{"id":98125,"date":"2026-01-15T09:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/?p=98125"},"modified":"2026-04-24T07:37:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:37:03","slug":"legislative-report-november-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/?p=98125","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Report, January 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Steven Haycock<\/a>, Legislative Director<\/em><\/strong>
(207) 329-6835<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It\u2019s January in Maine, which means it\u2019s cold and snowy and the Maine Legislature is returning to work.\u00a0 \u00a0Officially opened on January 7, each party had dueling press conferences at the same time to lay out their priorities for the session.\u00a0 Why did they have dueling press conferences, because in 2026 in my humble opinion there are no \u201cadults\u201d leading the political parties.\u00a0 It worries me that politicians\u2019 main goals are stopping the opposite party, even more so than advancing their own plans or agendas.\u00a0 It\u2019s seeming to me a cultural shift, which applies to most legislative bodies, and Maine is by no means alone, Washington, D.C. is another prime example.\u00a0 How sad, and how far we\u2019ve fallen from the days when the goal was to advance the common good, not stopping the opposition at all costs.\u00a0 We have great problems and issues in this State and Nation.\u00a0 I\u2019m a firm believer that the best possible solution comes when the politicians of both parties work together to create common sense solutions.\u00a0 \u201cWe the People,\u201d are much better off when the Republicans don\u2019t get everything they want and when the Democrats don\u2019t get everything they want.\u00a0 The best solutions are a combination of both ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Google Gemini A.I. I asked it what the priorities for the coming Maine Legislative Session are and this was the response: Energy Costs & Affordability, Housing Reform, Budget Rebalancing (apparently they found and additional $250 Million to spend), Filling Federal Funding Gaps, Immigration Enforcement, Healthcare Workforce, Tribal Sovereignty, Environment and Industry Support.  These all seem like reasonable areas to address.  The question is will they be able to work together to accomplish some of these issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Healthcare Workforce seems very timely, although I couldn\u2019t venture a clue on how to fix what is obvious Doctor shortage.\u00a0 Since returning to Maine, my previous Doctor\u2019s office I had closed, when I called to get appointment with a doctor at local office, I was told it would be at least a 6-month wait.\u00a0 There were more than 8 practitioners at this office, I told them I didn\u2019t really care which one I saw.\u00a0 I also explained that for me personally I was looking for mental health support, the polite receptionist told me that I would likely be an additional 12 months after my first appointment with my new doctor to be connected with mental health services.\u00a0 I\u2019m reasonably young and healthy, so I will just have to cope.\u00a0 On the other side my mother, who has some minor ongoing health issues, was forced to change providers when her Medicare insurance changed.\u00a0 Her previous doctor was no longer accepted by the plan, and she went searching for a new doctor that took her plan, she called and asked for appointment, the next available appointment was in 2027!!\u00a0 She has medications that require refills etc., so that worries me.\u00a0 These are just two simple examples of pending healthcare crisis, without easy solutions.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been trying to produce a resolution to address this but can\u2019t come up with the \u201cresolve\u201d although I got about a 25 \u201cWhereas\u201d statements I could use.\u00a0 Any suggestions?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Steven Haycock, Legislative Director(207) 329-6835 It\u2019s January in Maine, which means it\u2019s cold and snowy and the Maine Legislature is returning to work.\u00a0 \u00a0Officially opened on January 7, each party had dueling press conferences at the same time to lay out their priorities for the session.\u00a0 Why did they have dueling press conferences, because … Continue reading “Legislative Report, January 2026”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88],"tags":[34,687],"post_folder":[704],"class_list":["post-98125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legislative","tag-grange-activities","tag-grange-resolutions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Walter Boomsma","author_link":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/?author=2122"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Steven Haycock, Legislative Director(207) 329-6835 It\u2019s January in Maine, which means it\u2019s cold and snowy and the Maine Legislature is returning to work.\u00a0 \u00a0Officially opened on January 7, each party had dueling press conferences at the same time to lay out their priorities for the session.\u00a0 Why did they have dueling press conferences, because…","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1arC1-pwF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99248,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98125\/revisions\/99248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98125"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainestategrange.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_folder&post=98125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}