It’s an idea as provocative as it is improbable, and a Wall Street Journal headline summed it up nearly 30 years ago: “The Most Likely to Secede? A County in Northern Maine.”
The 1997 article described how Aroostook County residents had “griped for years about the city slickers downstate” dominating the Legislature. It mentioned how then-Rep. Henry Joy, R-Crystal, won funding for a task force that studied creating two states out of Maine and that Joy would welcome other “similarly aggrieved northern counties” in the new state.
Other officials on both sides of the aisle were not as optimistic about Joy’s secession plans that never materialized. The national outlet quoted a spokesperson for then-Gov. Angus King as saying they “haven’t seen any signs of revolution yet, but we’ll keep our eyes open.”
Aroostook County’s population has since declined to around 67,000 people, but renewed talks of secession tied to similar grievances are once again finding a platform, thanks to a Facebook page with more than 3,200 followers that launched early this month with a declaration to form the “Free and Sovereign State of North Maine.”
It has used posts to lay out priorities, such as no income or property taxes and “freedom-centered education,” and say how sales taxes, federal infrastructure funds, use-based fees and other options could help fund services. A constitution is “in progress,” according to the page, whose administrator did not respond to a request for comment.
Forming a new state out of Aroostook and other rural Maine counties is a tall task and one unlikely to succeed anytime soon, given both the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Congress would need to approve a secession. Still, the latest talks that echo secession efforts witnessed in other states over the years get at deep-seated differences between Maine’s more urban and liberal southern half and more conservative and rural northern half.
A political realignment completed via last year’s election also saw Republicans take over all State House seats in Aroostook while Democrats performed well in suburban areas. Both supporters and skeptics of the “North Maine” secession effort said in interviews this past week that they understand the factors driving the debate while also acknowledging the hurdles.
“Do I think it’s feasible? I have no idea,” Roxanne Bruce of Ludlow, who works as the Maine Department of Education’s regional local food coordinator for Aroostook County, said. “Government is so complicated. I can’t even begin to imagine what would have to happen.”
Aroostook County, the largest county east of the Mississippi River, is bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. It makes up roughly a fifth of Maine’s land mass. Yet it only makes up 5 percent of the state’s population, 3.5 percent of Maine’s gross domestic product and collects about 3 percent of Maine’s income tax revenue and 4 percent of sales tax revenue.
In part because of that small economy, Aroostook has a greater need for public services and therefore benefits from its connection to the rest of Maine, noted James Myall, a policy analyst with the liberal Maine Center for Economic Policy.
He estimated The County accounts for 7 percent of the state’s MaineCare recipients and 12 percent of state-maintained highway miles. While the state covers an average of 55 percent of local school costs statewide, that rises to 70 percent in Aroostook, Myall added.
“The federal government does generally provide more support to lower-income states, so a new state of Aroostook might get some extra federal subsidy to offset some of this,” Myall said. “But I think the picture would be the same — more costs per person with a smaller tax base to support it.”
Bruce, while not yet taking a position on the secession idea, said the physical separation between not only northern and southern Maine but also towns within The County, which is also home to Wabanaki Nations tribes, helps create an “us versus them mentality.”
Tawyna Enselek, who lives in the Somerset County town of St. Albans and works for an oil and HVAC company, is among those outside Aroostook County who like the idea of a northern Maine secession movement. But Enselek stressed she is not on board until organizers answer her questions regarding costs and logistics, saying it is “super easy” to share opinions without actually committing to a secession process.
“I haven’t heard from a single person on what their thought process is and how they’re going to make this happen,” Enselek said, adding she feels “the government does not belong in our backyards, but unfortunately people have allowed the government to take complete control.”
The dialogue has not gone far from Facebook. Several town managers in Aroostook County communities said they did not yet have enough information to share opinions on the secession idea. Republican state lawmakers from The County did not respond to requests for comment.
Other local officials echoed skepticism while noting similar talk in the past of having Aroostook County join neighboring Canada. Presque Isle lawyer Frank Bemis said he would not be in favor of “Aroostexit.” Enselek summed up the big challenge behind the quixotic statehood push.
“It is to get people to do things,” she said.
