One of the five Democrats vying to be the next governor of Maine says he would take an urgent approach to state government by issuing a number of executive orders on his first day on the job.
Dr. Nirav Shah was the former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2019 to 2023 and most known for steering the state through the COVID-19 pandemic. He was appointed as the principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the Biden administration before returning to his home in Brunswick.
He’s the current Democratic frontrunner, according to recent polls, with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson close behind.
At a press conference in Quiero Cafe in Portland Friday, Shah said he wants to immediately push back on what he called federal overreach by the Trump administration and take steps to reduce housing and energy costs for Mainers.
He proposed six executive orders he would issue on Day One if elected the next governor of Maine:
- “Establishing Emergency Mobilization on Housing” — Shah’s order would “put one person in charge of coordinating state housing policy, inventorying state-owned land and buildings that could be used for homes, cutting permitting delays within state control, helping towns implement existing housing reforms, protecting existing affordable housing, and creating a public dashboard to track progress toward Maine’s need for at least 84,000 homes.”
Shah wouldn’t say who he has chosen to lead the state’s housing policy if elected but said the person would have experience in both the private and public sector as it relates to housing.
- “Addressing and Stabilizing the Rural Health Care Emergency” — A response to rural hospitals cutting services, maternity wards closing and health care costs rising, the order would “stand up a Rural Health Stabilization Team on Day One, direct MaineCare to evaluate emergency steps to support at-risk rural hospitals and providers, review insurance rate filings and barriers to care, and take immediate action on the behavioral health workforce shortage.”
- “Establishing the Maine Federal Threat Response and Protection Team” — The order “would audit state data-sharing agreements with the federal government, strengthen sensitive-location protections where state authority allows, protect Maine’s public health guidance from political interference, and coordinate legal defense with the Attorney General.”
Shah said the order would also audit agreements as they relate to state authorities cooperating with federal immigration authorities. He said that the audit “does not mean that Maine would revoke every single data sharing agreement.”
- “Safeguarding Reproductive Health Care and Patient Privacy in Maine” — Would “fully enforce Maine’s shield law, provide clear guidance to providers, pharmacies, hospitals, and insurers, protect reproductive health data, create a rapid response protocol for threats to reproductive health care, publish a public reproductive health access guide, and review insurance barriers to reproductive care, contraception, fertility treatment, and IVF.”
- “Modernizing Maine’s Grid and Lowering Energy Costs” — Would “identify the grid bottlenecks delaying housing, business growth, and clean energy projects; build on Maine’s storm resilience work; and create a public utility scoreboard to track reliability, interconnection times, major investments, and ratepayer impacts.”
- “Establishing Government-to-Government Consultation and Partnership with the Wabanaki Nations” — Would “establish a formal government-to-government consultation policy, create a Wabanaki-State Partnership Council, review state rules that create unnecessary barriers for Wabanaki governments, support access to federal resources and self-governance opportunities, protect culturally significant lands and waters, and commit the administration to supporting legislative progress on Wabanaki self-determination.”
Shah also said the growing Ebola outbreak in East Africa reflects a failure by the Trump administration to monitor the global health crisis.
At the same press conference in Portland, the epidemiologist said the risk of the outbreak coming to Maine remains low, but it could still affect the U.S. by destabilizing East Africa.
“Why are we finding out about it so late? That is, in part, because the surveillance systems that used to be in place to spot and detect these outbreaks has largely been taken down because of Donald Trump and because of Secretary Kennedy,” he said.
Shah said, as of Friday morning, over 1,000 cases have been confirmed, and nearly 250 deaths reported in the region.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
