LD 252

Just last year, Maine joined The National Popular Vote Compact with bipartisan support to move our country closer to a more representative democracy. When states representing 270 electoral college votes join, the Compact goes into effect and participating states agree to cast their electoral votes for president to the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide. After opponents mounted an unsuccessful people’s veto campaign last year, LD 252 was advanced as a legislative means to withdraw Maine from the Compact. Had the bill passed, Maine would have been the first state to withdraw.

Like the bill to join the Compact, LD 252 was fiercely contested. A Republican-led effort resulted in a bipartisan majority of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee voting to withdraw from the Compact, while the remaining five Democrats voted to remain. In May, the House initially moved the minority report to keep Maine in the Compact, but the vote failed. No further action on the bill occurred until a week before the Legislature adjourned in June, when a Senate vote to withdraw from the Compact also failed. After a reconsideration vote in the Senate and a flurry of motions from each chamber asking the other to reconsider their previous votes, the bill finally died in nonconcurrence on June 17, and Maine remained in the Compact.