Maine’s legislature has voted down several efforts to scale back the state’s new paid family leave, for which MPA has long advocated and which is slated to take effect and start payments in 2026.
Earlier this month, the state’s Senate voted 20-14 to advance LD 894, a new version of the bill which includes enforcement mechanisms, and voted down several attempts to dilute the measure, which offers Mainers up to 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child, tend to their own illness, or support a loved one.
MPA gathered more than 80,000 signatures to support paid family leave in 2022, prompting the legislature to first pass the proposal in 2023, MPA has continued to rally support for the measure, rallying at the statehouse and gathering comments in its defense.
“This is essential to a happy, healthy and successful workforce in Maine,” said Olivia Simpson, a geriatrician and parent who lives in Brunswick, Maine. “We are already lagging behind other states who have come to this common sense conclusion and made the right choice.”
MPA has also kept up pressure on U.S. Senator Susan Collins to follow through on her promises to defend Mainers from the harms the GOP’s proposed $880 million in cuts to Medicaid will cause in her home state.
“I am looking very carefully at the Medicaid provision, and in particular, I’ve been very concerned about the impact on children, on people with disabilities, on seniors who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, and for low-income families,” Collins told WMTW, a local ABC affiliate.
MPA members visited Collins at her office on Capitol Hill last month, as part of a national fly-in of People’s Action Institute members who came to share their concerns with lawmakers. While Collins acknowledged their concerns, she has yet to commit to either vote against or advocate for changes the proposed budget, which President Trump wants to sign into law by July 4.
To keep up the pressure, MPA is organizing regular visits by its members to Collins’s Bangor, Lewiston and Portland offices, most recently joining Multifaith Justice Maine to invite clergy and faith leaders to pray, sing and share their concerns with Collins on June 14th.
