Steve Mistler

The Maine Ethics Commission voted 3-to-1 Thursday to unfreeze money for the state's public campaign finance program, which was previously hung up by a budget error that the Legislature couldn't muster enough votes to fix.

Advocates for Maine's public campaign financing program say the court order that forced the LePage administration to release more than $1 million owed to qualified candidates also resolves a drafting error that's frozen millions more for the Clean Elections program.

For the second time in less than two months, the Legislature's Government Oversight Committee has voted to subpoena a high ranking official at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Maine's publicly-financed candidates will finally be getting $1 million in campaign funds despite Republican Gov. Paul LePage's attempt to unilaterally block the funding and a last-minute move by his administration that threatened to delay payments to 120 legislative candidates and a gubernatorial hopeful.

A report by the Legislature's watchdog agency confirms that a dramatic reduction in cash assistance to low income families over the past seven years was linked to restrictions imposed by the Legislature.

Two Republican state House candidates pleaded with the Maine Ethics Commission Wednesday to come up with a plan to fix a severe imbalance in the distribution of public campaign funds.

A superior court judge said that he will soon rule on whether Republican Gov. Paul LePage can single-handedly withhold more than $1 million in public campaign funds from more than 100 legislative candidates and one candidate who is running for governor.

An attorney for Gov. Paul LePage will once again appear in a Maine courtroom Tuesday to defend the Governor's decision to hold up more than $1 million in budgeted public campaign funding.

The lawsuit in superior court is brought by seven candidates in what's called the Maine Clean Election program. The taxpayer-financed program distributes payments to candidates who collect a set amount of five-dollar checks to qualify.

During his summit with President Donald Trump last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made an offer that would grant Kremlin investigators access to several U.S. officials who are viewed as enemies of the state. One of them is from Maine.

  President Donald Trump said Monday that Montenegro — a tiny Balkan nation that has its military sometimes train with the Maine National Guard — could cause a third world war if its “aggressive” behavior triggers a conflict between NATO and Russia.

Originally published 12:23 p.m.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is running a television ad campaign in Maine asking Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to demand that the next U.S. Supreme Court nominee take a public position on a landmark abortion ruling.