AUGUSTA, Maine — Top Democratic lawmakers declined Wednesday to hold an 11th-hour meeting to advance a Republican bill endorsed by Gov. Janet Mills that is meant to compete with the “red flag” referendum going before Maine voters in November.
Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, proposed the competing measure. It would direct more funding to mental health treatment and law enforcement to expand use of Maine’s “yellow flag” law that lets police take people deemed dangerous into protective custody before they get a medical evaluation and go before a judge who can temporarily take away access to firearms.
Critics of the yellow flag law have argued it is inadequate, pointing to how police did not use it before the Lewiston mass shooting in 2023. They believe “red flag” laws like those in 21 other states are stronger by allowing family members to initiate the process, although Mills, a Democrat, and gun-rights groups have said the current law better protects due process.
Poirier said House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, had initially told her he would approve holding a Judiciary Committee work session on her bill but that Fecteau later indicated he would not direct another meeting to occur Wednesday, when lawmakers were wrapping up other work.
Democratic leaders instead moved to carry over all bills they haven’t acted on to the 2026 session, preventing Poirier’s measure from being advanced to the November ballot alongside the red flag proposal.
Mills has repeatedly expressed her opposition to a red flag law by arguing it would undermine the yellow flag law she worked with the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and gun-control advocates to craft in 2019. Police have used the law more than 900 times since, with most of that use coming in a surge after the Lewiston mass shooting that led lawmakers and Mills to approve changes meant to make it easier for police to take people into protective custody.
The Democratic chairs of the Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on the red flag proposal earlier in June after gun-rights groups threatened to file a lawsuit if no hearing took place on the measure that drew renewed attention after the Oct. 25, 2023, mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar that left 18 dead and 13 injured in Maine’s deadliest rampage on record.
The Mills administration opposed the red flag measure during that hearing. But the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, which includes some family members of Lewiston shooting victims, had already collected more than 80,000 signatures to qualify the red flag question for the ballot.
Mills sent a statement earlier this week from her personal email account to Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine leader David Trahan that said Poirier’s competing measure “enhances the current law without putting a burden on families and neighbors who want to keep themselves and others safe without putting themselves on the line.”
