The worst kind of Legislator

Maine Democrat admits he didn’t read bill before cosponsoring it

So, it turns out that some people who are elected to the Maine Legislature are not worth - well, anything, at least in that capacity.

You see, Maine Representative Gary Friedmann (D-Bar Harbor) recently admitted that he didn’t even read a bill before signing on to co-sponsor it.

Rep. Friedmann Says He Does Not Support the Bill He Co-Sponsored

Now, as the article makes clear above, this was not some milquetoast bill on some obscure topic, like the ones I mocked a month ago in the Portland Press Herald. This wasn’t renaming a bridge, or changing the weight limit on a road, or a useless study of an inane idea. This was a major shift in state policy on a controversial area that has recently made national news.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

This bill, LD 868, “An Act to Ensure Equity and Safety in Athletics, Restrooms, Changing Rooms and Housing at Elementary, Secondary and Postsecondary Schools” would essentially reverse Maine’s current policy to allow transgender student athletes to compete on teams of the gender by which they currently identify. Instead, this bill would require schools to have male, female, or coed teams, populated based on one’s biological gender at birth. The text of the bill makes it very clear:

"Sex" means the biological condition of being either male or female, as observed

or clinically verified at birth.

See? Regardless of how one feels about the issue, there’s no confusion there. The issue here is that Rep. Friedmann didn’t bother to read it all before agreeing to co-sponsor it. We know that because he said so publicly, at a town hall meeting - albeit with the caveat that a lot of other legislators apparently do the same thing all the time.

That’s not comforting.

That’s terrifying.

Again, it would be one thing if this were a simple, uncontroversial bill: ‘An Act to rename the Thomas Point Lighthouse the Frederick G. Bernham Lighthouse’, for instance. As long as Frederick G. Bernham wasn’t a Klan member, and the Thomas family wasn’t paying for the upkeep of the lighthouse, nobody would probably care. Certainly nobody would care outside of that particular district. Even if those kind of bills are silly, horse-trading on that kind of thing is understandable.

Now, certainly the title of this bill is vague enough that, without the text, it could have meant anything. It could have been a pro trans-rights bill, for instance. He should have known better based on the sponsor, however: Elizabeth Caruso, of Caratunk, once ran for Congress in Maine’s Second District as the conservative alternative. She didn’t get very far, but after five minutes of Googling her, any Democrat should know not to co-sponsor a bill she sponsored relating to trans rights.

Even if some anonymous Republican had sponsored it, Friedmann should have known enough from the title alone to know that he should wait to read the text of the bill before agreeing to co-sponsor it. The subject matter itself should have made that clear. It’s as if a Democrat in Congress blindly agreed to co-sponsor a bill that mentioned abortion sponsored by a Republican colleague. Instead, he just agreed to blindly sign on to it because of, well, bipartisanship, or starting conservations, or something.

I’m not even kidding.

This is, frankly, the worst kind of legislating. Any legislator who agrees to co-sponsor a bill without reading the full text simply isn’t doing their job and isn’t fit for office. Heck, every single member of the Legislature should have the chance to read the entire state budget, line by line, before they even vote on it - let alone co-sponsor random bills.

Serving in the Legislature is a part-time job, and it’s not easy; I get it. Still, if you’re not up to the task - and Friedmann clearly isn’t - you shouldn’t even be in Augusta. He should step down, or at least not run for re-election; either way, it’s time for him to consider another line of work. This isn’t for political gain, either: he’ll probably be replaced by another Democrat; Bar Harbor is hardly a swing district.

Just, hopefully, this time Bar Harbor can find someone who knows enough to read bills before they sponsor them - no matter how liberal they are. Because if we can’t even trust them to do that much, how can we trust them to do their job at all?

Bar Harbor, and all of Maine, deserve better.

Jim is also a weekly columnist for the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s largest daily newspaper. Follow him on X or on Facebook.