AUGUSTA, Maine — A top federal firearms regulator met behind closed doors on Wednesday with Democrats on the Maine legislative panel considering gun control measures, rankling Republicans who criticized their colleagues for a lack of transparency.
Last week, the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee said it would hold a public meeting with a representative from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this week. It was abruptly removed from the schedule on Tuesday evening.
A spokesperson for Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, the co-chair of the committee, said the U.S. Department of Justice would not allow anyone to provide information to lawmakers in public. Democrats met privately with James Vann, the deputy assistant director of enforcement programs and services for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The meeting adds a wrinkle to Maine’s debate over gun control after the Oct. 25 shooting in Lewiston that killed 18 people and injured another 13. The Democratic-led Legislature looks poised to tweak Maine’s “yellow flag” law and pass mental health reforms, but it is less clear whether lawmakers like Carney will win over enough lawmakers to pass bigger changes.
The meeting with Vann also rubs up against Maine’s public access laws, which holds that three or more members of a legislative committee must open their meetings to the public. Lawmakers have long flouted that area of law, particularly during sensitive talks around state budgets.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee refused a meeting with Vann, said Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, who said legislators were only supposed to ask technical questions about legal definitions and not about specific policies that are being proposed.
“My caucus does not want that lack of transparency,” she said.
Carney, who did not stop to talk with reporters on the way into a State House office on Wednesday afternoon, said in a statement earlier in the day that the plan was to have the ATF representative appear in public until the agency changed its position.
“Rather than cancel the briefing altogether, we agreed to this format given the specific situation,” Carney said.
Just after she issued that statement, a spokesperson for the ATF’s Boston office said he was unaware of any agency representative testifying in Maine. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment once legislative Democrats confirmed the meeting with Vann was on.
Vann is a former prosecutor who has worked for the ATF through three different presidential administrations since 2009, according to his LinkedIn page. He supervised other lawyers in the agency under former President Donald Trump, a Republican. Vann got his current position last year during the administration of President Joe Biden.
Carney is one of the top proponents of gun control in the Legislature. She has tacked a bump stock ban onto a bill that originally addressed firearm forfeitures, while Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, is backing a proposal that would enshrine 72-hour waiting periods before firearm purchases. A similar bill was defeated in the Democratic-led Senate last year.
Meanwhile, Gov. Janet Mills is proposing a package that would mandate background checks on advertised gun sales and overhaul the yellow flag law that allows police to seek a mental health professional’s opinion before asking a judge for permission to seize guns from a person deemed dangerous.
Police failed to use that law in the weeks before 40-year-old Army reservist Robert Card perpetrated the shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar, according to a report issued Friday by a Mills-appointed commission. Card was found dead after a two-day manhunt, and his mental health had been deteriorating for months before the shooting.
