Maine State Senate District 8

COMMUNITY PROFILE:

This district serves the communities of Alton, Argyle Township, Burlington, Carroll Plantation, East Central Penobscot UT, Edinburg, Enfield, Greenbush, Howland, Lagrange, Lakeville, Lee, Lincoln, Lowell, Milford, Old Town, Orono, Passadumkeag, Penobscot Indian Island, Prentiss Township, Springfield, Twombly Ridge Township, Veazie, Webster Plantation, Whitney Township and Winn.

A map showing which communities are in this legislative district.

There are 24,761 actively registered voters within this district:

CURRENT REPRESENTATIVE:

Michael Tipping, a Democrat from Orono. Sen. Tipping has served in the state legislature since being elected in November 2022.

headshot of Michael Tipping.

Sen. Tipping has worked in the field of public advocacy for his entire career, including serving as spokesperson for statewide referendum campaigns to expand senior care and raise Maine’s minimum wage. Working for the Maine People’s Alliance and Maine People’s Resource Center, he helped hold the former owners of the HoltraChem plant accountable for mercury pollution in the Penobscot River through a landmark federal lawsuit and mandated ecosystem-wide cleanup. Sen. Tipping has written regular opinion columns for several Maine publications and in 2014 authored the book “As Maine Went” on Maine politics and policy.

Sen. Tipping serves as the chairman of the labor and housing committee which covers the Department of Labor; wage and hour laws; working conditions, including health and safety; unemployment compensation; workers’ compensation; labor relations; collective bargaining; private sector retirement; Workers’ Compensation Board; Maine Labor Relations Board; retirement eligibility and benefits for state and municipal employees, including teachers; judicial and legislative retirement systems; Maine Public Employees Retirement System; insulation; Maine State Housing Authority; landlord-tenant laws; affordable housing; homelessness; housing safety; building codes; public services.

Sen. Tipping also serves on the government oversight committee. The mission of the Joint Legislative Government Oversight Committee, hereafter called the “Committee”, is to oversee program evaluation and government accountability matters in State government. The Committee seeks to ensure that public funds are expended for intended purposes, and that programs and activities are effectively, efficiently and economically managed. The Committee accomplishes this mission by conducting public inquiries and directing the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability to conduct independent, objective reviews of State agencies and programs and other entities receiving public funds or expending private monies for public purposes.

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: mike.tipping@legislature.maine.gov or 207-956-0123

ELECTIONS 2024:

This seat is on the ballot during the 2024 election cycle. Running for the seat are Michael Tipping (D) and Leo Kenney (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 feature live results for this race:

LEGISLATIVE WORK:

The following chart is a compilation of legislation sponsored by Sen. Tipping 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. Tipping.

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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