AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills urged legislative Democrats to “come to the middle” on a data privacy bill after they irked the business lobby by exempting political groups from it.
The Democratic governor made those comments to reporters Tuesday after a maple industry event at the Blaine House. It was the first time she addressed the change to the bill, which was made on the floor of the Maine Senate on Thursday despite fiery opposition from Republicans.
It is unclear whether the change will survive further votes in the Legislature given the comments from Mills, the strong reaction from groups including the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and a close partisan divide in the Maine House of Representatives that has yet to vote on it.
Maine is looking to join the 20 other states with laws limiting targeted online advertising. The bill from Rep. Amy Kuhn, D-Falmouth, would be one of the most expansive ones in the country, granting people sweeping rights over their information while imposing strict data minimization, security and transparency obligations on businesses operating here.
Exemptions have been one of the major sticking points. Nonprofits were already carved out of the law. On Thursday, Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, tacked on an amendment to allow political groups to also collect large amounts of data that businesses would face limits on.
Mills said she was unhappy with the amendment, adding that it reflected a problem with the underlying bill. She said political parties and businesses should have to play by the same set of rules and hoped that lawmakers could craft a compromise between Kuhn’s bill and a rival proposal that follows most of the other states and is backed by tech companies.
“I’d like to see them come to the middle,” Mills said. “I’d like to see an amendment that, preferably, takes the best of both bills.”
Data privacy has been one of the major topics of conversation around the State House for four years, with lawmakers generally aligning behind the more liberal version like the one sponsored by Kuhn and the industry-backed one. But neither side has been able to marshal the votes to get one through both chambers and to the governor’s desk.
Mills’ criticism of the bill is in line with business groups, Republicans and Democratic defectors on the Senate floor last week. Carney and other backers of the amendment argued that the change is in line with the bill’s intent and protects constitutional speech.
