The following appeared on the Portland Press Herald editorial page:

"With COVID vaccines still in short supply, the state should be making every effort to get the shots to the places where they will do the most good.

"That’s why the first phase went to frontline health care workers and residents of nursing homes, groups that are among those at highest risk of becoming infected.

"But another group of vulnerable Mainers is going to have to wait until June or later to get a chance to be immunized. They are the approximately 3,000 adults and youths who are incarcerated in the state’s prisons and county jails.

"Inmates are waiting to be vaccinated even though the two largest COVID outbreaks in the state have been at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, and the York County Jail in Alfred. Even inmates who would qualify for a vaccine in the first phase because of their age or underlying medical condition will have to wait because it would be inefficient to vaccinate small numbers of older and sicker inmates."

Continue reading here.

From our op-ed in the Bangor Daily News:

In the past four years, we have seen how fragile and precious our democracy is. Our democratic principles and institutions have been battered, but they endure. Our representative system has survived a direct assault.

But we cannot be satisfied simply with the transition of power. We cannot move on without reckoning and accountability.

The ACLU’s national board of directors endorsed impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time, citing his pattern of anti-democratic actions. The ACLU is also calling on the U. S. Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump, his associates and federal officials who may have been involved in attempting to subvert the outcome of the election, including inciting a mob in an attempted coup.

Why a call for impeachment? Why a call for investigation and accountability? As the legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw said, “You cannot negotiate with white supremacy. White supremacy has got to be dealt with directly, without excuse, without compromise.” Crenshaw was comparing the Compromise of 1877 and the evolving response to the Jan. 6 coup attempt.

Read the full piece here.