A foster child who was ripped from her mother and nearly later died of addiction is applauding a Republican state senator livid with Democrats for abandoning Maine’s most needy youngsters.
Sen. Jeff Timberlake, R-Androscoggin, the Senate Republican lead on the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee, earlier this week held Democrats accountable for blocking legislative overnight of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
“There was no reason for Senate Democrats not to stay and do their job except to run cover for the Mills administration,” Timberlake said, expressing outright frustration. “Maine Department of Health and Human Services’ record has been atrocious with 150 children who had DHHS involvement dying over the past five years.”
Sabrina Rose of Presque Isle, Maine’s leading-victim voice for underprivileged and abused children and a possible future candidate for the state’s new child-advocate position, says Timberlake’s “anger is the only appropriate response to what is happening in our state’s foster care system when you realize there is a price tag on the lives of 2,700 children currently trapped in the Maine DHHS system.”
Rose, who recently published two memoirs of her nightmare experience with the state’s child-welfare agency, finds it “sickening that a price tag has been placed on our survival while the system continues to hide behind red tape and political games. I’m right there with Mr. Timberlake.”
“As someone who was once one of those kids – a child handed over to an abusive home and left to deal with the resulting PTSD and addiction all on my own – I can tell you that these ‘parliamentary shenanigans’ have real-world, soul-crushing consequences,” Rose told The Maine Wire.
“While the leadership is playing games with rules and procedures, children are losing their safety, their families, and their futures,” Rose added. “The system in Maine is being protected by the very people who should be fixing it. To see a bill meant to save kids get killed for political leverage is the ultimate betrayal of public trust. We are talking about 2,700 human beings, not line items in a budget.”
Before the legislature adjourned for the year this week, Democrats shelved bipartisan legislation aimed at strengthening oversight of state programs.
LD 127, “An Act to Strengthen Legislative Oversight of Government Agencies and Programs by Reaffirming the Legislature’s Access to Confidential Records,” had received bipartisan support in both the House and Senate earlier this month and again Wednesday morning, indicating the bill was on track to pass.
“Instead of doing their job as legislators, the Senate majority chose to announce that we’ve completed our work, leaving this crucial bill to die in the possession of the House,” said Assistant Senate Republican Leader Matthew Harrington, R-York.
