A Democrat-led bill set for a public hearing on Thursday would give government agencies the power to bar concerned citizens or journalists from government property without due process and to prevent them from communicating with government officials.
[RELATED: House Democrats Attempt to BAN Maine Wire Reporter from House Chambers – Maine Wire TV…]
“LD 2150 undermines the First Amendment, violates due process, expands vague and discretionary government powers, and contradicts decades of federal case law. Most dangerously, it shifts the burden of proof from government to citizen, authorizing punishment without trial,” said Harris Van Pate from the Maine Police Institute in a testimony submitted against the bill.
Sen. Nicole Grohoski (D-Hancock) put forward LD 2150 “An Act to Establish Procedures for Restricting Access to State Property, Access to State Services and Communication with or Through State Entities” with support from seven Democratic co-sponsors, liberal independent Sen. Richard Bennett (I-Oxford), and one Republican, Rep. Rachel Henderson (R-Rumford).
The bill, as drafted, allows government agencies to restrict access to or communications with public officials and entities under Maine’s harassment laws if they deem that a person has been too confrontational.
“LD 2150 attempts to graft harassment law, a doctrine designed to protect private individuals, onto the government itself. But the state is not a private actor, and it cannot claim to suffer “fear” or “emotional distress” in the same sense as a person can. While an individual attorney at the Attorney General’s office could experience fear or harassment, that is not true for the office itself, which is a social construction,” said Van Pate in his testimony.
The bill allows an “entity of the state” to issue a communication restricting access for up to 90 days before it is required to seek a formal complaint for protection against harassment.
The entity of the state includes “any office, department, agency, authority, commission, board, institution, hospital, or other instrumentality of the State.”
The burden of proof is placed on the citizen receiving a notice of restriction to contest their ban on access to public property and officials, rather than on the state entity attempting to restrict access.
“The bill’s core mechanism, a 90-day access ban initiated solely by state officials, flips the constitutional sequence of enforcement and review,” said Van Pate.
“Citizens cannot be denied access to public services or property without prior opportunity to challenge the restrictions in court. LD 2150 proposes the opposite: the state acts first, and citizens must scramble to challenge the restrictions afterward,” he added.
Because state officials can decide without providing proof to restrict a citizen’s access, they are free to use the bill to bar journalists they deem too “confrontational” for up to 90 days.
Bureaucrats are required to tell individuals why they are being restricted, but they need not prove anything before the restriction goes into effect.
“Furthermore, since the 90-day window is when external review ever kicks in, this gives state agencies wide latitude to blanket approve their own harassment requests, regardless of validity. The concept of intimidating or causing fear to an entire agency or department, as shown earlier, doesn’t even make logical sense,” said Van Pate.
The bill’s summary frames it as a limit on the state’s ability to restrict public access to just 90 days, while it actually grants it new power.
In cases where a state agency seeks to extend the restriction beyond 90 days, the bill allows the plaintiff to seek that restriction in any division of the District Court they choose. This essentially lets the agency shop around for a court it thinks is most likely to rule in its favor.
Sen. Grohoski’s bill is dated January 7, the same day that Democrats in the legislature attempted to bar Maine Wire reporter Jon Fetherston from entering the House chamber while other media members were allowed in without issue.
It is not clear if Grohoski’s bill came in direct response to the state’s current inability to bar Fetherston from public property, but it does include an emergency preamble, which would allow it to go into effect immediately after being signed into law.
The preamble claims that, due to an expected uptick in protests on and around state property in 2026, it is essential to provide “statutory guidance” on restricting access to public institutions and officials in order to address “immediate public safety concerns and individual rights.”
The Legislative Committee on the Judiciary will hold a public hearing on the bill on Thursday at 10:00 a.m., and concerned Mainers can submit testimony online or appear in person to make their opinions on the bill known.
The Maine Wire reached out to Rep. Henderson to inquire about her support for the bill.
Unlike the Maine Policy Institute, she argued that the bill actually restricts the state’s ability to impose restrictions rather than enhances it.
“It is my understanding that current law provides little to no restrictions or framework to the state when they restrict a member of the public’s access to state property, which we know is publicly accessible,” said Henderson.
“Currently there are no limits on how long a state entity can impose restrictions, the bill would put a timeline of 90 days, and if they wish to extend past the 90-days, it would require them to file a complaint for PFH through DPS bureau of SP, and provide the court with evidence of the original notice and the original factual basis for restrictions,” she added.
“Understanding that an original bill proposed is RARELY the final product that gets sent to the chambers for a vote, and that the legislative process provides for a full analysis of the bill and for all prospectives to be considered, intent matters. My intent is to ensure that tax-payers and members exercising their first amendment rights are NOT restricted from tax payer funded property without process,” she said
While Henderson believes that the bill restricts power, the text appears to expand it because it inserts new language into existing law, allowing state entities to apply for protection from harassment orders where they were previously unable to do so.
Full Disclosure: The Maine Wire is a project of the Maine Policy Institute.
