Mills Hires Two Dem Cronies for State House Jobs

Gov. Janet Mills on Tuesday announced the hiring of two well-connected Maine Democratic Party operatives to her gubernatorial staff.

In an email blast, Mills said she had hired former Democratic House Speaker Ryan Fecteau and Elizabeth Gattine, former Senior Policy Associate at the University of Maine’s Catherine Cutler Institute.

Gattine also happens to be the wife of former Maine Democratic Party Chair Drew Gattine, who is also a state representative from Westbrook.

Fecteau will serve as the Senior Advisor for Community Development and Strategic Initiatives in the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, a position that appears to have been created just for him.

Gattine will be a “coordinator” on the Governor’s Cabinet on Aging, a committee Mills created by executive order in June 2022.

The Maine Wire has submitted a Freedom of Access Act request for the compensation Fecteau and Gattine will receive, though if past trends hold Fecteau can be expected to make roughly 10 percent more than Gattine.

UPDATE: According to a report in the Portland newspaper, Gov. Mills will break with past compensation practices and pay her new male employee the same amount as her new female employee, $89,460.80. As reported exclusively by the Maine Wire, an analysis of pay records from the governor’s office for 2021 showed a significant gap in pay between men and women, with male employees making more than female employees.