Top Democrats propose bill to assess racial biases in Maine laws

“There’s all this information that’s out there that legislators don’t even know is available until they ask for it,” said James Myall, a policy analyst for the Maine Center for Economic Policy who sits on the state’s commission on racial, Indigenous and tribal populations.

In a press conference Wednesday, Myall recalled the need for such information surfacing several times during the LePage administration, which made cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid.

“I was in several hearings with legislators that asked, for example, the Department of Health and Human Services to tell them what the racial impact of [the cuts] would be, and if it would primarily impact low-income Black and brown families,” Myall said.

“The department either couldn’t or didn’t get that information,” Myall said.

Click here to read the full story, first published February 3, 2021, in the Bangor Daily News.