AUGUSTA, Maine — The top Republican in the Maine House of Representatives criticized Gov. Janet Mills for “gibberish” about the Lewiston mass shooting and climate change during her State of the State address on Tuesday.
House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, hit the governor in a radio interview with WVOM on Wednesday morning. It signaled a hard line from conservative on the strictest gun measure that Mills rolled out during her address: mandating background checks on all advertised firearm sales.
The governor has been at the center of Maine’s gun politics during her tenure, previously dissuading fellow Democrats from pushing more sweeping gun control measures. But the debate has sharply changed since 40-year-old Army reservist Robert Card II killed 18 people and injured 13 others on Oct. 25. Lawmakers are expected to bring those bills back.
There looks to be little room for compromise. Faulkingham said he agreed with a message he got from his mother after Mills’ speech that called it “a bunch of gibberish about Lewiston and climate change.” Maine should not change gun laws because of one mass shooting, he added.
“I was thinking maybe the governor spent her entire State of the State talking about those issues because she didn’t want to address so many of the real problems Maine is facing,” Faulkingham said after he and Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, delivered a pre-recorded rebuttal to Mills focusing on her economic and environmental record.
The governor’s agenda on guns includes the limited background check expansion that would be the first of its kind in the country while falling short of universal checks favored by gun control advocates. Maine voters rejected such a proposal during the 2016 election.
That is back on the wish list for gun control groups including Everytown for Gun Safety, which led that referendum eight years ago, and the Maine Gun Safety Coalition. They also want a 72-hour waiting period before gun purchases and a “red flag” law allowing guns to be seized from people deemed dangerous that would go further than Maine’s yellow flag law.
Mills still seems to be heading off those kinds of changes. She may be able to build some consensus around other items she floated on Tuesday, including toughening penalties for selling to felons or others prohibited from having guns, allowing police to take people into protective custody as part of the yellow flag law and a network of mental health crisis centers.
On the radio, Faulkingham highlighted the story of Jason Walker, who charged Card at the Lewiston bowling alley and may have saved dozens of lives. He said he is friends with Walker’s sister, who said he would not have wanted his death “used to promote gun control.”
Those on the gun control side framed the governor’s proposals as an initial step. Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, and Rep. Vicki Doudera, D-Camden, said they want to work with the Mills administration to find other gaps in state law but that Mills’ ideas put Maine on “a path to implement meaningful policy changes that promote safe, responsible gun ownership.”
Faulkingham was responding on Wednesday to other remarks that Mills made in discussing the recent storms that caused major flooding along the coast and inland rivers. Many coastal villages saw millions of dollars in damage earlier this month.
The top Republican, a lobsterman, is supporting a $50 million fund for small businesses. Mills proposed a fund of that amount for infrastructure adaptation and $5 million more to help cities and towns prepare for extreme weather.
“Like other states feeling the brunt of extreme weather events, Maine is not safe from climate change,” Mills said in her address. “We know more storms will come.”
