Maine: Gop

AUGUSTA, Maine — A bill opening the door to immigrants and other noncitizens to vote in municipal elections is getting a frosty reception in some quarters.

Blasting the proposal, Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster didn’t mince words in calling on Mainers to urge their lawmakers to toss the bill and move forward with more pressing needs: solving the state’s budget and health care problems.

“This lamebrained proposal is an affront not only to any person who has gone through the process of attaining American citizenship so that they could have the right to vote, but to anyone who voted for legislators that pledged to act with their constituents’ best interests at heart,” he declared after a newspaper reported on the bill.

h/t Laura @ dKos

It seems that all those GOP political operatives that lost their jobs with the incoming Obama administration have found work, at least for the next couple of months, lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which is to be introduced this week. Poliico has more:

"There are groups springing up almost every week," said Rhonda Betz of Navigators Global, a consulting firm that started the first anti-EFCA group out of the gate, Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, in 2006. "Some of it is a reflection of them identifying this as a fundraising opportunity, and some of it is a reflection of real stuff going on.

AUGUSTA, Maine — While the state is collecting more overdue taxes, the actual amount of uncollected tax money is growing, and lawmakers are considering ways of getting the money that’s owed.

As of Jan. 31, uncollected taxes owed to Maine totaled more than $251 million, raising concern among lawmakers on both the Appropriations and Taxation Committees.

“We are told that of these uncollected taxes, a third of that money is more easily gotten, another third you have to work for, and the last third, maybe you can’t get it,” said Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, co-chair of the Appropriations Committee. “When you look at $250 million, even two-thirds of that, I think, justifies a well-laid plan for the Legislature to have to try to get that money that is owed.

Good morning, and a beautiful start to this day it is. I'll definitely get out on my XC skis later.

British PM Gordon Brown will address a joint session of Congress later today, to expound upon his call for a global new deal. The BBC has this report on his visit and an interview that they conducted with him earlier:

Gordon Brown will urge the US to "seize the moment" to "make the future work for us" when he addresses a joint meeting of the US Congress.

Mr Brown, the fifth UK prime minister to address both houses on Capitol Hill, is set to issue a plea to the US to avoid protectionism.