Maine Democrats flip on major data privacy bill

AUGUSTA, Maine — Five key Democrats flipped their votes late Thursday to deal a potentially fatal blow to a sweeping data privacy bill that has motivated a strong opposition effort from Maine businesses of all sizes.

The Democratic-led Maine House of Representatives voted 80-68 against the measure from Rep. Amy Kuhn, D-Falmouth, that would enshrine some of the nation’s strictest limits on targeted online advertising. It reversed a narrow victory for the bill in the House last week influenced by Republican absences.

Democrats flipped their stances by joining Republicans to vote against the bill following a massive lobbying effort led by business groups exemplified by a Tuesday letter signed by dozens of businesses from L.L. Bean, Hannaford and Bangor Savings Bank to the Maine State Music Theatre in Brunswick.

The key flips came from Reps. Dave Rollins of Augusta, Wayne Farrin of Jefferson, Mike Lajoie of Lewiston, and Holly Sargent and Gerry Runte, both of York. House Majority Leader Matt Moonen, D-Portland, also voted against it in a common procedural move usually executed by leaders to bring bills up later. It faces further action in both chambers.

“[Businesses] didn’t do this to me. I did this to myself. I’ve opened myself up,” Rollins said on the House floor. “I’ve opened a door to expose myself to this open social media, that is not open one way, that I control. This is a two-way street.”

The bill is the product of years of debate in the Legislature. It would grant Mainers extensive rights over personal information and impose strict data minimization, security and transparency obligations on businesses. Under most circumstances, the bill would apply to businesses that process the personal information of 35,000 or consumers.

Exemptions have been a major sticking point of the bill. Nonprofits, governments and tribes were written out of it from the beginning. On the Senate floor last month, Democrats added a controversial exemption for political groups that opponents pointed to as a tacit admission of weaknesses in the bill. That move was also criticized by Gov. Janet Mills.

Kuhn and the bill’s supporters, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, couched the measure as offering a robust alternative to industry-backed laws in other states. Another 20 states have these laws now in the absence of action in Congress, where data privacy bills have stalled.

In a floor speech, Kuhn said tech companies have made people “unwitting participants in a global data industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in profits annually.”

“To state the obvious, laws should not be written by the companies they regulate,” she said.

But Maine businesses cited the likelihood of major effects from the law, especially in the hospitality industry and in areas near the New Hampshire border that compete for tourism dollars. Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, said increases in regulation can mean the difference between business growth and stagnation.

“This is not about choosing business over privacy,” Rep. Tiffany Roberts, D-South Berwick, who opposed the bill, said on the floor. “It’s about whether we’ve built a system that protects consumers and still functions in a regional economy right now.”

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated Jennifer Poirier’s political affiliation.