A relatively unique aspect of the legislative process here in Maine is that every bill gets a public hearing. Which means anyone can testify on a bill in Augusta. No exceptions. All that's required is a little bit of prep work on your end.

Here is a quick guide on how to effectively testify on a bill:

1. Check the schedule and find out when & where hearings on the bills you're interested in will be held. Set time aside in your schedule and make sure you arrive early. And don’t forget to take note of the room number.
2. Once you have determined the when & where of the hearing, contact your legislators to let them know you'll be coming to testify. They may be able to help make introductions to the committee members. Contact info for your senators can be found here and contact info for your representatives is available here.
3. Take time to prepare your testimony in advance. Practice what you are going to say. It’s especially helpful to read your testimony to yourself out loud or to record yourself practicing and go back and listen. Weak phrasings that seem good on paper often reveal themselves when spoken out loud. Harvard has great advice on public speaking, here.
4. In your testimony, make sure you include your: (1) name and the town/city you live in, (2) personal connection to the bill, (3) accurate facts & evidence, and (4) a thank you to the committee for their time.
5. (Optionally) Print out 24 copies of your testimony to bring with you. These copies can be given to the committee members as a reference to look back on.
6. When speaking, be sure to keep your testimony short & to the point, remain calm and unhurried, and stay concise while answering any questions the committee may have for you.
7. Learn more here.

For updates on bills we'll be following through the session, keep checking back at our action center. Now get out and participate in your democracy! 

This piece first appeared on MaineBeacon.com

As one of his last acts in office, Gov. Paul LePage pardoned a former Maine legislator and political ally for a 35-year-old drug trafficking conviction, against the recommendations of the state clemency board. 

We agree with Gov. LePage that Jeffrey Pierce should no longer face repercussions from a non-violent drug conviction over three decades ago. But we don’t think decisions about who gets a second chance and who doesn’t should depend on connections and political loyalty.

A governor’s pardon is essentially an act of official forgiveness. Article IV, section 11 of the Maine Constitution provides that “The Governor shall have power to remit after conviction all forfeitures and penalties, and to grant reprieves, commutations and pardons.”If a person is still serving a criminal sentence they will be released. If they are still facing penalties or restrictions based on their past conviction, those punishments will no longer apply. LePage granted 115 pardons during his two-term tenure, which puts him somewhere between Govs. Angus King and John Baldacci. But unlike King and Baldacci, we may never know who else made the cut under LePage because the Maine legislature voted last year to make pardon decisions confidential. 

One person who definitely did not receive a pardon is Lexius Saint Martin, a 35-year-old Waterville resident who sought a pardon for a 10-year-old cocaine trafficking conviction. In the decade following his conviction, Saint Martin kept a clean record, built a successful business, married and started a family. In seeking a pardon, he was desperately seeking to avoid being deported to his native Haiti – and separated from his pregnant wife and two sons – during President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration. But LePage rejected Saint Martin’s request, and Saint Martin was deported last February, before his baby daughter was born.  

If LePage believed that Pierce, who has had several misdemeanor offenses since his trafficking arrest and is currently being investigated for the unlawful use of firearms, deserved another chance, then why not Saint Martin, who worked hard to get his life back on track? 

While we can’t know LePage’s reasons for making these decisions, we do know that whether a person gets pardoned for a non-violent drug offense should never come down to their political affiliation, their clout, the color of the skin, or where they were born. That is why drug law reform is needed now: to make sure that people don’t get caught in the system for non-violent drug charges in the first place.

For every Jeffrey Pierce, there are thousands of people stuck in the system who don’t have political connections. Thousands of people who have been taken from their families, sentenced to spend their lives in prison, or sent back to dangerous countries where they have no home, because of our broken drug laws. They are disproportionately people of color, poor people, and people with mental illness. They are the people who are least likely to get the benefit of clemency or a pardon.

It shouldn’t take connections to get a second chance. It’s time to fix our drug laws to make sure our justice system treats all people fairly.

Rep. Jeffrey K. Pierce, center, pictured with Gov. Paul LePage and Sen. Susan Collins in a photo from his campaign.

It’s been a very big year. Here is just some of what we’ve accomplished together:

• Put a stop to the automatic suspension of driver’s licenses over missed fine payments.
• ​Filed a lawsuit on behalf of an 11-year-old boy with mental illness who was beaten by guards at the Long Creek youth prison.
• Launched a website and held a series of DA candidate forums to help voters better understand the power of DAs before they went to the polls.
• Filed two lawsuits aimed at forcing Customs and Border Protection to operate more transparently in Maine.
• Defended the right of Black people to live freely without having the police called on them for no good reason.
• Fought back against government censorship, in our lawsuit to stop Gov. LePage from blocking constituents on his official Facebook page.
• Pushed forward with two lawsuits to make sure all Maine women can access abortion care, regardless of where they live or how much money they make.

And that’s only a fraction of everything we accomplished together!

It is our honor to defend the rights of our fellow Mainers. We promise to keep it up, side by side with you, through the new year and every year after that.