There will be plenty of time to dissect the details of Gov. Janet Mills’ State of the State, which she uniquely delivered in two parts on Tuesday, first a written address then a live speech in the evening. We certainly have questions about her plans to “set aside” $100 million in surplus revenue, and how she has proposed to spend the remainder. We also have questions about her proposals to decrease gun violence.
But, for now, we wanted to highlight an unusual aspect of her Tuesday evening speech. Several times during the nearly hour-long address, the governor spoke about her thought process, about how she changed her mind, especially around guns. How she, as she said “sat with myself – and my own conscience,” to reconsider her past stances.
It is a vulnerable, and honest, acknowledgement.
It was a window into self reassessment that is too rarely opened in politics. Too often, politicians refuse to change their minds. They often are loath to admit that they were wrong. They resist being seen as malleable and weak.
But, as Mills reiterated Tuesday, horrific events like October’s mass shooting in Lewiston, can shake us to our core, making us question long-standing beliefs and positions. This reassessment does not make a leader weak; it makes them human, and reflective.
It should happen more often.
“Over the past several months, … I have sat with myself — and my own conscience — reflecting upon what is right for Maine in the wake of Lewiston, of [Bowdoin], and of the tragedies of suicide and domestic violence that are all too prevalent in our society,” Mills said.
She invited others to do the same, which will be essential as lawmakers in Augusta debate a variety of measures to restrict access to guns and to improve our mental health system. Both firearms access and shortcomings in our mental health system are likely to have contributed to the tragic violence in Lewiston and a deadly rampage that left four people dead in Bowdoin in April.
“I hope that you, too, as the elected officials of the people, will do the same, reflecting not only on what you may think is best – but on what those who disagree with you believe is best as well,” Mills said in her speech.
“Let us not lose our way in the vitriol and heated rhetoric that too often accompanies these debates; but let us have substantive, respectful, and vigorous discussions and arrive at solutions that work for our state and our people,” the governor added.
As a specific example of a change of conscience that came from such reflections, the governor spoke of her long-standing opposition to an expansion of background checks in Maine. In 2016, a referendum on universal background checks was rejected by Maine voters. For years, that vote framed her approach to background checks, the governor said.
“But now, in the aftermath of the violence we have seen across Maine, I have asked myself whether this approach is still right,” Mills said in her speech.
She determined it was not and on Tuesday proposed expanding background checks to all advertised gun sales, which is not meant to cover transfers between family members and friends.
It is a modest step forward, which will be heavily debated in the Legislature, and likely on these pages.
Obviously, Mills is not the first politician to change her thoughts after a life-changing event. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden gave heartfelt and powerful remarks the day after the shooting in Lewiston, in which 18 people were killed and 13 injured. He announced that he had reversed his stance and now supports a ban on assault weapons.
“Out of fear of this dangerous world that we live in and my determination to protect my own daughter and wife in our home and in our community, because of a false confidence that our community was above this and that we could be in full control, among many other misjudgments, I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” Golden said during an Oct. 26 press conference in Lewiston.
“The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by this sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston, Maine,” he added, before asking for forgiveness for his past position.
At a time when political sound bites are too often valued over nuanced self-reflection, the governor’s willingness to acknowledge and share her own reassessments, in the face of unimaginable violence and heartbreak, is an important milestone in an overdue and contentious discussion of reducing gun violence.
