Maine Senate confirms slew of nominees including new Superior Court justice

The Maine Senate returned for a one-day session Wednesday to confirm more than 40 nominees to assorted state positions. 

Senators unanimously confirmed Gerald Reid as a Maine Superior Court justice. Reid previously served as the commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, and before that served in the Maine Attorney General’s Office Natural Resources Division. 

Sen. Anne Carney (D-Cumberland) praised his commitment to public service and the rule of law. 

“He’s a very thoughtful person,” Carney said. “He’s an objective decision maker, and most of all, he’s an extraordinarily careful listener. I am personally really excited that we’ll have someone with a strong environmental background on the bench in our state.” 

But not every confirmation was without debate. An earlier dispute from the Maine Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee spilled into the Senate Wednesday, over the nomination of Patrick Keliher to the Land for Maine’s Future Board. 

Keliher was the long-time commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, until he retired last year. He served under both Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and was the longest-serving commissioner in the department’s history. 

But several Republican senators raised concerns about his post-retirement position on the board of trustees for the Nature Conservancy in Maine, because the organization last year announced it was purchasing four dams on the lower Kennebec River.

While Keliher was commissioner, the department proposed an amendment to the Kennebec River Management Plan aimed at improving fish passage and included the potential removal of the four dams. But after pushback, the department pulled the amendment due to a “process issue.” 

Sen. Brad Farrin (R-Somerset) said Marine Resources oversaw the river and the dams, and questioned when conversations about the sale began and what state officials knew.

“I’m not suggesting that those unanswered questions by themselves prove any wrongdoing, but I am being asked to decide whether Mr. Keliher should once again hold a position of significant public trust involving land conservation and public resources,” Farrin said. 

Farrin said he was particularly concerned because his district includes the Sappi Paper Mill in Skowhegan, which relies on water from the impoundment created by the Shawmut Dam.

He said several senators have asked the Government Oversight Committee to have the Legislature’s internal watchdog, the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, review the records and establish a timeline of conversations about the dams sale. 

Sen. Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Cumberland) countered that Keliher did not join the Nature Conservancy’s board of trustees until after he retired from state service, and that Keliher told the committee he had refused to work at the Kennebec River Restoration, the nonprofit that was formed to take ownership of the dams. 

Sen. Denise Tepler (D-Sagadahoc) said she did not understand how Keliher became the “bogeyman” of the Kennebec dam sale. 

“I do not understand how he has become the figure at the head of a conspiracy theory about what has happened with the Shawmut Dam, the Shawmut Dam still stands,” Tepler said. “It still has a reservoir that still feeds the Sappi Mill.”

Ultimately Keliher’s confirmation was approved in a 17-15 vote, much closer than the vast majority of Wednesday’s confirmations. 

The most contentious confirmation of the day was about Dr. Patrick Connolly, who was nominated to the Advisory Council on Affordable Health Care. 

Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook) said Connolly had appeared in a political ad making “disparaging statements” about Sen. Scott Cyrway (R-Kennebec). 

The ad features Connolly criticizing Cyrway’s votes on healthcare spending and praising the Democratic candidate in the race, Patric Moore. 

“Then Congress slashed funding for rural hospitals,” Connolly said in the video. “Cyrway could’ve helped save the ones we have left. He voted no.” 

Stewart said the ad was misleading about the timing of the legislative votes and the closing of Northern Light Inland Hospital in Cyrway’s district.

Stewart also said the video implied that Cyrway was solely responsible for the hospital’s closure and cast aspersions on the timing of the ad, which he said published weeks after Connolly’s confirmation hearing before a legislative committee. 

“I’m not going to impugn anybody’s motives in here,” Stewart said. “But I do, in fact, wonder with the timing of all of this, what might have happened? Could somebody have offered a tit for tat? We’ll put you on this board if you help out somebody else in a close race. I don’t know.”

“All I have is this evidence, which states that this individual has now lied publicly about what has transpired in an effort for political gain after receiving a bipartisan vote in committee,” Stewart continued. 

Sen. Dick Bradstreet (R-Kennebec) echoed Stewart’s points, and called the ad “demonstrably false” and said Connolly had “misled the Maine public.”

But Sen. Mike Tipping (D-Penobscot) said Connolly’s statement was not extreme commentary but rather the remarks were about helping save Maine’s rural hospitals.

“Obviously, the vote, the bill, and the roll call referenced were all relevant and clear,” Tipping said. “I’m disappointed to see my colleagues going after a doctor for speaking out on healthcare and issues of public concern, mischaracterizing his words on the Senate floor.”

Sen. Stacy Brenner (D-Sagadahoc) said she didn’t understand why the ad was relevant to Connolly’s nomination.

“​​I’m just nonplussed by the fact that we seem to be discussing and arguing about truth in campaign advertising, and that that is affecting the potential nomination of someone who has the right to political speech, and who has the right to be a member of a particular party,” Brenner said. “I’m kind of amazed that that political speech in campaign season has become an issue in a nomination.”

Despite attempts to table Connolly’s nomination or send it back to committee, the Senate ultimately confirmed him in an 18-12 vote.