COMMUNITY PROFILE:
This district serves the communities of Berwick, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, North Berwick and Wells.
There are 30,914 actively registered voters within this district:
CURRENT REPRESENTATIVE:
Joseph Rafferty, a Democrat from Kennebunk. He has served in the state legislature since being elected in November 2020.
Sen. Rafferty, better known to his community as Coach Raff, was the first person in his family to graduate from college, and went on to an extended career in education that continues to this day. Throughout his career, he worked diligently for fellow educators in local and state associations. From 1984 until his retirement in 2018, he was a strong advocate and voice for teachers, serving in various capacities: as President of the Teacher’s Union, Building Representative on the Executive Committee, and Chief Negotiator on the contract negotiation team. He has been the head football coach of the Kennebunk Rams for more than four decades. When not coaching, he continues to work in the school district as a substitute teacher and bus driver.
Sen. Rafferty serves as chairman of the education and cultural affairs committee which covers the Department of Education; State Board of Education; school finance, governance and administration; school budgets; school facilities; curriculum, instruction and assessment; teachers and administrators; special education and child development services; education of deaf and hard-of-hearing students; career and technical education; charter schools, alternative education, school choice and home schooling; school district reorganization; online learning; student health, nutrition and safety; truancy and dropouts; educational services at juvenile correctional facilities; adult education; Maine Education Policy Research Institute; University of Maine System; Maine Community College System; Maine Maritime Academy; postsecondary education finance and governance; Maine State Library; and cultural affairs, including Maine Arts Commission, Maine State Museum, Maine Historical Society, Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Maine Humanities Council and Maine Public, formerly known as Maine Public Broadcasting.
Sen. Rafferty also serves on the innovation, development, economic advancement and business committee which covers business regulation, including automobile and fuel sales; retail pricing; franchising; advertising; real estate practices; professional and occupational licensing; consumer protection; Finance Authority of Maine (FAME), including student assistance programs at Finance Authority of Maine; economic development; economic planning and development agencies; venture capital and trade programs; opportunity zones; import competition; product marketing; research and development; technology commercialization; technology transfers; tourism; and defense facility conversion.
Information for this lawmaker’s biography has been compiled from numerous public sources, including pages maintained by political parties, individual lawmakers and the Maine Legislature.
Contact this lawmaker: Joe.Rafferty@legislature.maine.gov or 207-590-9902
ELECTIONS 2024:
This seat is on the ballot during the 2024 election cycle. Running for the seat are Joseph Rafferty (D) and Bradley Ducharme (R).
View contributions to each candidate, campaign expenditures and campaign filings on the Maine Ethics Commission website.
On Election Night in November, this section will also feature live results for this race.
LEGISLATIVE WORK:
The following chart is a compilation of legislation sponsored by Sen. Rafferty during the 131st Legislature. To learn more about each legislation and see where it is in the legislative process, click on the bill ID in the first column. View each vote cast by Sen. Rafferty.
For those viewing this page on mobile, you can view more columns by scrolling left-to-right through the embedded table. That same material is available by clicking the Bill ID.
AI Disclosure: The bill summaries appearing below have been generated by Claude Haiku, an Artificial Intelligence model from Anthropic, which describes itself as an AI safety and research company. BillTrack50, which has compiled the summaries, has extensively tested the accuracy of the information but does not guarantee that every summary is completely accurate and comprehensive. You should always read and rely on the bill text that is provided by the Maine Legislature, which is accessible by clicking on the Bill ID in the table. (A button to flag AI-generated errors to the BillTrack50 team is available on each bill page.) We encourage readers to view our ethics policy, which includes our policy on the newsroom’s use of AI.
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