to show up for the final state budget vote on March 13th.
That’s right, the man who was supposed to be leading his party in Augusta ultimately went into hiding when it was time to make a decision that would directly impact his own district. Once again, Aroostook County deserved a vote in the room. Instead, potato-land was rewarded with a cowardly absence.
Let’s not pretend this was an isolated incident. Stewart has built his entire political career from name recognition, not legislative substance. His family’s deep ties to the County (he’s the scion of longtime pols and judicial types) may have gotten him into office, but being a nepo-baby didn’t make him relevant. Or competent.
In politics, legacy only carries you so far before people start expecting results. And, so far, Stewart has only delivered hollow rhetoric, half-baked talking points and an embarrassing lack of follow-through.
The job of the Senate Minority Leader is to be present, engaged and ready to fight for their caucus. Instead, like Harry Houdini, Stewart pulled a disappearing act at the most critical moment, leaving his party rudderless and his constituents abandoned.
Remember that the Maine Republicans love to proclaim they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Yet, when push came to shove on the most crucial financial legislation of the session, their supposed senatorial leader couldn’t be bothered to show up and vote Nay.
That’s not leadership.
Let’s be blunt: GOPers aren't concerned with legality or transparency when it comes to this budget. They're furious that Democrats managed to sidestep their obstructionism, via the supplemental budget, to fund the state's essential functions responsibly. Their tantrums and absenteeism (yes, Sen. Bernard, we're looking at you) are merely transparent political theater.
To Fredette, Arata, Bernard, Stewart et al: spend less time manufacturing rage bait and more time showing up for your constituents. Also, dump your convenient memory lapses, misguided priorities and legislative ghosting.
I know I keep saying this, but Maine deserves better.
Libby's Litigious Lollygagging & Quint's Quixotic Quest
Meanwhile, Auburn Rep. Laurel Libby continues to draw attention. Not for meaningful legislative work, of course, because she currently remains on legislative mute. Libby is back in the limelight because of her frivolous lawsuit (which, bizarrely, includes her mother Wendy Munsell as a co-plaintiff) against House Speaker Ryan Fecteau. After being rightly censured for publicly targeting a transgender high school athlete, a move that endangered a minor's privacy and safety, Libby now claims her First Amendment rights were violated. Never-mind that the House Rule that brought her censure has stood the test of time for over two centuries. And never-mind that she’s the one who picked this fight by targeting an innocent teenager.
Libby’s cringy grandstanding has led to an unprecedented situation where all six of Maine's federal judges — citing conflicts of interest — have recused themselves, thereby transferring Libby’s crybaby case to Rhode Island. Once again, this shrill’s bigoted spectacle – and refusal to apologize – is wasting taxpayer dollars while distracting from our state's pressing issues.
Further adding to the circus under the copper Dome, Rep. Tracy Quint has appointed herself as Libby's chief defender, parroting her baseless claims and further inflaming partisan tensions. When I say parroting, I mean it literally. Since Libby is on mute, the Auburn bigot has to resort to passing out her floor speeches like Valentines in third grade. And some of her brainwashed colleagues oblige and mimic her babble into the official record.
Doesn’t this cult thing sound familiar?
Instead of focusing on her constituents' needs, Quint chose to align with Libby's misguided crusade, becoming another in a long line of weird Republicans obsessed with the genitalia of high school athletes, which is a profound disconnect from the harsh realities Mainers face daily.
Reagan Paul’s Off-Shore Wind Tantrum
Ever wonder what a masterclass in “Fossil Fuel Bootlicking” would sound like? Search no further than Rep. Reagan Paul’s public hearing last week on off-shore wind power. A public hearing so greasy and absurd, Big Oil could have sponsored it.
Paul, with all the outrage of someone praying for a spot on right-wing cable tv, led a desperate charge to block offshore wind development from Sears Island. She clenched the podium, gnashed her teeth and flipped her hair with rage over “environmental concerns” while conveniently ignoring the actual climate crisis barrelling towards us at rapid speed.
Let’s be clear: Her spectacle wasn’t about protecting Maine’s environment. Nope. As a corporatist stooge, Paul is tasked with helping to preserve the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on our economy while stalling clean energy jobs that could benefit Maine workers and make the Earth a better place to live.
Offshore wind represents a generational opportunity: cheaper energy, union jobs and energy independence. Paul and her wingnut allies, however, are more interested in protecting oil lobbyists than Maine families struggling with ever-increasing home heating costs and other energy expenses.
The wind hearing itself was another proverbial circus. Paul peddled misinformation, dismissed expert testimony and twisted herself into rhetorical knots. According to Paul, offshore wind is the enemy. The kicker? Her whole argument crumbled when questioners began asking about climate change and other environmental issues that she couldn’t answer. Her inability to explain her reasoning, though, didn’t stop her from mugging for the camera.
It’s obvious that Sears Island should be a hub for the future of energy, not a monument to political cowardice. But as long as sycophants like Rep. Paul keep prioritizing oligarchic overlords instead of Mainers, we’re stuck fighting for common sense energy-policy against the sell-outs addicted to Black Gold’s political donations.
I can’t stress this enough:The last week further showcased the troubling pattern of right-wing lawmakers preferring radical self-interest, performative outrage and dangerous obstructionism over real governance. We need to hold these extremists accountable. Not with gentle compromise, but by clearly naming their actions for what they are: traitors to the people they claim to represent.
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Some real winners in Augusta for sure!