After years of efforts by their governor to curtail benefits to low-income people in various ways, a couple Maine lawmakers seem like they’ve had enough. Two bills are being proposed this fall to turn the tables on Gov. Scott LePage.
A bill put forth by state Rep. Scott Hamann (D) would restrict the official expense account of the governor’s office from being used to purchase tattoos, alcohol, lotto tickets, and bail-bonds. It is the second piece of legislative mirth-making proposed this month in response to the state leadership’s undying effort to attach new restrictions, hurdles, and stigmas to public assistance programs for low-income families.
Hamann’s bill mirrors restrictions that sitting Gov. Paul LePage (R) wants placed on welfare benefits cards, which he believes are abused by tattoo-seekers and lottery-players. LePage has tried repeatedly to prohibit the cards from being used at liquor stores, tobacco stores, and lottery machines, with no success to date.
A spokeswoman for the state’s House Democrats told the Augusta ABC local news affiliate that she has no reason to believe current Gov. Paul LePage (R) has used his expense account on such things. But neither does LePage have much reason to be worried about welfare card withdrawals at ATMs that happen to sit on the premises of establishments he views as luxuries. His own extensive study of the issue found that 0.2 percent of all such card transactions over a nearly three-year period occurred at bars and strip clubs in the state.
Hamann doesn’t plan to give much of his work energy over to taunting LePage in the current session of the legislature, according to a spokeswoman. “Given the hurdle second session bills must clear, Rep. Hamann is focusing his efforts on his Meals on Wheels proposal and his bill to prevent opioid overdose among children and elders,” Ann Kim told local reporters.
Earlier in October, state Sen. Larry Lockman (R) took a similar tack with colleagues who want to drug test public benefits applicants. He’s proposed “An Act to Require Random Drug Testing of Legislators.” Lockman wasn’t in the legislature himself back in 2011 when the state included random drug testing for welfare in the annual budget — a law that only came into action recently, after the state struggled to tweak the program to avoid being sued for civil rights violations.
“If we’re going to ask welfare recipients to be drug tested, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be, too,” Lockman told the Ellsworth American. He did not immediately return a call seeking to clarify his own position on the validity of testing low-income people as a prerequisite for receiving public aid.
LePage’s drug testing regime has gotten off to an odd start since April. The testing scheme mandates a urine sample for any applicant with a prior conviction related to drugs. Just one person out of 15 flunked a drug test required as part of the application process from April through June. Another 13 out of the 15 applicants who were tested between April and June were denied benefits because they didn’t make it to an appointment to be tested. Other states with more straightforward testing systems have exhibited near-zero rates of drug use among their applicant pools.
People’s reasons for missing the tests are unclear, though it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which someone scraping by on an income that would qualify them for welfare benefits might end up having to miss an appointment. In Portland, one of the state’s major population centers, LePage’s other moves to trim back the public assistance system mean the local Department of Health and Human Services office is now an 80-minute round-trip voyage from the city center for people who rely on public transit.