Right to Repair Electronic Devices Receives Nearly-Unanimous Support in State Senate

Lawmakers in Augusta voted nearly-unanimously this past Friday to advance a bill guaranteeing Mainers the right to repair their electronic devices.

This was followed by a more partisan vote to adopt a floor amendment advanced by the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mike Tipping (D-Penobscot).

The only senator to vote against LD 1487 — as amended by the Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business (IDEA) Committee — was Sen. Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin).

Sen. Mark Lawrence (D-York) was excused at the time and did not participate, resulting in this version of the bill being approved in a roll call vote of 33-1.

All Senate Democrats supported Sen. Tipping’s floor amendment Friday, alongside Sen. Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) and Sen. Matt Pouliot (R-Kennebec). The remaining Republican senators voted in opposition to the proposed changes, leading to a roll call vote of 23-11.

[RELATED: Right to Repair Electronic Devices Receives Bipartisan Backing in Augusta]

Under the version of the bill recommended by the IDEA Committee, devices covered by the proposed right to repair would include products “sold at retail for personal, household, family or home office use” with a wholesale price of more than $50 that are dependent “in whole or in part on digital electronics embedded in or attached to the product.”

Tipping’s amendment struck the language specifying that a device must be sold “for personal, household, family or home office use,” while keeping the remaining aspects of the definition intact.

Generally speaking, LD 1487 requires original equipment manufacturers — beginning on August 1, 2025 — to “make available on fair and reasonable terms to any independent repair provider or owner of the equipment any documentation, parts or tools, or their equivalents, required for the diagnosis, maintenance or repair of the equipment.”

Click Here to Read the Full Text of LD 1487 As Amended

Although Tipping’s amendment did not make any substantive changes to this overarching directive, it does impact what exceptions are contained within the proposed law .

More specifically, the floor amendment removes the option for an original equipment manufacturer to choose to comply with the outlined requirements by giving the purchaser either an equivalent or better device or an appropriate reimbursement.

[RELATED: Maine Lawmakers Consider “Right to Repair” for Electronic Devices]

This language is instead replaced with a clause stating that a manufacturer does not have to provide documentation, parts, or tools if they themselves do not have access to these things and do not themselves provide repair services for the devices they produce.

The Senate amendment also places conditions on the exception allowing manufacturers to protect its “trade secret[s].” Under the floor amendment, this exception is only valid if the protected information is not “necessary for diagnosis, maintenance or repair.”

The floor amendment also makes a handful of more technical changes to the bill’s proposed language that do not substantively affect the overall impact of the legislation.

Click Here to Read the Full Text of the Senate Amendment

When LD 1487 was before the IDEA Committee, lawmakers across the political spectrum appeared to support its passage, but were divided with respect to the specific language they thought ought to be pursued.

While the Democrat majority on the Committee backed the version of the bill that has now been advanced — which contains a long list of devices and equipment that are not encompassed under the proposed right to repair — the Republicans supported more concise language that instead provided a direct and narrow definition of what devices the law would cover.

LD 1487 currently remains pending before the House as representatives to table the bill during their session this past Friday.