2025 Legislative Priorities
MECEP’s legislative priorities in 2025 aim to advance economic justice and opportunity, including racial equity. We want to bring fairness and accountability to the tax code, ensure Mainers can find and afford health care and child care, and build a budget that helps families who need it most.
A Fair Budget — LDs 210 and 609
MECEP will continue to play a leadership role in understanding the major elements, informing lawmakers and the public, and providing analysis on need for investments in crucial areas. MECEP’s priorities include:
- Reversing the cost-of-living cuts to health care providers
- Restoring funding for child care workers and Head Start
- Stopping reductions in public sector staffing levels
- Maintaining investments in our safety net and public health infrastructure
- Supporting the Governor’s push to maintain funding for the state’s share of education costs, free school meals, and making the Free Community College program permanent
- Fighting for the inclusion of progressive revenue policies (outlined below) that will allow the reversal of the proposed cuts as well as additional investments in our communities proposed by the legislature
Update: The budget package passed by the Legislature invests in key state priorities, rejects many of the most harmful cuts to assistance programs proposed by Governor Mills, and includes modest steps toward a more progressive tax code.
Still, lawmakers stopped short of embracing the bold, ongoing revenue solutions needed to fully support Maine people, particularly as uncertainty looms around future federal funding.
Learn more:
MECEP blog: Legislative Rundown: First regular session of the 132nd
MECEP blog: Final part 2 budget rejects many cuts and makes investments — but lawmakers still have to address long term revenue needs
MECEP blog: Governor Mills’ budget proposal: key takeaways and recommendations
MECEP op-ed: Rather than simply cutting costs, Maine must look at raising revenue
MECEP blog: Calm before the storm: New revenue forecast shows little change, for now
MECEP blog: New “continuing services budget” provides stable foundation for future planning
Revenue-Raising Tax Fairness Proposals
Maine can avoid harmful reductions that result in lower wages for already underpaid and undervalued workers by asking the wealthiest residents to pay their fair share in taxes. Specific options include:
- Creating a “millionaire’s tax” to raise over $200 million next biennium (LD 1089)
- Update: passed in the Senate but failed to pass in the House; carried over
- Raising the real estate transfer tax on higher priced homes to raise tens of millions of dollars per year (LD 1082)
- Update: signed into law as part of the budget
- Increasing the corporate income tax to raise $35 million per year (LD 1879)
- Update: passed in the House and Senate; carried over
- Ending ineffective subsidies for wealthy corporations to raise over $100 million dollars per year
- Increasing taxes on capital gains to raise almost $120 million per year (LD 1047)
- Update: died in committee
- Several proposals around property taxes, that would allow the state and municipalities to treat family homesteads different from mansions
Learn more:
MECEP blog: Tax bracket bill would raise taxes on the wealthy, cut bottom bracket
MECEP blog: Tax flight is a myth
MECEP blog: Tax Committee passes progressive revenue bills to raise millions for important priorities
MECEP explainer: Tax Fairness
MECEP brief: Tax Policy Solutions for 2025 and Beyond
MECEP blog: Tax Committee passes progressive revenue bills to raise millions for important priorities
MECEP op-ed: Why a millionaire tax makes sense for Maine
MECEP op-ed: Maine doesn’t have to choose between bold policy and balanced budgets
Affordable and Accessible Child Care — LD 1955
High quality child care is essential for preparing children for school and for allowing young parents to stay in the labor force. Yet early childhood educators are paid low wages, and the cost of child care is out of reach for many working families. Senate President Daughtry is introducing a bill to secure and build on recent investments to expand access to the state’s child care affordability program and to enhance child care professionals’ wages to help retain them in this critical field.
Update: LD 1955 was held by Governor Mills
Learn more:
MECEP stories: Bouncing Bubbles Child Care | Creative Play Childcare | Youth and Family Outreach
MECEP blog: Maine must invest in child care, not cut it
Investments in Direct Care Workers who Support Older and Disabled Mainers — LD 1932
Direct care professionals who provide skilled supports to older and disabled Mainers remain undervalued and in short supply. Despite some progress in recent years, the failure to adequately compensate these workers contributes to a widening gap between the care people across our state need and what’s available. Speaker Fecteau has introduced a bill to raise the labor reimbursement rate to 140% percent of the minimum wage so these workers can earn a more competitive wage and people can get care when they need it most.
Update: LD 1932 was carried over with forthcoming legislative hearing in the Health and Human Services Committee
Learn more:
MECEP report: The High Cost of Undervaluing Direct Care Work
MECEP report: Closing the Gap: Maine’s Direct Care Shortage and Solutions to Fix It
MECEP blog: Maine shouldn’t balance the budget on the backs of direct care workers
Increased Dependent Tax Credit for Families with Young Children — LD 1294
We can double the amount delivered through the Dependent Exemption Tax Credit for families with children or dependent adults while keeping the total cost of the program revenue neutral by better targeting the credit to working- and middle-class families.
Update: LD 1294 was signed into law as part of the budget
Learn more:
MECEP explainer: The Child Tax Credit
MECEP blog: Expanding the Dependent Exemption Tax Credit is an investment in Maine’s future
Accountability for Multinational Corporations — LDs 1107 (Expenditures), 1465 (DECD Reform), 1894 (Groceries)
We can pass laws in Maine that help level the playing field for local grocery stores, making sure there is more competition for better prices when Mainers go shopping for food. We can also require more information from companies that receive corporate subsidies, making it easier for the public and the legislature to determine which ones are working and which ones need to go.
Update: LDs 1107 and 1894 remain on appropriations table, LD 1465 died in committee
Equal Rights for Farmworkers — LDs 588 and 589
For nearly a century, farmworkers in Maine have been explicitly excluded from some of the most basic labor laws, including minimum wage. It is a legacy rooted in racism and today means agricultural workers are far more likely to live in poverty. The people who power our agricultural economy deserve the same rights as everyone else. Maine needs to include these workers in our minimum wage and labor protection laws.
Update: LD 588 was vetoed by Governor Mills, LD 589 was signed into law
Learn more:
MECEP blog: Progress for farmworkers — but full justice still denied
MECEP explainer: Farmworker Rights
MECEP news clip: Minimum wage for Maine farmworkers
MECEP blog: Farmworkers deserve the same rights as all workers
Access to Health Care for Immigrants
Mainers’ immigration status shouldn’t get in the way of receiving care when they get sick. MECEP supports efforts to remove restrictions in the MaineCare program that bar access to certain immigrant groups. This year Senator Talbot Ross will introduce legislation to remove these restrictions for older Mainers and those with certain major health conditions.
Learn more:
MECEP blog: Worker wins and setbacks in the 2023 legislative sessions
Tribal Sovereignty
MECEP stands with the Wabanaki Nations’ call to reform the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act and the Maine Implementing Act which limit their inherent rights to self-govern. When the Wabanaki Nations have the tools they need to thrive, all who live within Maine borders benefit.
Update: LD 958 (vetoed by Governor Mills) would have removed the state’s ability to seize tribal land through the eminent domain process. Other bills to address tribal sovereignty are expected to be introduced next year.
Learn more:
MECEP explainer: Tribal Sovereignty
MECEP news clip: Tribal sovereignty in Maine *featuring Penobscot National Ambassador and MECEP board member Maulian Bryant
Stronger Worker Protections — LDs 54 (Pay Disclosure), 598 (Reporting Pay), 599 (Overtime), 799 (Gender Pay Gap)
We can ensure fair work is rewarded with fair pay by passing bills that push back against gender- and race-based disparities in pay and ensure workers are not deprived of overtime pay or reporting pay when asked to spend more time away from their families and their lives.
Update: LDs 54, 599, and 799 remain on appropriations table, LD 598 became law without the Governor’s signature
Learn more:
MECEP report: State of Working Maine 2024: Gains and Gaps in a Strong Economy
MECEP blog: LD 599: Expanding overtime protections for 21,000 salaried workers