Gov. Janet Mills (D) delivered her 2025 State of the Budget Address to a joint session of the Maine Legislature Tuesday night. In order to reach the chamber, though, the governor had to skirt a crowd of Mainers who had gathered to protest her proposed budget just outside its doors.
Demonstrators told the Maine Wire that they had expected to be able to silently protest from the chamber’s upper gallery, but found out they would not be able to do so when they arrived.
Unlike in prior years, on Tuesday night the gallery was closed to the public during Tuesday’s State of the Budget Address.
Unable to demonstrate during the governor’s speech, the protestors lined the hallway leading into the House chamber where both legislative leaders and the governor herself typically enter for the address.
Although many lawmakers did pass by the protest — where they were met with a chorus of boos and other shouts from the crowd — the governor did not.
Instead, Gov. Mills bypassed the demonstration, approaching the chamber via a door located directly next to to the House entrance.
Despite this, protesters still shouted at the governor as she entered the chamber. One man could be heard calling out “you s*ck” as the governor walked by the crowd.
Crowd welcomes Gov. Mills at the Maine State of the State! pic.twitter.com/uPfKtxJdr9
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) January 29, 2025
Many of the Mainers who turned out Tuesday night to protest were upset about Mills’ proposed biennial budget, raising concerns over state spending and potential tax hikes.
“She needs to learn how to budget, learn how to do math. We can’t afford anything that she’s asking for,” one woman told the Maine Wire. “And please, no more new taxes.”
“She roped off the gallery for governor invites only, and then went in and proceeded to say that she needs to do everything for the people when she doesn’t even care,” she added. “She didn’t even give us a seat. I’m not impressed.”
Another demonstrator decried the chief executive not practicing what she would go on to preach in her address:
“We were taught you pay your bills, you make a certain amount of money, and you live by a budget,” Mainer Tony Plante told the Maine Wire. “To go from a surplus to where we are now, it seems like there’s a lot of fat that could be cut.”
“Think about the regular Maine taxpayer,” he said when asked what his message would be to the governor. “We’re working people who don’t have so much money for everything. Just live within your means.”
“I just came out tonight to silent protest,” Plante explained. “Janet Mills, she wants to put the taxes up. She wants to increase fees. This isn’t right.”
“I was disappointed tonight. I thought we would be let into the gallery, but she wouldn’t let us in. This is the people’s house,” said Plante. “We should be able to come into our own home.”
One local man said he felt Mills went out of her way to snub the demonstrators:
“This is the first time that she closed the gallery to the public,” Nick Blanchard of Augusta told the Maine Wire. “I think its because she’s seen online there’s a lot of traction, that people were going to show up, because there’s a lot of Mainers who are very displeased with the way that she’s running the state right now.”
“Not only that, but she didn’t even have the guts to walk by ‘the peasants,”” he said, adding air quotes around the end of his sentence. “She had to sneak her way in because she’d seen everybody out in the hallway.”
“I thought it was pretty sneaky how she went in through the back door and didn’t even want to see any of the people,” one man told the Maine Wire.
“She didn’t even look our direction,” another added.
Mills’ speech Tuesday night focused primarily on the proposed biennial budget that was submitted to lawmakers earlier this month, as well as on the state’s financial situation more generally.
The $11.6 billion budget proposal, which represents a $1.1 billion increase over the current two-year budget, includes both tax increases and program cuts.
Lawmakers will begin working on the state’s budget next week, holding public hearings and considering amendments.
Earlier in the day, legislative Republicans held a press conference to outline their concerns with Mills’ budget proposal, and specifically the raft of tax increases it includes.
“I hope to hear that she’s going to walk back from her plan to tax digital streaming, to tax cannabis, to tax people’s pensions, to tax ambulances, to tax prescriptions, and even to tax cans of paint,” House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) said. Speaking specifically about the $80 million Mills’ budget aims to raise off a hike in cigarette taxes, Rep. Faulkingham said that was “raising money off the backs of poor people, we’re sick of it!”
In her speech Mills called on those outside her party to support her budget plan, but in the afternoon press conference, Faulkingham said Republicans had been frozen out of the process.
“We’re willing to negotiate and would like to have a seat at the table, but it’s definitely not trending in that direction,” he observed.
Although the governor’s proposal will serve as a foundation for the state’s budget discussions going forward, legislators will have the final say on how the State of Maine spends its money, as well as on what taxes are imposed upon Maine citizens.
Click Here to Read the Full Text of Gov. Mills’ 2025 State of the Budget Address
